Manchester Memoirs, Vol. lix. (191 5), No. 7. 



VII. A Note on the behaviour of a Blackbird— 

 a problem in Mental Development 



By T. A. Coward, F.Z.S., F.E.S. 



(Received and read March 2jrd, rgiS-) 







v 



In presenting the following note on the behaviour of 

 a Blackbird, Ttirdus merula Linn., and the psychological 

 phenomenon suggested by its action, I have no desire to 

 enter into the controversy between the champions of 

 Reason and Instinct. I have failed to find any hard and 

 fast generic or specific line between animals whose actions 

 are undoubtedly due to what we term instinct and those 

 whose brain power is sufficiently developed to suggest 

 glimmerings of reason. As in human beings so in the 

 lower animals we find superior and inferior powers in 

 individuals ; one may rise above and another fall below 

 the normal specific standard. 



On February 12th, about the time when blackbirds 

 in this neighbourhood resumed their songs, a cock bird, 

 roused by the nuptial spirit of rivalry, began a series of 

 assaults upon its own reflection in the glass of my scullery 

 window. Practically every day since then the attacks 

 have been repeated, most vigorously in the early morning 

 but occasionally during the afternoon. Last spring a 

 cock blackbird, presumably the same bird, continued 

 similar attacks throughout the nesting season, even after 

 many young birds of the same species had left their nests. 



Outside the scullery is a passage, three or four yards 

 wide, bounded by a wall, and from the top of this wall a 

 clear reflection is visible in the glass ; the reflection is 



April 30th, 1915. 



