264 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 



meadow below. I made ready to approacli them with 

 all the craft I could muster. There happened to be 

 three or four cart-horse colts careering about in the 

 meadow, thundering along the water-edge close to the 

 rising trout, which showed not the slightest alarm or 

 intention of desisting from the capture of ephemeridse. 

 My host's keeper, solicitous for my comfort, sent a tiny 

 maiden of some seven or eight summers to drive away 

 the colts. This she did effectively, but her appearance 

 on the bank made every trout quit the surface and flee 

 for shelter. In fisherman's parlance she had ' put them 

 down.' Now these trout, of mature age, no doubt had 

 acquired enough experience to fight shy of an angler 

 and all his works, and, though fearless of cart-horses, 

 would be apt to scuttle off at the first gleam of his rod. 

 But how came they to recognise this child as an im- 

 mature specimen of Homo sapiens ? Neither anglers 

 nor poachers are in the habit of plying their calling in 

 pinafore and petticoats. She can scarcely have been 

 an unfamiliar apparition to the trout, for her father's 

 house was close at hand, and she must have played 

 many times upon that flowery marge. If the trout 

 recognised her, they could not associate her with any 

 experience of hurt or harm. On the other hand, it is 

 still more difficult to account for their recognising this 

 child as belonging to a hostile species, and the cart- 

 horses to a harmless one, through intelligence imparted 

 by or inherited from other fish. One cannot assign 

 limits to the measure of warning and instruction which 

 animals can convey to the young that they rear ; but 

 trout undertake no parental cares. They shed their 



