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Cornell University Library
QL 751 .M84H2

Habit and instinct

3 1924 024 783 643

Cornell University
Library

The original of tliis book is in
tlie Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024783643

HABIT AND INSTINCT.

a

HABIT AND INSTINCT

0. LLOYD MORGAN, F.G.S.,

AUTHOR OF
'ANIMAL LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE," *' PSYCHOLOGY FOB TEACHKES," ETC.

EDWARD ARNOLD,
^uliltsSJr to tilt InDta ©ffice.

LONDON: NEW YOEK :

37, BEDroED Street. 70, Fifth Avenue.

1896.

PREFACE.

I WISH that dedications were still in vogue, so that
these pages could be inscribed to all those many friends
whose unfailing kindness and courtesy made my visit to
the United States so pleasant, when the substance of this
volume was delivered as a Lowell Course at Boston, and
as lectures in New York, Chicago, and other university
centres, during the early part of this year.

The reader will doubtless be glad to learn that further
observations — and they are much needed — on habit and
instinct will probably form part of Prof. Whitman's work
at an experimental station in connection with the Bio-
logical Department of Chicago University. Similar
observations might also be prosecuted with advantage
in some of our own zoological gardens, as was the earnest
wish of George Romanes, to whose influence and encourage-
ment I am, like many others, so deeply indebted.

A few passages from the Fortnightly Review, Nature,
Natural Sciejice, the Monist, and the Humanitarian, may
perhaps be recognized. Much of the chapter on Modifica-
tion has appeared by request in Science.

My best thanks are due to Mr. F. Howard Collins for
many valuable suggestions.

C. Ll. M.

Bristol, October, 1896.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. PliELIMINABY DEFINITIONS AND IlLUSTBATIONS ... ... 1

II. SoMB Habits and Instincts of Youno Bieds ... 29

HI. Locomotion in Yodng Bibds ... ... ... ... 59

IV. Further Obsbbvations on Young Bibds ... ... 80

V. Observations on Young Mammals ... ... ... 101

VX. The Kelation of Consciousness to Instinctive Behaviouk 126

VII. Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits ... ... 144

VIII. Imitation ... ... ... ... ... ... 166

IX. The Emotions IN thbib Relation to Instinct ... ... 186

X. Some Habits and Instincts of the Paibing Season ... ^0

XL Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration ... ... 232

XII. The Eblation of Organic to Mental Evolution ... 262

Xin. Abe Acquired Habits Inherited? ... ... ... 280

XIV. Modification and Variation ... ... ... 307

XV. Hebedity in Man ... ... ... ... ... 323

Frontispiece : Geoup of Young Birds, from a Drawing by
G. E. Lodge.

HABIT AND INSTINCT.

CHAPTEE I.

PRELIMINARY DEFINITIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

The naturalist commonly uses the word " habits " in
describing the activities and behaviour of animals, each
after his kind. Having given some account, for example,
of the external form and internal structure of beast or
bird or insect, he proceeds to deal with its habits, its
general mode of life — how it seeks its food, how it rears or
makes provision for its young, and so forth. The habits of
animals thus constitute a wide and interesting field for
observation and study. The word is, however, often used
in a more restricted sense. In speaking of human beings,
we generally use the word "habit " to describe some action
or mode of behaviour which results from repetition in the
course of individual experience. We should not speak of
an act that is only occasionally performed under special
circumstances as a habit. In employing the word " habit "
as a technical term for purposes of scientific description, it
is expedient to adopt this restriction. In this sense a habit
is a more or less definite mode of procedure or kind of
behaviour which has been acquired by the individual, and
has become, so to speak, stereotyped through repetition.
There can be little objection, however, to the concurrent use
of the word in its broader and more general acceptation ;

B

Habit and Instmct.

and when it is so employed in this work, the context will,
it is hoped, serve to make the meaning clear and to prevent
misapprehension. Still, wherever it is so used there will
be implied, at least, some element of that individual
acquisition and repetition which gives to habit, in the
narrower and more restricted sense, its salient characteristic.

The word " instinct," too, is used in daily conversation
and in popular speech with a signification somewhat
wider and less restricted than that which attaches to it
as a technical term. In the first place, it is commonly
employed to distinguish broadly the doings of animals
from the ways of man. The former are said to be due to
instinct, while the latter are described as rational. But
not all the ways, not even all the thoughts, of man are
rational. And thus, in the second place, the word
" instinct " is used in describing that part of human
character and conduct which is not the outcome of a
consciously rational process. The man who acts without
deliberation is said to do so instinctively ; the girl who
shrinks, she knows not why, from the companionship of
some of her schoolfellows, is guided, it is said, by her
natural instincts. These two uses are closely connected.
There is in both a common antithesis to rational ; in both
a reference to something deeply ingrained in the nature.
And each is serviceable, seldom giving rise to mis-
apprehension, since the meaning is sufficiently defined by
the context.

But for use as a technical term, we need further
precision. The difference between a word as employed for
the daily purposes of familiar conversation or in general
literature, and the same word in its usage as a technical
term, is this : that in the former case it is in itself freer
and more mobile, being, in its usage, moulded to definiteness
by the context of the passage in which it occurs ; while in

Preliminary Definitions and Ilhistrations. 3

the latter case, as a technical term, it has to a large
extent lost its freedom and mobility, being bound in the
chains of a more or less precise, but at the same time
more or less arbitrary, definition. For the purposes of
exact science such bondage is necessary; and there are
many words, such as "force," "energy," "impression,"
" sensation," which we continually use in daily conversation
or in general literature with a freedom which would be
inadmissible in technical descriptions. Such a word is
" instinct." But it unfortunately happens that, whereas
physicists are generally agreed among themselves as to the
exact meaning which the words " force '' and " energy "
shall carry as technical terms, naturalists and psychologists
are by no means fully agreed * as to the precise sense in
which the term " instinct " shall be used.

There is, moreover, in the case of "instinct," a source
of difficulty which is absent in that of the technical terms
which are employed in the science of physics. Let us
suppose that we are watching a silkworm spinning its
cocoon. A set of activities, for the carrying out of which
the structm'e of the caterpillar is admirably adapted, are
performed before our eyes, and may be watched in all their
stages ; such activities, if they fulfil certain conditions, we
term instinctive. But if now we are asked what prompts
the silkworm at a certain stage of its existence to spin its
cocoon, the reply is that this is due to " instinct." How far
such a reply is justifiable we shall have to consider. But
it is clear that, in the case of the activities themselves, we
are dealing with matters of actual observation ; but if we
say that the activities are due to instinct, we are dealing
with something which cannot be directly observed, but
which we infer to be present. And that which we thus

* Cf. " Some Definitions of Instinct " in Natural Science for May, 1895,
vol. vii. p. 321.

