BIRDS -GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 
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blown against them, as these accidents often occurred when there 
was but little wind. I found that the peasantry had come to 
the conclusion that these unusual deaths were due to the flash 
of the telegraph messages killing any starlings that happened to 
be perched on the wires when working. Strange to say that 
throughout the following and succeeding winters hardly a death 
occurred among the starlings on their arrival. It would thus 
appear that the birds were deeply impressed, and understood the 
cause of the fatal accidents among their fellow-travellers the 
previous year, and hence carefully avoided the telegraph wires ; 
not only so, but the young birds must also have acquired this 
knowledge and perpetuated it, a knowledge which they could 
not have acquired by experience or even instinct, unless the 
instinct was really inherited memory derived from the parents 
whose brains were first impressed by it . 1 
Similar facts are given in Buckland’s 6 Curiosities of 
Natural History,’ 2 and I have myself known of a case in 
Scotland where a telegraph was erected across a piece of 
moorland. During the first season some of the grouse 
were injured by flying against the wires, but never in any 
succeeding season. Why the young birds should avoid 
them without having had individual experience may, I 
think, be explained by the consideration that in birds 
which fly in flocks or coveys, it is the older ones that lead 
the way. This explanation would not, of course, apply to 
birds which fly singly ; but I am not aware that any ob- 
servations have gone to show that the young of such 
birds avoid the wires. 
I quote the following exhibition of intelligence in an 
eagle from Menault : — 
The following account of the patience with which a golden 
eagle submitted to surgical treatment, and the care which it 
showed in the gradual use of the healing limb, must suggest, 
the idea that something very near to prudence and reason 
existed in the bird. This eagle was caught in a fox-trap set in 
the forest of Fontainebleau, and its claw had been terribly torn. 
An operation was performed on the limb by the conservators of 
the Zoological Gardens at Paris, which the noble bird bore with 
a rational patience. Though his head was left loose, he made 
no attempts to interfere with the agonising extraction of the 
1 Nature, xx.,p. 2GG. 2 Vol. i., p. 21 G. See also Descent of Man, p. 80 
