262 
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
animal having been accelerated by emotional shock. But 
of course the question is an open one. 
So much for the power of reptiles to establish such 
definite and complete associations as are required for the 
recognition of persons —associations, however, to which, as 
we have seen, frogs, and even insects may attain. As for 
other associations, a correspondent writes to me : — 
I believe tortoises are able to establish a definite association 
between particular colours on a flat surface and food. Only the 
day before reading your article on animal intelligence I noticed 
the endeavours of a small tortoise to eat the yellow flowers of 
an inlaid writing-table, and I have often remarked the same 
recognition with regard to red. 
Lord Monboddo relates the following anecdote of a 
serpent : — 
I am well informed of a tame serpent in the East Indies, 
which belonged to the late Dr. Vigot, and was kept by him in 
the suburbs of Madras. This serpent was taken by the French, 
when they invested Madras in the late war, and was carried to 
Pondicherry in a close carriage. But from thence he found his 
way back again to his old quarters, which it seems he liked 
better, though Madras is distant from Pondicherry about one 
hundred miles. This information, he adds, I have from a lady 
who then was in India, and had seen the serpent often before 
his journey and after his return. 
Considering the enormous distances over which turtles 
are able to find their way in the season of migration, this 
display of the homing faculty to so great a degree in a 
serpent is not to be regarded as incredible. 
Mr. E. L. Layard, in his ‘ Rambles in Ceylon ’ says 
of the cobra : 1 — 
I once watched one which had thrust its head through a 
narrow aperture and swallowed one ( i.e . a toad). With this 
encumbrance he could not withdraw himself. Finding this, he 
reluctantly disgorged the precious morsel, which began to move 
off. This was too much for snake philosophy to bear, and the 
toad was again seized ; and again, after violent efforts to escape, 
was the snake compelled to part with it. This time, however, 
a lesson had been learnt, and the toad was seized by one leg, 
withdrawn, and then swallowed in triumph. 
1 See Annas, and Mag. of Nat. Hist., 2nd series, vol, ix., p. 333. 