4 Habit and Instinct.

infer to be present is commonly ascribed to the sphere of
mental phenomena, and regarded as a special mode of
the workings of consciousness. If, then, we are putting
the matter fairly and correctly ; if observation of the
activities provides us with the facts from which to infer
the existence of a special mode of the workings of con-
sciousness, termed " instinct ; " it is clearly our duty,
as scientific inquirers, to deal first with the observable
facts, and then with the psychological inferences which
may be drawn from them. Thus only can we hope to
overcome the difficulties which arise from the circum-
stance that the term "instinctive" is applied on the one
hand to certain observable activities, and on the other
hand to certain inferred mental faculties.

Let us, then, proceed to consider some of the leading
characteristics of instinctive activities as j;hey present
themselves to our observation and study in the animal
world. In popular speech, as was noted at the outset,
all the activities of animals are comprehensively instinc-
tive. What we have to do, therefore, is to show in what
respects the use of the word as a technical term has
undergone limitation ; and to indicate the more restricted
group of activities to which it is specifically applicable.

In the first place, instinctive activities are severally
common to, and similarly performed by, all the like
members of the same more or less restricted group of
animals. They are essentially lacking in individuality.
The spinning of a cocoon by the silkworm, the migration
of the swallow, the fieldfare, or the golden plover, the
hibernation of the frog or the bear, the behaviour of an
irritated bee, an irritated skunk, an irritated cuttle-fish, —
these and a thousand other peculiar activities are charac-
teristic of particular individuals, not in virtue of their
individuality, but as representatives of their kind. I once

Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations. 5

heard instinctive activities defined as those on which you
could safely bet; but, if the element of chance is that
which gives zest to the wager, one must add that such
betting would be dull work. You might almost as well
lay a wager that the sun will rise to-morrow morning, as
bet, for example, that the larva of the great water-beetle
(Hydrophilus piceus) will, as the period of pupation draws
nigh when the insect is soon to pass into the chrysalis
stage, leave the pool and bury itself in the damp earth,
so constant, under the appropriate circumstances, is the
performance of an instinctive activity.

It need hardly be said that there is the closest possible
connection between the structure and organization of any
given animal and its instinctive activities. The spinnerets
of the spider are associated with its web-making instinct ;
the activities of flight are rendered possible by the
possession of wings ; the burrowing habits of the mole
are correlated with many peculiarities and adaptations of
structure. The specific way in which any essential life-
function — say, for example, that of respiration — is per-
formed, and the activities which are rendered necessary for
its performance, have been developed in direct associa-
tion with the organic mechanism which is subservient to
the process and the activities in question. In insects
respiration is effected by means of a delicate system of
ramifying tubes (the tracheal system) which open to the
outer air by orifices or spiracles on either side both of
the middle or thoracic and of the posterior or abdominal
region. Of the two large aquatic beetles that are found
in our English ponds, each must come from time to time
to the surface to renew its supply of air ; * but the manner
in which they take in and store the air is quite different.
Dytiscus floats slowly to the surface with its hinder end

* See Professor Miall's " Natural History of Aquatic Insects" (1895).

Habit and Instinct.

at a slightly higher level than its head, and this end
breaks the surface film and rises into the air. The last
pair of spiracles, or breathing orifices, near the hinder
end of the body, are large and take in a direct supply,
while air is also stored in the space between the wing-
cases and the body, and is thus supplied to the smaller
abdominal spiracles. In the great water-beetle, Hydro-
philus, however, the front pair of abdominal spiracles are
the largest, and the air is stored not only beneath the wing-
cases, but along the hairy ventral surface of the beetle.
When the insect comes up to breathe, it is the head
a,nd not the hinder end that reaches the surface ; the
feeler, or antenna, is specially modified so as to effect
a communication between the whole storage area and the
atmosphere ; and the air is taken in at the junction of
head and thorax. Thus the activities which minister to
the process of respiration are seen in each case to have
a close dependence on the general structural organization
of the insect. And throughout the whole animal kingdom
we have abundant illustration, not only of the intimate
connection between the structure of a given organ and
its particular function, but also between such specific
performance and the activities which lead up to it. In
other words, not only does an organ respond functionally
under the appropriate conditions, but the whole organism
co-operates by carrying out a sometimes complicated set
of activities subservient to what we see to be the end
in view.

This leads us on to consider the relation which an
instinctive activity bears to what is termed a reflex action.
If the foot of a sleeping child be lightly tickled, the foot
and limb will be withdrawn from the source of irritation.
This is a case of reflex action. The effects of the stimulus
(tickling) are carried inwards by nerves to the spinal cord ;

Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations. 7

there certain nervous centres are called into activity, as
the result of which an orderly (co-ordinated) set of out-
going nerve-currents are distributed to the muscles which
are concerned in moving the leg. If a frog be killed by
the rapid extirpation of the brain, and then its flank be
sharply pinched, the hind leg of the same side will be
raised, and the foot will scratch at the irritated spot. This
again is a reflex action ; and the fact that the brain has
been extirpated shows that spinal centres alone are
sufficient for its due and accurate performance. Now, it
is by no means easy, if indeed it be possible, to draw
any sharp and decisive line of demarcation between
instinctive activities and reflex acts. Instinct has been
well described by Mr. Herbert Spencer as compound reflex
action ; hence the distinction between them turns in large
degree on their relative complexity. It would seem,
therefore, that, whereas a reflex act — such, for example,
as the winking of the eye when an object is seen to
approach it rapidly — is a restricted and localized response,
involving a particular organ or a definite group of
muscles, and is initiated by a more or less specialized
external stimulus ; an instinctive activity is a response
of the organism as a whole, and involves the co-operation^
of several organs and many groups of muscles. Initiated
by an external stimulus or group of stimuli, it is, at any
rate in many cases, determined also in greater degree than
reflex action by an internal factor which causes uneasiness
or distress, more or less marked, if it do not flnd its normal '
instinctive satisfaction. Take, for example, the before-
mentioned instinct of the great water-beetle to leave the
pond and burrow in its bank when the time for pupation
is at hand. There is something more here than a local
response to an external stimulus ; something more, it would
seem, than mere reflex action. There are activities

Habit and Instinct.

affecting the whole behaviour of the organism, and there
seem to be internal promptings of some kind due to organic
conditions whose seat is within the body of the developing
larva. Or take the migration of birds, their nest-building
instincts, the activities involved in incubation and in
the rearing of their young ; there is surely, it may be
said, something in all this which may be distinguished,
even if the line of demarcation be hard to draw, from reflex
action. We cannot say more, however, than that the one
is a more fully corporate act than the other.

