Dear Sir,

I rec^d your kind and encouraging letter.¹ I had but very lately remarked the fact to which you refer about butterflies wings and am thankful to you for the hint concerning the male foreign butterflies being prettier than the females, as I did not know that.²

With regard to birds admiring themselves and showing courtesy to their image in mirror or picture my chief authority was second-hand. It is quoted from Bennett (I suspect he who was Vice-President of the Zoological Society) in the article “Birds of Paradise” Knight’s English Encyclopaedia. It was a male nine years caged. The picture was full-length drawn by a Chinese artist. Bennett says he was the eye-witness.³

A gentleman, whose name I could get yet, came up to me after I had read my paper⁴ and said—“I believe you. I have a pet Canary which flew out of my cage. I searched all the room for it and espied it on the top of a small statuette pluming its feathers before the mirror. Previously I had shown it its likeness there”.

I had a kitten which used to divert itself before the mirror and even (as I thought) peeped behind it like a child, often altering its position with its paw.

I am in a situation here where I have considerable leisure time, and now that, with your encouragement, I have got thoroughly alive to this most interesting question, I will endeavour, through time, to pick up any more precise facts of the sort through my own experience or that of my scholars when I may trouble you with a selection of them.⁵

I am | Dear Sir, | Yours most respectfully, | James Shaw.