ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In a review of my book on " Animal Intelligence," which appeared in the Spectator two or three months ago, it was alleged that in the course of the book I had made three mis- statements of fact concerning the habits of animals. In reply- ing to that review I explained that, being then out of the region of libraries, I was unable to test the accuracy of my critic's allegations. I have now looked up the three points in question. The first I find to have been a printer's error, concerning a well- known fact, which I failed to observe in the proof. For the other two I find I had good authority, so I will ask you to publish this letter, in order that your reviewer may in future learn to adopt a less dogmatic tone when, without taking the trouble to inquire into a subject, he accuses an author of inaccuracy.
Your reviewer says, " Female ostriches take no part in 'the duty of incubation' (i.e., do not assist the male) ; and wood- peckers certainly do not ' carefully carry away the chips' when they cut their holes in trees." Now, concerning the ostriches, I find that my authorities were Mr. J. E. Harting and Mr. E. B. Biggar. The former, in his exhaustive work on ostriches, written in conjunction with Mr. J. D. Mosenthal (1877), states very explicitly that the female bird assists the male in the pro- cess of incubation (p. 41) ; and, without reference to this work, the statement is corroborated in detail by Mr. Biggar, who three years later published in the Field (August 21st, 1880), the observations which he had made on the habits of ostriches in the large ostrich farms of the Cape Colony. It is needless to occupy your space with quotations from these authorities ; it is enough to say that their statements with reference to this point are as distinct as it is possible for statements to be, and therefore that in view of them I did not doubt, and do not doubt, that the evidence which such testimony supplies concerning the habits of ostriches in a state of nature is more trustworthy than that which was furnished by the observations made at the Zoo- logical Gardens in Regent's Park, to which reference is made by Mr. Darwin in his " Descent of Man" (1874, pp. 478.9), and which, no doubt, your reviewer had in mind when he so confidently accused the of inaccuracy. Moreover, Mr. Nicols, in his recently published " Zoological Notes," also states that the hen bird assists the cock to hatch the eggs ; and on my writing to him to ask whether he had witnessed the fact, he answers that although be has not done so himself, a well-educated friend, " who passed some time in visiting ostrich farms in South Africa," had done so ; and in answer to his express inquiry on the subject wrote, " that the female took part in the task, though not nearly to so great an extent as the male," adding that he was surprised to hear there should be any question about a fact so well known to the ostrich farmers. Clearly, therefore, your reviewer is not acquainted with any of the more recent literature upon the habits of these birds.
Concerning the woodpeckers, my authority was Conch, who writes in his "Illustrations of Instinct " (p. 239) :—" Many birds will carefully remove mutings of the young from the neighbourhood of their nests and the woodpecker (Picas viridis) and the marsh tit (Pants palustris), in par- ticular, are at pains to remove even the chips which are made in excavating the cavities where the nests are placed." The copy of Couch which I happen to possess is one that was lent me by the late Mr. Darwin, and this passage, besides being strongly marked by him, is also the subject of a mann-
script note, which shows that he accepted the statement as sufficient evidence of the fact. Indeed, the only place where I have been able to find that it is disputed is in the new edition of "Yarrell's British Birds," where there is a foot-note saying that the writer has never himself observed the habit. But clearly, the negative testimony of this writer is not sufficient to justify your reviewer in dogmatically contradicting the positive testimony of such a naturalist as Couch.—I am, Sir, &e., Our reviewer requests us to append the following remarks.. —En. Spectator :—" First, as to the ostrich. The passage in Mr. Harting's book is based on the statement of Le- Valliant, whose assertions, except when confirmed by later experience, are justly discredited by the best- informed naturalists of the present day, as he was notori- ously so often unworthy of belief. Dr. Sclater, writing on, the subject nearly twenty years ago, wholly disregards them, and says (" Proc. Zool. Soc.," 1863, p. 233) :—"I shall not repeat the numerous stories that are universally current re-
specting the reproduction of the ostrich But we now know with certainty from the observations of M Noel Sachet,.
Director of the Zoological Garden at Marseilles, that the normal habits of the ostrich do not differ materially from those- of its allies of the same family." He then goes on to give the substance of these observations, which may be seen at length in the Revue de Zoologie and elsewhere, made "in a quiet en- closure near Marseilles " (and not in the Regent's Park, as Mr- Romanes seems to imagine), to the effect that both sexes made- the nest, and that after the female had laid, " the male took ap- his position on the eggs, and the young birds were hatched."' Mr. Biggar's article contains the following sentence Con- trary to what has been usually understood, and what is stilk stated even in colonial accounts, the cock-bird sits at night, not the hen." It is true that he speaks, though apparently not from his owa observation, of the hen's taking part in incubation by day-time, and I give Mr. Romanes the benefit of that evid- ence; but it seems to me more than possible that it rests simply on a survival of the old belief. As to Mr. Nicols's book, it has appeared since my article was written, and therefore I could not have been acquainted with it ; but had I known it, what he says- does not alter the case, for he adduces no new evidence. But to be quite fair, and I am sure I have no wish to be other- wise, I think that the generalisation from M. Suquet's (for that is, I believe, his real name) single observation may have been hasty. I learn that in 1870 there was a joint and successful incubation by a male and female ostrich in the Zoological Garden- at Florence, and moreover, that Andersson, whose accuracy I cannot doubt, has asserted that both sexes assist in hatching the- eggs; but the passage which Andersson quotes from Thunbcrg will befound in the original not to imply that the hen ostrich which the latter encountered ether nest was engaged in incubation. I would, however, point out the essential difference between evidence of this kind and that on which Mr. Romanes has based his state- ment; the one is the direct testimony of competent witnesses, the other the traditional impression of opinion.
Next, as to the woodpecker. Couch was doubtless quoting Yarrell's early statement, disregarding, however, the prudent
• ' it is said" with which that cautious naturalist prefaced an old story, the origin of which it is needless here to- trace. Couch himself could scarcely have had an oppor- tunity of confirming it by his own observation, for, as his biographer tells us, he rarely quitted his home, which was in a part of Cornwall destitute of trees, and therefore of-woodpeckers. But if Mr. Romanes would only look at a green woodpecker's nest himself, his doubts would cease. Meanwhile, he might refer to what Naumann, the best of German field ornitho- logists, has written ; or to that excellent observer's, Mr.. Harley's, notes furnished to Macgillivray, stating,—" Some authors, in their history of this bird, speak of its carrying away the chips from the foot of the tree in which it has been pre- paring a place for its offspring ; but, although such may be the case, I have never, after a very minute search, seen either male- or female removing the chips, which, on the contrary, I have always found in, profusion near their holes." Mr. Romanes may also like to know that in Sweden the black woodpecker is known• by a name meaning " chip crow," from this very habit; and if he will look to Mr. Simpson's account in "The Ibis" of that bird's nidification, he will find that accurate observer saying some of them half an-inch in length, lay plentifully at the foot of the tree, giving the ground the appearance of the floor of a • carpenter's workshop." Finally, Mr. Romanes is hardly fair when he speaks of " the negative evidence " of Yarrell's editor, for that writer positively stated that "he has always found the easiest way of discovering a [green woodpecker's] nest is by observing the foot of each• tree in the presumed locality, that which contains it being invariably recognisable by the chips strewn on the ground." Mr. Romanes, it is clear, has as yet little experience of the persistency with which old errors are maintained, even by the writers of the most modern books on natural history.—Tax REVIEWER OF ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE: 11
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