Eeflex action is involved in the carrying out of many
instinctive activities. When the great water-beetle weaves
with her spinnerets the delicate silken cocoon in which
she deposits her eggs, there are reflex acts connected with
the extrusion of the fluid which hardens to form the silk ;
reflex acts accompany the moulding of the cocoon and its
being supplied with air ; reflex acts are concerned in the
laying of her eggs, " not at hazard, but in regular order,
side by side ; " but during the hours of maternal labour
there is an organization of all the activities into a definite
line of behaviour, directed to what we see to be a final and
adaptive end, and prompted, we feel sure, by some internal
impulse ; and all this tends to raise series of activities, as
a whole, above the level of mere reflex action. If we say
that reflex acts are local responses due to specialized stimuli,
while instinctive activities are matters of general behaviour,
usually involving a larger measure of central (as opposed
to merely local or ganglionic) co-ordination, and due to
the more widely spread effects of stimuli in which both
external and internal factors co-operate, we shall probably
get as near as possible to the distinction of which we are in
search. But it must be remembered that there are border-
land cases in which the distinction can hardly be maintained.

Eeverting now to the close connection we have seen to

Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations. 9

exist between structure and habit, it must be noted that
there are many instinctive activities that no examination
of structure, -with our present means and appliances, would
enable us to foretell. In the tributaries of the Severn
there is a spring migration of little eels, or elvers. Thou-
sands may be seen swimming up stream, and even
surmounting such obstacles as small waterfalls and mill-
sluices by wriggling up the conferva-clad surface. But
there is nothing in their structure to give a hint of this
migratory instinct. If an ant-lion larva were given to a
naturalist ignorant of its habits, he would no doubt be
able to say that it led a predatory life. He would not infer
from its structure that it made a conical pit in the sand
to entrap unwary ants and other insects, and, as it lay
almost concealed at the apex of the cone, scattered a
shower of sand-grains, by which its victim was brought down
into its very jaws. No examination of the structure of a
limpet would enable us to foretell that it would wander in
search of food within a radius of about a yard from its
scar, performing its peregrination when the rocks were
wetted by the tide, but returning home to its own particular
scar on the rock ere the sun and air had baked and dried
the surface, and ere the returning tide had deeply sub-
merged its home.* Very many such cases might be given
of activities to which the study of structure alone would
afford no clue.

The fact that the same organ often subserves more
than one purpose may sometimes lead one astray in
attempting to infer habit from structure. In Trinidad
there occurs a climbing picarian bird, the red-tailed
jacamar {Galbula rujicauda). It has a long, sharp, pointed
bill, and no one from a study of its structure would be
likely to foretell that it subsists on flies, which it catches

* See Nature, vol. xxsi. p. 200; and vol. li. pp. 127 and 511.

lo Habit and Instinct.

on the wing. And Mr. F. M. Chapman says * that these
birds " are the most expert fly-catchers he has ever
seen. Their watchfulness permits no insect to pass in
safety. They maintain a constant look-out, turning the
head quickly from side to side. The dart into the air is
made with wonderful celerity. Sometimes it is straight
up, again at various angles, and they go as far as thirty or
thirty-five feet from their perch, to which they return after
each sally." Fly-catchers, as a rule, have short bills and
a broad gape. "Why, then, is the long pointed bill preserved
in these jacamars ? Mr. Chapman tells me that they scoop
holes in the sand, in which they build their nest, and that
they use their bills for this purpose. Hence, perhaps, the
retention of the long pointed form. Be that as it may, no
one would be likely to predict that the jacamar was one of
the most expert of fly-catchers.

The instinctive activities, which we have now seen to
be something more than local responses to stimuli, and to
involve the general behaviour of the animals which perform
them ; and which, while they are correlated with organic
structure, could not in many cases be inferred from the
closest morphological or anatomical examination; — are
characterized, as was said, by the fact that they are
severally common to, and similarly performed by, all
the like members of the same more or less restricted group
of animals. Knowing the instinctive activities which are
characteristic of the life-history of the great water-beetle or
other organism, you may be sure that they are common to,
and similarly performed by, all the like members of the
species, the qualification like members being introduced to
cover the divergencies of instinctive behaviour due to sex.

It must not be supposed, however, that this constancy

* " Chapman on the Birds of Trinidad," Bullelin Am. Mus. of Nat. Bist.,
vol. vi., 1894, p. 63.

Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations. 1 1

of behaviour is absolute, and that the instinctive activities
are quite invariable. "Were this the case, there could be no
organic progress so far as instincts are concerned. Evolu-
tion would be no longer possible. The constancy is rather
to be regarded as analogous to that which we find in those
structural characters of animals which are termed specific
or generic, as the case may be. When we say that struc-
tural characters are constant, we no longer, since the
revolution of thought caused by the publication of the
" Origin of Species," mean that they are absolutely invari-
able. We know, or have reason to believe, that these are
often subject to variations, many, if not most, of which •
are slight and inconspicuous. In the same way, the per-
formance of instinctive activities is probably subject to
variations of a similar kind. This is, no doubt, dif&cult to
establish on the basis of actual observation, since slight
departures from the normal type of activity would be more
liable to escape detection than departures from the normal
type of structure. We must be guided by analogy, and
this certainly does not warrant the assumption that con-
stancy is to be interpreted in any absolute sense.

The next point to notice with regard to the class of
activities which we term instinctive is that they are per-
formed under special circumstances, which are either of >•
frequent occurrence, or are vitally essential to the welfare
or continuance of the race. They are often of protective
value, and very frequently correlated with structural
characters which are likewise protective. Thus the hedge-
hog, whose body is clad in a spiny skin, instinctively
coils himself up when molested, and thus gives effect to
his protective structure ; so, too, the tortoise instinctively
withdraws his head and limbs under the carapace ; and the
snail retreats within his shell. And in like manner the
instincts of the hermit-crab lead him not only to withdraw

12 Haht and Instinct.

into his borrowed shell, but to seek and insert himself into
one suitable to his size; nay, further, in the case of
Par/urns, he may even af&x to his shell a sea-anemone
(Adamsia), the distastefulness of which to fishes will pre-
vent his falling a prey to their voracity.

In many familiar cases of mimicry, specific activities
are correlated with mimetic structure and appearance. A
not uncommon beetle {Clytus arietis), which is mimetic of
the wasp, has a fussy manner, unlike the usually staid
demeanour of beetles, which serves to make the mimicry
more effectual. There occurs at the Cape of Good Hope
a harmless, egg-eating snake {Dasypeltis scahra), which
flattens its head, coils as if for a spring, hisses, and darts
forward as though about to strike, in a way that closely
resembles the characteristic mode of the berg-adder {Vipera
atropos), of which it is mimetic. It is really quite harm-
less, subsisting on eggs, the shells of which are broken
in the throat by the enamel-tipped processes of the verte-
brse, which project into the gullet and form the so-called
gular teeth ; but its resemblance both in form and be-
haviour to a venomous snake presumably affords it pro-
tection from enemies. Mimetic resemblance may also be
of service in stealing upon prey. Thus hunting spiders,
which resemble the flies on which they feed, rub their
heads in very much the same way as do the flies them-
selves. These mimetic activities, which are probably truly
instinctive in their nature, must not be regarded as con-
sciously imitative; they are, rather, analogous to the
mimetic appearance, and, Kke it, due to natural selection.
A great number of other instinctive activities might be
adduced in illustration of the fact that they are performed
in subservience to the general welfare of the organism,
and under circumstances which are of frequent recurrence
in the life of the individual and of the species.

Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations. 13

Many of these activities are so familiar to the obser-
vant naturalist, constituting as they do the normal life-
habits of the animals which exhibit them, that they are apt
to suffer the common fate of the familiar, and receive less
notice and less attention than the unusual and unfamiliar.
That an insect should exhibit one set of activities as a
larva or caterpillar, and a totally different set of activities
as an imago or perfect insect, seems quite natural, and
what we should expect. But the naturalist, who is some-
thing more than a collector, sees in these activities
problems not less difficult of solution than are the problems
of structure with which they are associated. And, in any
consideration of instinct, these familiar activities which
are performed under the ordinary circumstances of normal
life must not be allowed to fall into the background. They
form the largest, if not the most conspicuous, group of
instinctive activities.

But there are other instinctive activities which are

performed seldom or only once, and these are in all cases

of vital importance to the continuance of the race. Of the

many drones which follow the queen-bee in her nuptial

flight, one only is successful in mating with her, and that

but once in his life. And yet, were the sexual instinct

of drones to lapse, even for a single year, the race would

be decimated ; and were it to lapse altogether for but a

few years, the race would become extinct. The instinct is

essential to the preservation and continuance of the race.

And many of these instinctive activities thus but seldom

performed are adaptive with a nicety which is a continual

source of our wonder and admiration. Of such exquisite

adaptation we may take, for example, the instinctive

activities * of the Yucca moth {Pronuha yuccasella).

* Described in Kerner's "Natural History of Plants," translated and
edited by Prof. Oliver, vol. ii. p. 156.

14 Habit and Instinct.

The silvery, straw-coloured insects emerge from their
chrysalis-cases just when the large, yellowish-white, bell-
shapecT flowers of the yucca open, each for a single night.
From the anthers of one of these flowers the female moth
collects the golden pollen, and kneads the adhesive
material into a little pellet, which she holds beneath her
head by means of the greatly enlarged bristly palps. Thus
laden, she flies off and seeks another flower. Having found
one, she pierces with the sharp lancets of her ovipositor the
tissue of the pistil, lays her eggs among the ovules, and
then, darting to the top of the stigma, stuffs the fertilizing
pollen-pellet into its funnel-shaped opening.

Now, the visits of the moth are necessary to the plant.
It has been experimentally proved that, in the absence
of the insects, no pollen can get to the stigma to fertilize
the ovules. And the fertilization of the ovules is necessary
to the larvae, which in four or five days are hatched from
the insect's eggs. It has been ascertained that they feed
exclusively on the developing ovules, and in the absence
of fertilization the ovules would not develop. Each grub
consumes some twenty ovules, and there may be three
or four such grubs. But the ovary contains some two
hundred ovules. Of these, therefore, say, a hundred are
sacrificed to the grubs of that moth, through whose instru-
mentality alone the remaining hundred can be fertilized
and come to maturity.

These marvellously adaptive instinctive activities of the
Yucca moth are performed but once in her life, and that
without instruction, with no opportunities of learning
by imitation, and, apparently, without prevision of what
will be the outcome of her behaviour ; for she has no
experience of the subsequent fate of the eggs she lays, and
cannot be credited with any knowledge of the effect of the
pollen upon the ovules. The activities also illustrate what

Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations. 15

is by no means infrequent in the more complex instincts,
namely, the serial nature of the adaptation. There is a
sequence of activities, and the whole sequence is adaptive
in its nature. A further example of the serial nature of
instinct — of the way in which a number of activities are
linked into one elaborately adaptive instinctive chain —
may be cited.*

A certain beetle of the genus Sitaris (one of the Meloidce,
to which belongs the common oil-beetle) lays its eggs at
the entrance of the subterranean galleries excavated by a
kind of mason bee (Anthopliora). From these eggs the
larvsB are hatched in autumn as active little insects very
different from the ordinary type of beetle grub, having six
legs each armed with a sharp curved hook. In the winter
they become sluggish, but resume their activity in the
spring. And when in April the drones of the bee emerge
and pass out through the gallery, the Sitaris larvse fasten
upon them. There they remain till the nuptial flight of the
bees, when, as the insects mate, they pass from the drone
to the female bee. Then again they wait their chance.
The moment a bee lays an egg, the Sitaris larva springs
upon it, and at length breaks its prolonged fast. " Even
while the poor mother is carefully fastening up her cell,
her mortal enemy is beginning to devour her offspring ; for
the egg of the Anthophora serves not only as a raft, but as
a repast. The honey, which is enough for either, would
be too little for both ; and the Sitaris, therefore, at its first
meal, relieves itself from its only rival. After eight days
the egg is consumed, and on the empty shell the Sitaris
undergoes its first transformation, and makes its appear-
ance in a very different form. ... It changes to a white

* From M. Fabre, as given by Sir John Lubbock in his "Scientific
Lectures," 2nd edit. p. 45 (1890). I utilized this example in much the same
words in " Animal Life and Intelligence," p. 438.

1 6 Habit and Instinct.

fleshy grub, so organized as to float on the surface of the
honey, with the mouth beneath and the spiracles above
the surface. ... In this state it remains until the honey
is consumed," and, after some further metamorphoses,
develops into a perfect beetle in August.

Here, then, we have a curious and marvellously
adaptive life-history, with specialized changes of form and
structure, and with correlated modes of activity at each
stage. How comes it to perform its varied activities, each
step of which is so well adapted to the needs of the stage
of life on which it is entering ? Parental teaching is
altogether excluded, for the parent never sees her offspring ;
each individual is isolated from others of its kind, so that
imitation is also excluded. The activities cannot be per-
formed through intelligence in the common acceptation
of the word, for intelligence involves the profiting by
individual experience. The larva cannot fasten upon the
drone as the result of any previous experience, since it has
never done anything of the sort before ; nor can it pass to
the female bee because experience has taught it that such
a procedure brings with it satisfactory consequences. At no
stage of the complex process can intelligence, based upon
individual experience, be admitted as a factor. If there be
experience, it must be the inherited experience of ancestors
who have, each in turn, done much the same. Whether
we are justified in speaking of inherited experience will
be considered in due time. In any case, the procedure,
which is typically instinctive in its nature, has its foun-
dations in heredity.

