320 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



horns. The four collections of Antelopes above named are all im- 

 portant in view of the fact that the experience of the last century 

 justifies the belief that many of the large mammals of Africa are 

 destined to become increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to procure 

 in the future. 



The writer of "Nature Notes" in the 'Evening Standard' of 

 Aug. 13th makes the following interesting remarks on the intelligent 

 movements of a caterpillar : — " The signal difference between the in- 

 telligence of a plant and the mind of an animal in some cases strikes 

 me as just one of slowness of movement and fixity of station. There 

 are plants which have such a look of animality about them, seem so 

 sensitive, and — as I have said of the black bryony in spring and early 

 summer — even so watchful, that one may hesitate to pluck or handle 

 them roughly (writes Mr. George A. B. Dewar). One would rather 

 crush a caterpillar in the rosebud or tender young leaf unfolding than 

 one would stamp on the black bryony trailer, feeling queerly its way 

 across the tangled lane in May. To take this black bryony trailer 

 among plants, among insects, the yellow and black barred caterpillar 

 — I think the Cinnabar Moth's caterpillar — which is now feeding up for 

 its chrysalid stage on the leaves of the yellow ragwort, does the eater- 

 pillar really convey to us much more the notion of mind than the trailer 

 of the plant ? I cannot say that to me it always does. About both of 

 them there seems to be what I have called a physical intelligence. 

 The feeding — almost incessant feeding — of this yellow and black cater- 

 pillar of the ragwort, what is it but an act of physical intelligence ? 

 Shake it off the ragwort. Presently it will climb up a neighbouring 

 plant. It apparently tests the leaves of this new station, and, finding 

 that they are not the right sort, refuses to nibble. But this is merely 

 intelligence of the sense of taste, a physical matter. The black bryony 

 would in the same way refuse to feed on certain substances that Nature 

 has not included on its menu if these were set at its rootlet tips. It 

 would be just as intelligent about its food, and just as fastidious as the 

 caterpillar — indeed, many plants are much more fastidious and dis- 

 criminating in this than many caterpillars ; which, their ordinary food- 

 plant failing, or being denied them, in captivity will eat each other. 

 The one mysterious matter in which the caterpillar seems slightly to 

 excel the plant in intelligence is that of ' shamming death.' The 

 bryony, at any rate, never does that ! Or, to put it in a way that is a 

 little less unacceptable, Nature never shams death for a plant when an 

 enemy threatens it." 



