THE ANIMAL AND THE PUZZLE-BOX 



bird, he may have seen it excavating its winter cham- 

 ber many times, — not this same individual bird, but 

 its duplicate in other specimens, — and he knows 

 that each one of these shows exactly the same char- 

 acteristics, though it is undoubtedly true that under 

 pressure, in confinement, and in unnatural condi- 

 tions, different birds would show different traits and 

 aptitudes. Yet neither the naturalist nor the ex- 

 perimentalist could get at all the facts in the wood- 

 pecker's past life — its age, its failures, its stupidi- 

 ties, its rate of development, its sense-powers, and 

 the like. 



The experimentalist referred to would seem to 

 imply that if he had the bird in his laboratory he 

 could settle all these points; whereas it seems to 

 me that the field observer knows just as much about 

 these things as the laboratory experimenter could 

 know. Neither can get at all the exact facts in the 

 bird's past history, while it is extremely doubtful if, 

 in confinement, the bird would even attempt to 

 excavate a chamber in a post, or exhibit any of its 

 natural aptitudes, or give any clues to its real life- 

 history. The acuteness of its various senses can 

 surely be better tested in the open air than in the 

 laboratory, because in the open it is leading a free, 

 natural life, while in the cage it is leading a con- 

 strained, unnatural life. It might be trained to run 

 the maze, or to pull a string to open a puzzle-box; 

 but of its real life what would or could the bird 

 189 