We here touch the very quick of the subject. As we
shall use the term, the truly instinctive activity is
characterized by a certain amount of definiteness which
is hereditary, and which is not acquired in the course of
individual experience. A habit, as such, is not, in the

Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations. 17

restricted acceptation of the term we adopted at the outset,
inherited. It is the result of individual acquisition, and is
stereotyped hy repetition in the course of the experience of
the organism which exhibits the habit in question. Now,
it is well known that there is a divergence of opinion
among biologists as to the answer to be given to the
question : Are acquired characters inherited ? For us
this question takes the following form : Are acquired
habits inherited in the form of congenital instincts ? I
shall not, at this stage of our inquiries, express any
opinion in the matter. That must come after a careful
consideration of the evidence. But it is clearly essential
that we should so define the terms "habit" and
" instinct," and the terms " congenital " and " acquired,"
as not in any way to forejudge the question ; nay, rather,
in such a way as to facilitate a due grasping of the real
nature of the question at issue.

"Habit" has already been defined; it involves indi-
vidual acquisition. An animal does not come into the
world with any tendency to perform ready-made habits.
The expression "ready-made habits" is indeed contradic-
tory, for habits are reached by repetition in the course of
experience. If they were ready-made, they would not be
called habits ; if they were habits, they could not be ready-
made. The definition of the term " instinct " is occupying
our attention at present, and we have just said that what
is instinctive is characterized by a certain amount of
definiteness which is hereditary, and not acquired in the
course of individual experience. Instinctive performances
are ready-made activities, if the expression be permissible.
In other words, they are congenital. Let us, then, use the
terms "congenital " and " acquired" in such a way as to
be so far as possible mutually exclusive. ' An activity that
is congenital is one the definite performance of which is

Habit and Instinct.

antecedent to individual experience. Young moorhens, as
soon as they are born and have recovered from the shock of
birth, can swim -with definite accuracy of leg-movements.
Here the definiteness is not only congenital, but connate, if
we use this latter term for a congenital activity which is
definitely performed at or very shortly after birth. On
the other hand, young swallows cannot fly at birth ; they
are then too immature, and their wings are not yet
sufficiently developed. But when they are some three
weeks old, and the wings have attained functional size and
value, little swallows will fly with considerable if not
perfect skill and power. The definiteness is congenital,
for it is not acquired by individual experience ; but it is
not connate, since it is not exhibited at or shortlj' after
birth. The term deferred, may be applied to such con-
genital activities as are performed when the organism has
undergone a certain amount of development after birth.
The definiteness of the swimming instinct in the moorhen
is congenital and connate ; the definiteness of the instinc-
tive flight of the swallow is congenital, but deferred.
Whether we apply the term " connate " or the term
"deferred" to the instincts of fully developed insects —
those in the imago stage— depends upon the view we take
with regard to the new birth of the insect after its
chrysalis sleep.

Let us now turn to the activities the definiteness and
the peculiar nature of which may be termed acquired in
contradistinction to congenital. If we throw to young
chicks several caterpillars, some nice, others nasty, the
birds will, in the absence of previous experience, seize them
without discrimination. But they will soon eat only the
nice ones, and leave the others untouched. Two or three
lessons of this kind will suffice. After that, if mixed cater-
pillars be thrown to them, they will with definiteness and

Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations. 19

precision select the nice and ignore the nasty. Experience
has introduced a differentiation of response, and that of a
perfectly definite nature, and it is to this differentiation, '
as the result of individual experience, that we may apply
the term " acquired."

In the animal kingdom there are a great number of
skilled activities which are congenital in their definiteness
— which have not to be learnt, but are performed with
accuracy the first time circumstances and opportunity
permit. But in any circus we may see examples of skilled
activities which are not congenital, but have been taught
to the animals ; and any one who has possessed a clever
dog will have seen cases of skilled activities which the
animal has learnt for himself through the exercise of
his intelligence. It is to such activities as these, the
performance of which is the result of individual experience,
that the term " acquired " is properly applicable in the
sense in which it is here defined.

It must not be supposed, however, that what is acquired
is always entirely new, if by this is meant something
altogether disconnected from any instinctive basis. Quite
the reverse. In the great majority of cases, what is ac-
quired is a modification of that which is congenital. Of
this, perhaps, there is no better example than that afforded
by falconry. Here the congenital instincts of certain birds
of prey, such as the peregrine falcon, are modified for the
purposes of sport ; and the modification is always of the
acquired type, since in all cases it is a wild bird — either a
young one captured fully fledged, or a nestling (eyas)
taken from the eyry — that the falconer takes in hand for
special training. One cannot breed falcons for the chase.
The training requires care, patience, and skill. The newly
captured bird has first to be accustomed to man ; she is
lightly hooded, and provided with bells, jesses, swivel, and

20 Habit and Instinct.

leash. She is carried about continuously for several days,
and late into the night, being constantly stroked with a
bird's wing or feather, very lightly at first. Her early
training is largely effected in the dark, and she is only
unhooded in a dimly lighted room. She is led to associate
certain sounds of lips or tongue with feeding ; and at a
later stage, certain shouts and tones of voice with the
appropriate response. She is trained to the lure — a dead
pigeon, or an artificial lure made of leather and feathers
or wings of birds and garnished with beefsteak — at first
with the leash. Later a light string is attached to the
leash, and the falcon is unhooded by an assistant, while
" the falconer, standing at a distance of five to ten yards,
calls her by shouting and casting out the lure. Gradually
day after day the distance is increased, till the hawk will
come thirty yards or so without hesitation ; then she may
be trusted to fly to the lure at liberty, and by degrees from
any distance, say a thousand yards. This accomplished,
she should learn to stoop to the lure. Instead of allowing
the hawk to seize upon it as she comes up, the falconer
should snatch the lure away and let her pass by, and
immediately put it out so that she may readily seize it
when she turns round to look for it. This should be done
at first only once, and then progressively, until she will
stoop backwards and forwards at the lure as often as
desired. Next she should be entered at > her quarry.
Should she be intended for rooks or herons, two or more
of these birds should be procured. One should be given
her from the hand ; then one should be released close to
her, and a third at a considerable distance. If she take
these keenly, she may be flown at a wild bird. Care must,
however, be taken to let her have every possible advantage
in her first flights — wind and weather, and the position of
the quarry with regard to the surrounding country, must

Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations. 2 1

be considered." With herons and rooks, the falcon is
generally kept hooded till the quarry is in sight, when
she is at once unhooded and slipped. With game birds the
falcon is taught to " wait on " till the game is flushed.
" A good game hawk in proper flying order goes up at once
to a good pitch in the air— the higher she flies the better—
and follows her master from field to field, always ready
for a stoop when the quarry is sprung. Hawks that have
been successfully broken and judiciously worked become
wonderfully clever, and soon learn to regulate their flight
by the movements of their master."

