河南公共英語網(wǎng)絡(luò)輔導(dǎo)班課堂

Certain animals have an intuitive awareness of quantities. They know without analysis the difference between a number of objects ands a smaller number. In his book The Natural History of Selbourne (1786), the naturalist Gilbert White tells how he surreptitiously removed one egg a day to make up plover’s nest, and how the mother laid another egg each day to make up for the missing one. He noted that other species of birds ignore the absence of a single egg but abandon their nest if more than one egg has been removed. It has also been noted by naturalist that a certain type of wasp always provides five-never four, never six-caterpillars for each of their eggs so that their young have something to eat when the eggs hatch. Research has also shown that both mice and pigeons can be taught to distinguish between odd and even numbers of food pieces.