THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 733.— July, 1902. 



AVICULTURAL EXPERIENCES DURING ABOUT 

 TWENTY YEARS' STUDY OF BIRDS IN CAP- 

 TIVITY. 



By Arthur G. Butler, Ph.D. 



It is now about thirty-one years since I first commenced the 

 study of living birds, and about twenty years since I first began 

 to keep them in cage and aviary. During the whole of that time 

 I have striven to make this labour of love useful to ornithologists 

 generally ; not only by carefully noting the behaviour of the 

 various species which I have possessed — their postures when 

 courting, their songs, their changes of plumage, and the manner 

 in which those changes were effected, the colouring of their soft 

 parts, their sexual differences, their method of nesting, and the 

 character of their eggs — but I have, I think, conclusively proved 

 that birds, although they undoubtedly are guided by instinct (by 

 which term I understand inherited impressions upon the brain), 

 are nevertheless capable of reasoning, and altering their inherited 

 habit to suit a changed environment. I have also found that a 

 bird, when hand-reared, and constantly in the company of human 

 beings, develops a higher order of intelligence, and consequently 

 is capable of a keener enjoyment of life, than if permitted to grow 

 up a savage. 



The postures, bowings, and dances of birds when courting are 

 generally exceedingly comical, and, if birds regarded them from a 



Zooi. 4th ser. vol. IV., July, 1902. V 