These facts and extracts from Colonel Eadcliff's article
on " Falconry " * will serve to show how the behaviour of a
trained falcon is an adaptation and modification of the
hawk's congenital instincts as a bird of prey. The finished
performance is part instinct and part habit. The basis
is instinctive and congenital ; the modification is a matter
of acquired habit. In domesticated animals that are not
only reared, but also bred, by man, there is opportunity for
selective mating; and there is opened up the question
whether the acquired modification of instinctive behaviour
becomes congenital through heredity. Hence in the
training of a retriever there may be hereditary effects
which are absent in the case of the falcon.

It may be objected, however, that the distinction be-
tween " congenital " and " acquired " is one that cannot
be sustained, since after all an, organism can only acquire
that for acquiring which it inherits a potentiality ; and
that we must in any case come back to heredity in the
last resort. The Scandinavian jer falcons (i*'. gyrfalco), for
example, will seldom "wait on "well; and merlins will
not do it at all. They inherit no faculty for responding to
training in this respect. Not only, therefore, is that which
* " Encyclopsedia Britannica," 9th edit. vol. ix.

2 2 Habit and Instinct.

is ''congenital" dependent on heredity; that which may
be acquired is also, at all events, limited by heredity.

A somewhat similar objection may be urged on slightly
different grounds. A great number of habitual activities
and acquired modes of dealing with what is frequently
presented in experience result from a gradual limitation
of what was at first a varied and exuberant output of
activity. If we watch a young puppy or kitten learning
gradually to deal effectively with some difficulty in its
extending environment, we see that it puts forth its
activities at first in a somewhat random and indefinite
fashion. It tries to effect its object in a number of
different ways, many of which are ridiculously inadequate
and hopelessly unsuccessful. But gradually it finds that
certain efforts are more satisfactory in their results than
others ; these are repeated, and thus by successive
limitations of the originally numerous and relatively in-
definite trials the exuberant efforts are narrowed down to
those which bring success ; these become habitual through
repetition, a definite mode of procedure results, and we
say that it has acquired a specific and well-adapted habit.
Now, such acquisition may be regarded, by those who are
sceptical as to the validity of any real distinction between
what is congenital and what is acquired, as after all only
the selection or rejection of these or those among many
congenital activities. Suppose, to put the matter in a
somewhat different and at the same time a concrete
form, that a baby baboon exhibits a number of con-
genital limb movements ; each in itself of a relatively
definite kind, but without relation to, or co-ordination
with, other movements ; and further suppose that, as the
result of its individual experience, ten per cent, are
selected and co-ordinated so as to form an acquired
activity for the carrying out of some specific object,

Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations.

while the ninety per cent, are, so far as this particular
purpose is concerned, suppressed. The habit thus engen-
dered arises out of the co-ordination of a small percentage
of certain given congenital limb movements. But if the
selected ten per cent., no less than the rejected ninety
per cent., were originally congenital, and if this selected
ten per cent, when duly co-ordinated are said to constitute
an acquired habit, what becomes of the supposed radical
distinction between " congenital " on the one hand, and
" acquired " on the other? The answer to this objection
is, that what we have to fix our attention upon is, not the
raw material, but what is manufactured out of it. The
activity which results from the co-ordination of the selected
ten per cent, of originally, unrelated movements is, as such,
a new product ; and this product is the result of acquisition,
and is not, as a definite co-ordinated activity, congenital.
Just as a sculptor carves a statue out of a block of marble,
so does acquisition carve an activity out of a mass of given
random movements. Or just as an architect builds a
cathedral out of an indefinite mass of material by
selecting, shaping, and bringing into relation the given
parts, so does acquisition build an habitual response out
of a given number of indefinite movements by selecting,
modifying, and bringing them into relation. It is the
definite, co-ordinated, responsive activity that is acquired.
Now, there are certain activities which are congenitally
definite, which are inherited ready-made, of which the
co-ordination is practically perfect at birth. Instance
the swimming of a young moorhen when first it enters
the water, or the spinning of a cocoon by a silkworm
without previous practice or experience. The definite-
ness and co-ordination are here not of individual, but
of ancestral origin. And there are other activities the
definiteness and co-ordination of which are acquired

24 Habit and Instinct.

through experience, and are thus not of ancestral, but
of individual origin. The one group comprise congenital
activities ; the other group, acquired activities. And
whether the definiteness individually acquired in one
generation contributes to the definiteness of ancestral
origin in succeeding generations, is the subject of discus-
sion among biologists.

It must not be supposed that the distinction between
what is congenital and what is acquired — a distinction
which we are endeavouring to draw with the utmost clear-
ness — is invalidated by the fact that there are a great
number of activities, such, for example, as the perfected
flight of birds, which are of double origin, being in part
congenital and in part acquired. Such cases do indeed
show that imperfect instincts may be perfected by habit
and individual acquisition of skill. But they render the
more necessary a careful distinction between the factors
which co-operate to produce the ultimate result. And
only when the distinction is thus duly emphasized does the
question, whether the acquired perfection of one generation
tends to lessen the congenital imperfection in the next
generation, stand out in its true significance. It is interest-
ing here to compare the flight of birds with the flight of
insects. In the latter class we find many cases in which
the instinctive factor in flight is relatively much more
highly developed towards congenital perfection than it is
in the former class, at any rate so far as most birds are
concerned. The question therefore arises. Is the greater
relative perfection in the instinctive flight of some insects
due to the inheritance of acquired skill on the part of their
ancestors? Or is it due to the fact that there has been
among insects more elimination of those who failed in
congenital power of flight, and hence a survival through
natural selection of those in which the instinctive flight

Preliminary Definitions and Illustrations. 25

was better developed? Or is it due to some other
cause ?

At present we will not attempt to answer such questions
as these. We are concerned merely in drawing as clearly
as possible a distinction which shall enable us to put the
questions in a definite and intelligible form. It is a matter
of no small importance accurately to focus the point of
such questions.

The distinction between that which is congenital and
that which is acquired may be further illustrated from
a structural point of view. There is an inherited organic
mechanism through the possession of which an animal
is fitted to perform certain more or less definite and
adaptive activities without learning, with little or no
practice (though even in these cases practice helps to
make perfect), through no teaching, by no imitation,
and without any individual experience on which intelli-
gent choice of the best mode of procedure could be
based. This is due to what may be termed conc/enital
automatism. On the other hand, there is an organic
mechanism which is gradually developed during the
individual lifetime, through the due co-ordination and
persistent repetition of certain selected activities. These
activities, by constant repetition, themselves become
automatic as habits. We may term the working of this
organic mechanism, which is thus developed during the
course of individual life, acquired automatism. The bio-
logical question is — Does the acquired automatism of one
generation contribute, through inheritance, to the con-
genital automatism of the next ?

