318 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF {June, 
The animals used in these experiments were domestic mice, toads, 
a mynah (Acridotheres tristis), a heron (Ardea cinerea), a prairie 
owl, a water tortoise and a lizard. The results of the experi- 
ments are described in detail, but no general conclusion is given. 
At least seven of the things offered as food were both accepted 
and refused by the same species of animal. This number 
included the common earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris). 
TitcHEeNER, E. B. Comparative Palatability. Nature, Vol. 44, 
No. 23, October 8, 1891, p. 540. 
Experiments with frogs, toads and ducks, supplementary to the 
above; no general remarks. 
Titcuener, E. B. Comparative Palatability. Nature, Vol. 45, 
No. 3, November 19, 1891, p. 53. 
These experiments relate to the choice of food by captive goldfish, 
silverfish, frogs, and a spider. The details are given without 
comment. 
BIRDS. 
Experiments in Europe. 
Birds have been used more frequently than animals of any other 
class to test the potency of the protective adaptations of insects and 
other groups under experimental conditions. One of the most 
important series of experiments was carried on chiefly as a study of 
the origin of the process by which food is accepted or rejected by 
birds. In this series Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan performed various 
experiments with young chicks, pheasants, guinea-fowls, moorhens, 
and ducks, the net result of which ‘‘is that, in the absence of parental 
guidance, the young birds have to learn for themselves what is good 
to eat and what is distasteful, and have no instinctive aversions.’’® 
The results of these experiments are often quoted by the selectionists, 
and as usual in such cases with sweeping inclusions not at all intended 
by the author. He says: “I am not, of course, prepared to say 
that in no case is there such instinctive aversion. ... . Birds 
like the megapodes, which are hatched out in mounds apart from 
parental influence . ... may show instinctive avoidances which 
our well-cared-for birds do not possess. That the parent bird does 
in most cases afford guidance is unquestionable” (pp. 43-44). 
Some of the principal results that have a bearing on the value of 
warning colors under experimental conditions are as follows: 
1. Chicks tested and rejected cinnabar caterpillars (Huchelia jacobe), 
but ate brown loopers and larve of the green cabbage-moth 
(p. 42). A jay ate five cinnabar larve, but would take no 
more (p. 43). 
8 Habit and Instinct, 1896, p. 43. 
