NOTES ON " PREHENSION " IN IDIOTS. 81

was tried with one of three lines out of a local guide-book that lay on the table, which was written in much the same magniloquent language as Magnall's History, but after five readings he failed to recall more than a few words. On trying the numeral-test, he was right four times out of six with three figures, but wholly broke down at four. W. C. has a minute recollection of dates of deaths, visits, holi- days and other events in the asylum. He was tried in many cases familiar to Dr. Cobbold and in others verified by his journal, and his answers were pronounced to be exact. He also had a considerable knowledge of the day of the week on which any day of a month would fall in the present or in recent years, and was particular about leap years. I tried him from my pocket almanac. He correctly gave Monday as the day on which May 10 fell this year. The 13th of April puzzled him a little ; he recollected that the 12th was a Wednesday, but calculated at first wrongly from that premiss ; however he at last got the answer out correctly. When I pronounced the names of a month, day and year to him, as " October the twelfth, 1883," he could not recollect it, appa- rently from want of interest in abstract figures. The numeral-test was a complete failure with him. We could not get him to repeat even three figures by rote. He seemed unable to understand what was wanted, and gave some fancy results. G. M. had a memory for dates resembling that of W. C., but less good. They often conferred together about them. He was quite unable to add, saying that 2 and 3 made 4, 3 and 2 made 6, &c. The numeral-test was a complete failure ; he did not seem to understand what was wanted. The impression left by these three men, based on what they said, and otherwise confirmed, was that their memory was chiefly due to their habit of mentally reiterating certain events and phrases that happened to interest them, so that their memory was peculiar in its limitations rather than strong. It would follow that if they happened to take a fancy to the numeral-tests, future results might not be so complete a failure as these were, Prof. Bain has read the rough draft of this, and approves. On June 30, 1886, Mr. Sully and I spent four hours at the Asylum for Idiots at Darenth, near Dartford. Dr. Fletcher Beach had kindly made preliminary experiments there for us, and when we arrived he gave us every assistance. Most of the Darenth inmates are merely imbecile. Those reckoned as "first-class " struck me as far superior in intellect to any I had seen at Earlswood, and those of the second-class as distinctly superior to the first-class at Earlswood. They were 6