Passing now to the other vertebrates, the probabilities are that their perceptual processes are essentially similar to those of the higher animals; but, in so far as these creatures differ more and more widely from ourselves, we may, perhaps, fairly infer that their constructs are more and more different from ours. Still, the thrush that listens attentively on the lawn and hops around a particular spot must have a vague construct of the worm he hopes to have a more particular acquaintance with ere long. The cobra that I watched on the basal slopes of Table Mountain, and that raised his head and expanded his hood when I pitched a pebble on to the granite slope over which he was gliding, must have had a vague percept suggested thereby. The trout that leaps at your fly so soon as it touches the water must have a vague percept of an eatable insect which suggests his action. The carp[GN] that come to the sound of a bell must have, suggested by that sound, vague percepts of edible crumbs. And no one who has watched as a lad the fish swimming curiously round his bait can doubt that they are by examination defining their percepts, and drawing unsatisfactory inferences of a perceptual nature. And here let us notice that the whole set of phenomena which have been described in previous chapters under the heads of recognition-marks, of warning coloration, and of mimicry, involve close and accurate powers of perception. Recognition-marks are developed for the special purpose of enabling the organisms concerned rapidly and accurately to form particular perceptual constructs. Of what use would warning coloration be if it did not serve to suggest to the percipient the disagreeable qualities with which it is associated? The very essence of the principle of mimicry is that misleading associations are suggested. Here a false construct, untrue to fact, that is to say, one that verification would prove to be false, is formed; just as a well-executed imitation orange, in china or in soap, may lead a child to form a false construct, one that is proved to be incorrect so soon as the suggestions of sight are submitted to verification by touch, smell, and taste. No one who has carefully watched the habits of birds can have failed to notice how they submit a doubtful object to examination. Probably the avoidance of insects protected by warning colours is not perfectly instinctive. I have seen young birds, after some apparent hesitation, peck once or twice doubtfully at such insects. A young baboon with whom I experimented at the Cape seemed to have an undefined aversion to certain caterpillars, which he could not be induced to taste, though he smelt at them. Scorpions he darted at, twisted off the sting, and ate with greedy relish.