There is still, however, the difficulty suggested but
not removed a few pages back, that after all an animal
can only acquire that for acquiring which it inherits a
potentiality; and that we must in any case, even when

26 Habit and Instinct,

individual acquisition is under consideration, come back
to heredity in the last resort. This is indubitably true;
and it shows that the more or less definite congenital
activities do not by any means exhaust the hereditary
possibilities. All that an animal owes to heredity may,
indeed, be classified under two heads. Under the first head
will fall those relatively definite modes of activity which
fit it to deal at once, on their first occurrence, with
certain essential or frequently recurring conditions of the
environment, and this forms the group here termed
" congenital." Under the second head will fall the power
of dealing with special circumstances as they arise, and
this we may term innate capacity. The former may be
likened to the inheritance of specific drafts for particular
and relatively definite purposes in the conduct of life ; the
latter may be likened to the inheritance of a legacy which
may be drawn upon for any purpose as need arises. If
the need become habitual, the animal may, so to speak,
instruct his banker to set aside a specific sum to meet this
need as often as it arises. But this arrangement is a
purely individual matter, and no wise dictated by the
terms of the bequest.

In this classification instinctive activities, as we pro-
pose to define them, fall under the first head. They
display some share of that hereditary definiteness which is
characteristic of what we have termed " congenital activi-
ties." It must be remembered, however, that, as already
mentioned, there is unfortunately no common and accepted
agreement so to define the term "instinctive." Professor
Wundt, indeed, divides instincts into two classes : (1) those
which are congenital, and (2) those which are acquired.
So that the distinction we are drawing will by no means
be accepted by him and his followers. Where opposing
views are in the field, it is necessary to carefully weigh the

Preliminary Definitions and Ilhistrations. 27

advantages and disadvantages of each, and to adopt one or
the other. I am quite convinced that, from the biological
point of view, it is more satisfactory to restrict the term
" instinctive " to those activities which are in greater or
less degree congenitally definite, and it is in this sense
that the phrase "instinctive activities" will be used in
this work. No doubt there are in many cases difficulties
of interpretation ; but these must be met as they arise in
the further prosecution of our studies.

It may be convenient to indicate the nature of the
suggested classification in tabular form : — •

Inhekited.

Congenitally definite activities, Innate capacity, involving (a) a
under which those termed " in- power of association, and (6)

stinctive" are comprised. hereditary susceptibilities to

pleasure and pain.

ACQUIEED.

(a) Confirmation, or Particular application of innate

(6) Modification, of congenitally capacity;

definite or instinctive activi- (a) Occasional and under special

ties so as to render them circumstances;

habitual by repetition. (6) Frequently repeated, with the

(c) Suppression of congenital ac- consequent formation of acquired

tivities. habits.

We may now sum up what has been advanced in the
foregoing discussion, and say that from the biological point
of view (and it is from this standpoint alone that they have
been so far considered) instincts are congenital, adaptive,
and co-ordinated activities of relative complexity, and
involving the behaviour of the organism as a whole. They
are not characteristic of individuals as such, but are
similarly performed by all like members of the same
more or less restricted group, under circumstances which
are either of frequent recurrence or are vitally essential
to the continuance of the race. While they are, broadly
speaking, constant in character, they are subject to

28 Habit and Instinct.

variation analogous to that found in organic structures.
They are often periodic in development and serial in
character. They are to be distinguished from habits
•which owe their definiteness to individual acquisition and
the repetition of individual performance.

( 29 )

CHAPTEE II.

SOME HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF YOUNG BIRDS.

Much stress has been laid, in the foregoing introductory
chapter, on the distinction between the definiteness
■which is congenital and the definiteness which is in-
dividually acq,uired. There would seem to be certain
activities the definite performance of which is antecedent
to individual experience, and these were termed in-
stinctive. There are others which reach definiteness only
through a process of learning, through the exercise of
intelligence, or through imitation, their definite per-
formance becoming more or less automatic and stereo-
typed by individual repetition, and these were termed
acquired. So far as our present inquiry is concerned, it
is on the definiteness that we must fix our attention.
And it is a matter for careful and unprejudiced observation
to decide whether the definiteness of behaviour, under
given circumstances, is congenital or acquired. This
question of fact may, for the present, be kept quite dis-
tinct from the question of origin. When some of the facts
have been given, it will be time to inquire whether the
congenital definiteness is due, on the one hand, to the
natural selection of slight congenital variations, or, on
the other hand, to the inheritance of the adaptive modifica-
tions which result from individual acquisition. But the
first thing is to collect facts observed with all possible
accuracy.

30 Habit and Instinct.

Nor need we trouble ourselves much at present — not
otherwise, that is to say, than incidentally — with the
subjective interpretation of the facts. We need not now
stay to inquire whether, on the one hand, the performance
of a truly instinctive activity — one the definiteness of
which is congenital — is a merely organic response (be it
accompanied by consciousness or not) ; or whether, on
the other hand, there are innate ideas or inherited
memories by virtue of which consciousness guides or
directs the activity into a definite channel. This question
is closely connected with that of origin, inherited memory
and inherited acquisition being often associated in one
interpretation of the facts — that adopted by those who
may be termed transmissionists. This again is a matter
the discussion of which may be profitably deferred.

We have to concentrate our attention, then, on the facts
established by careful and critical observation, and it will
be convenient for many reasons to limit our field at first to
the readily observable habits and instincts of young birds.
Since they are easily hatched in an incubator so that all
maternal influence is avoided ; and since many of them
are active soon after birth ; since, too, certain species can
be reared without serious difficulty, and subjected to con-
ditions which are pretty well under control ; — ^on all these
grounds they afford satisfactory material for the investiga-
tion with which we are now concerned.

Studies of the domestic chick have been made by several
observers, notably by Douglas Spalding,* by Professor
Preyer,t by Professor Eimer,| and more recently by Dr.
Wesley Mills. § Spalding's observations have been widely

* Macmillan's Magazine, February, 1873, vol. xxvii., " Instinct."

t " The Mind of the Child," part i., "The Senses and the Will," 2nd ed.,
1884, Bng. trans., by H. "VV. Brown.

X " Organic Evolution," pp. 245-254, Eng. trans,, by J. T. Cunningham,
1890.

§ Transaotions B. 8. Canada, sect, iv., 1895, p. 249.

Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 31

quoted, but in some cases their accuracy has not been
confirmed by later observers.

