Returning to my second alternative, that is to say, to the case of hybrids which are born well developed and healthy, but nevertheless perfectly sterile, it is less obvious why, having succeeded in understanding the conflicting memories of their parents, they should fail to produce offspring; but I do not think the reader will feel surprised that this should be the case. The following anecdote, true or false, may not be out of place here:— “Plutarch tells us of a magpie, belonging to a barber at Rome, which could imitate to a nicety almost every word it heard. Some trumpets happened one day to be sounded before the shop, and for a day or two afterwards the magpie was quite mute, and seemed pensive and melancholy. All who knew it were greatly surprised at its silence; and it was supposed that the sound of the trumpets had so stunned it as to deprive it at once of both voice and hearing. It soon appeared, however, that this was far from being the case; for, says Plutarch, the bird had been all the time occupied in profound meditation, studying how to imitate the sound of the trumpets; and when at last master of it, the magpie, to the astonishment of all its friends, suddenly broke its long silence by a perfect imitation of the flourish of trumpets it had heard, observing with the greatest exactness all the repetitions, stops, and changes. _The acquisition of this lesson had_, _however_, _exhausted the whole of the magpie’s stock of intellect_, _for it made it forget everything it had learned before_” (“Percy Anecdotes,” Instinct, p. 166).