12 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
although, when new fish were put into the tank, it went for 
them at once. 
Animals higher in the scale than pike, which rank low 
in the class of fishes, show more precocity in profiting by 
experience, even when deprived of the advantage of parental 
example and guidance. To some chicks reared in an incu- 
bator Mr Lloyd Morgan threw caterpillars of the cinnabar 
moth. These larve are conspicuously marked with yellow 
and black rings, and have a flavour most distasteful to birds. 
The inexperienced chicks seized them greedily, but dropped 
them at once, wiping their bills in disgust, and seldom could 
be induced to touch them a second time. Next day brown 
loopers and green cabbage-moth caterpillars were put before 
the little birds. 
‘‘ These were approached with some suspicion, but pre- 
sently one chick ran off with a looper and was followed by 
others, one of which stole and ate it. In a few minutes all 
the caterpillars were cleared off. Later in the day they were 
given some more of these edible caterpillars, which were 
eaten freely; and then some cinnabar larvee. One chick ran, 
but checked himself, and, without touching the caterpillar, 
wiped his bill—a memory of the nasty taste being apparently 
suggested by association at the sight of the yellow and black 
caterpillar. Another seized one and dropped it at once. A 
third subsequently approached a cinnabar as it crawled along, 
gave the danger note, and ran off.’’2 
Now in these instances the superior precocity in turning 
experience to advantage shown by very young chickens over 
M. Amtsberg’s pike may be accounted for, not only by the 
greater mental capacity of the higher vertebrate, but by the 
keener physical sense of the warm-blooded animal. 
Instances like these might be cited in abundance to dis- 
prove the hypothesis that fishes and birds are unconscious 
automata. More perplexing are those displays of effective 
consciousness and caution which, if founded on experience, 
indicate that experience must have been congenitally trans- 
mitted. 
2 Habit and Instinct, by C. Lloyd Morgan, page 41. 
