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



Unfortunately we cannot tell if the bird, during the 

 months of inactivity in this particular direction, actually 

 remembered the rival in the window ; probably it did not. 

 Yet the return of sexual activity in the second week of 

 February brings recollection of the fights of the previous 

 spring, and though a year older it is no wiser than it was. 



It is impossible to conceive that any other faculty 

 than memory brings this bird daily to the wall, but it is 

 possible that we sometimes draw false deductions because 

 an animal has a good memory. Young birds, it is 

 frequently stated, learn by experience and memory aids 

 them to the wise future path or prevents them from 

 repeating errors. It is stated that young birds have no 

 intuitive dread of brightly coloured unwholesome or 

 poisonous berries or understand nauseous food until they 

 have experimented, but that once they have tasted and 

 suffered they remember what to avoid in future. It is 

 even said that the great infant mortality to be seen in 

 birds is due to this method of experimental feeding. The 

 reflection-fighting blackbird seems unable to learn by 

 experience ; is it then wise to credit the immature bird 

 with more reasonable or reasoning powers ? 



The really poisonous fruits, and the lethally-armed 

 and warningly-coloured insects and snakes, if trifled with 

 by the young bird, leave little impression on its memory, 

 and can, through heredity, have even less effect on future 

 generations. Unless the bird escapes unharmed, and 

 consequently has no evil effects to remember, it does not 

 survive. Memory, then, is unavailing. 



Take another instance, in an animal which undoubt- 

 edly possesses art excellent memory — the dog. In these 

 days of numerous rapidly-moving motor vehicles, pro- 

 portionately fewer clogs are run over than was the case 

 when motors were the exception and not the rule. The 



