Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits. i6i 



tended to throw doubt on the instinctive nature of the 

 bird's procedure. " I have a bullfinch," she says,* "which 

 was hatched last summer after primroses were over. They 

 were, therefore, quite new to him when I offered him the 

 first I could get this season. He pulled it to pieces quite 

 indiscriminately, biting stalk, flower, or calyx quite in- 

 differently, and the same with a few more which were 

 given to him at the same time. But since then he has 

 often had a few at a time, perhaps twenty or thirty in all, 

 and he now almost always bites out the lower part of the 

 calyx as described by Mr. Darwin in Nature. Sometimes 

 he bites a little too high up, but almost instantly tries 

 again with better success. When that part is eaten, he 

 attacks the stalk rather than the corolla. 



" Last spring I offered primroses to four bullfinches 

 belonging to friends. Not one seemed to pull the flower 

 to pieces according to any method. Two of them I saw 

 only once. Another (an old bird, and somewhat shy), after 

 being supplied with the flowers for several days, seemed 

 as unskilful in picking out the titbit as he was at first. 

 The fourth was a young bird. His mistress was called 

 away before she had heard what was the peculiarity for 

 which I was watching. A few days later she told me she 

 had given him primroses in the mean time, and had 

 noticed that he ate only the green part. [This was not 

 the case with the first I offered him.] In those few days 

 he had learnt the art of primrose-eating, not, indeed, 

 quite perfectly, but wonderfully well considering how little 

 practice he had had. — C. A. M." 



It will be seen, then, that it is by no means so easy 

 as might at first sight be supposed, to determine whether 

 an habitual activity is truly instinctive or is due to the 

 play of individual selective intelligence. 

 * Nature, Tol. xiii. p. 427. 



M 



