96 
NATURE NOTES 
munities to inflict this torture upon dogs in general. As a preventive of the 
disease it is wholly inefficient ; for if any dog ever does actually have rabies, he is 
perfectly sure to be an unmuzzled dog, and nearly certain to be a homeless or 
half-homeless dog. Thus, in eliminating the homeless or worse than homeless 
dog, we are actually banishing the danger of rabies and with it the presumed 
necessity of universal dog torture by the use of the muzzle.” 
Mr. Leeson Prince sends us an interesting Summary of the Meteorological 
fournal kept by him at Crowborough, Sussex, during 1897. It is illustrated with 
a photograph of some enormous hailstones, reaching 3m. by 2in., which fell at 
Seaford on May 30. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Instinct and Experience. — Under the heading “How Birds learn to 
make Nests and Songs,” your contributor W. J. C. Miller (Nature Notes for 
September) has given us some very interesting remarks on a fascinating subject. 
With regard to the two points, birds’ nests and birds’ songs, it must be admitted 
that, on the whole, songs present much less difficulty than nests. Imitation of 
parents or (as on page 186) foster parents, seems almost a sufficient explanation. 
The case of the cuckoo stands, so to speak, apart. How he learns his call is a 
problem, I suppose as yet unsolved. Not of his foster parents, nor, I presume, 
in England at all, and as to his own ways after he leaves us I fear we know 
practically nothing. As to the nests of birds, A. R. Wallace, in one of his 
essays, argues strongly in favour of experience as against instinct. He suggests 
that in their natural state an old bird pairs with a young one, and that both act 
upon the experience of the senior partner. On this argument the case of the 
chaffinches conveyed to New Zealand — assuming the facts to be correctly stated — 
is a very interesting comment. In this case there was no senior partner, and yet 
a nest was built : was not this the result of instinct ? In the same essay Wallace 
quotes the case of some house martins which were observed in the course of years 
to have modified the shape of their nests to suit them better to the building to 
which they were attached. So, at least, it was believed. But if we take the 
insect world we shall find examples of actions with which experience can have 
nothing to do, unless we assume that butterflies and gnats, for instance, remember 
their own previous larval state, and exercise forethought for the benefit of their 
own children. What makes the gnat and the dragon-fly lay their eggs in the 
water ? Why do the cabbage butterfly and the goat moth deposit theirs, in one 
case on cabbages, and in the other on trees ? On the other hand, the conduct of 
the retriever, who deliberately killed one of two birds when he found that he 
could not carry both (which I believe is sufficiently authenticated) cannot, I 
suppose, be put down to anything less than a distinct reasoning power, which 
induced the dog to depart from his regular practice on sufficient grounds applying 
to that special case. Sometimes, as with us, the force of habit triumphs over 
common sense, so to speak. Some sheep were kept for some time in a meadow 
with a thick hedge on the south side of it. When rain came from the south this 
hedge afforded a welcome protection. In course of time the hedge was removed, 
and an open wire fence substituted for it. Rain came on, and I saw the sheep run 
to the open fence, and stand along it, as they used to do along the hedge ; but 
certainly without obtaining the same satisfactory result. In such matters the 
accumulation of observed facts seems almost always interesting, while the pro- 
pounding of theories is almost always rash. 
Otham Parsonage, Maidstone. F. M. Mii.LARD. 
Rats. — A man engaged in ditching in this village has come across a quantity 
of hen’s eggs hidden by rats in their holes in the side, and near the bottom of a 
ditch. The ditch was about a mile long, and its nearest point to a farmyard 200 
yards. A few of the eggs were broken, the rest were whole. They w r ere dis- 
tributed singly along the ditch, here and there, none being less than half a dozen 
yards apart, and consequently the rats must have carried them half a mile in many 
cases. How did they do it ? 
Market Weston, Thetford. Edmund Titos. Daubeny. 
