8 COWARD, Note on the behaviour of a Blackbird. 



average dog, though there still are some fools, wisely 

 retires to the side-walk when it hears an approaching 

 motor. How did dogs as a whole learn to be careful ? 

 Not by bitter experience, or heredity working from this 

 bitter experience ; the dog which gets under a motor 

 seldom has another chance or leaves progeny. We can 

 only guess that the dog has realised, just as we have, that 

 as vehicles move more quickly than they did it is wise to 

 be careful. Though the dog remembers that a motor 

 moves fast that memory was not cultivated by experience, 

 at any rate in the majority of cases. Adolescent puppies 

 are wiser to-day than those of twenty years ago. 



In birds memory is wonderfully effective in leading 

 them again to spots where they have found food plentiful. 

 Here, undoubtedly, memory is of the greatest importance 

 to both individual and species ; but I fail to comprehend 

 what benefit this blackbird with a memory receives from 

 its repeated battles, unless it is that hardening process 

 which makes it a more formidable warrior in other more 

 genuine battlefields. 