The eggs from which the subjects of my own investiga-
tion were hatched were either artificially incubated from
the first, or were transferred from the hen to the incubator
a few days before they were timed to emerge, so that in no
case was the behaviour of the young influenced by older
birds. They were kept under observation in a small pen
or enclosure surrounded by wire netting, or in a room set
aside for that purpose, and were occasionally allowed the
run of a little garden plot.

Previous to hatching, the little fellows may often be
heard chirping within the egg. Young moorhens do so
in some cases for as much as forty-eight hours, and
ducklings as much as twenty-four hours before they
finally emerge, and this in the case of strong and
healthy birds. The beak must then have pierced the
air-chamber within the egg, and direct air-breathing
must have taken the place of embryonic respiration.
The eggshell, when they thus begin to chirp within it,
is generally, but not always, broken or chipped at one
point of its surface. This chirping is a truly congenital
activity, and has not to be learnt. One young moorhen,
lying silent in the chipped shell, responded by chirping
to my low whistle. So that even then they can hear,
or at any rate are influenced by an auditory stimulus.
Mr. Hudson, referring to "several species in three widely
separated orders," tells us* that, according to his observa-
tions, "when the little prisoner is hammering at its shell,
and uttering its feeble feef, as if begging to be let out,
if the warning note is uttered, even at a considerable
distance, the strokes and complaining instantly cease, and
the chick will then remain quiescent in the shell for a
* "Naturalist in La Plata," 1892, p. 90.

32 Habit and Instinct.

long time, or until the parent, by a changed note, conveys
to it an intimation that the danger is over." Here we
have a remarkable connate response to definite stimulus.

In some cases the shell is finally rent by the struggles
of the little bird, in whom air-breathing probably provokes
increased activity. But some birds, ducks for example,
chip the egg along a circle near the broad end. When
they emerge, the down is wet and draggled in appearance,
and the little new-born things are comparatively helpless for
some hours, having, as a rule, little power to hold up their
heads, and none to stand firmly. I noticed that newly
hatched plovers lay in the drawer with bill on the ground
and outstretched neck in a well-known protective attitude.
Like the eggs, they assimilate well in colour with their
natural surroundings. Some young moorhens, hatched
out in a drawer lined with cotton-wool, had taken a good
deal into their beaks during the first five or six hours — so
much, indeed, that in one case it was in some danger of
choking.

There would seem to be some instinctive shrinking from
one's hand when the birds are for the first time taken from
the drawer after hatching, and this seems to be the more
marked the longer they have been left to recover from the
shock of birth. There was, however, little sign of shrink-
ing in plovers or lapwings. Chicks and ducklings lie quiet
longer than partridges and pheasants, which soon begin
to move about. Any instinctive fear which they may
show soon passes by, and after a very little experience
they come to the hand instead of shrinking from it. Still,
we may probably regard the shrinking as congenital, but
more marked at a slightly deferred period of life. And
perhaps there may be in this a special adaptation. The
hen, for example, is a somewhat fussy being, and, in the
absence of any instinctive knowledge of her as their

Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 33

natural protector (for it is probable that there is no such
instinctive knowledge), very strong connate shrinking on
the part of the chicks would lead them rather to avoid her
than to submit to her ministrations. Hence it comes that
the young birds accommodate themselves to a foster-parent
even so strange as a human being, if he take them in hand
early enough. There is also from the first an instinctive
tendency to nestle into any warm, soft place. When there
are several little birds in the incubator drawer, they cuddle
together and burrow under each other in a very comical
manner. And when one has older and younger birds, the
little ones get in under and between the legs of their
seniors in a way that appears to be somewhat embarrassing
to the latter. This was, for example, especially notable
with two recently hatched moorhens, which persistently
tried to cuddle down under the lanky legs of two older
birds of the same species. So, too, in a mixed brood of
several species I had under observation, a little guinea-
fowl and a still younger pheasant tried to cuddle down
under a wild duck and a tame duck, a day or two older
than themselves, with a touching confidence that was not
at all appreciated by the greedy ducklings, eager only for
food. Dr. Mills introduced to his chicks two pigeons (a
white pouter, and a black owl), to test whether the chicks
would show any instinctive fear. Not at all ; the little
birds nestled under them !

This instinctive action is, of course, under nature, in
adaptation to the corresponding instinctive behaviour of
the mother-bird, who takes them under her wing. But
with hand-reared birds the instinctive tendency acquires
a new direction, and undergoes modification. Chicks,
pheasants, partridges, plovers, moorhens, and other young
birds, whether wild by nature or of domesticated breeds,
would all run to my hands, after a very short time,

Habit and Instinct.

nestle down between them, and poke out their little heads
confidingly between my fingers. Here, then, there is a
congenital and instinctive tendency, to nestle in any warm
place, modified in accordance with acquired individual
experience. It was pretty to see three little partridges,
two French and one English, following me about the room
wherever I went. And when the instinctive tendency is
thus modified, its natural end seems to lapse ; for chicks
even a few days old seem to have completely lost any
instinctive tendency they may have possessed to run to
and cuddle under the hen. As to the existence of any
such instinctive response to the sight of the hen, or to
her clucking, there is difference of opinion.

Spalding describes * how a chick, which had been
blindfolded at birth, was placed, twenty minutes after it
had been unhooded, "on rough ground, within sight
and call of a hen with a brood of its own age. After
standing chirping for about a minute, it started off towards
the hen, displaying as keen a perception of the qualities
of the outer world as it was ever likely to possess in after-
life. It never required to knock its head against a stone
to discover that there was ' no road that way.' It leaped
over the smaller obstacles that lay in its path, and ran
round the larger, reaching the mother in as nearly straight
a line as the nature of the ground would permit. This,
let it be remembered, was the first time it had ever walked
by sight."

Other chicks, which had been placed in a bag imme-
diately they were hatched and kept there for a day or
two, ran eagerly to the clucking of a hen hidden from
their view in a box nine or ten feet distant. This ob-
servation was repeated on nine different chicks. But
Spalding draws our attention to the fact that this

* ioo. cit, p. 289.

Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 35

instinctive response to a specialized auditory stimulus
was completely lost at the end of ten or twelve days.

The results of my own observations may now be briefly
described. I took two chicks ten days old to the yard
whence I had received the eggs from which they had been
hatched, and opened the basket wherein they had been
conveyed, about two yards from a hen which was clucking
to her brood. Though they were not in a frightened cour
dition, as shown by the fact that they jumped on my hand
and ate grain off it, scratching at my palm, they took
no notice whatever of the clucking of the hen. I then
placed them with another hen in a small fowl-house ; but
they took little heed of her, neither running to her nor
seeming frightened, or, if at all, but little. Three other
chicks were taken when they were thirteen days old to the
yard, and were put down outside a fowl-house in which
a hen was clucking to her brood. They also took no
notice of the sound, but scratched about quite uncon-
cernedly. Subsequently they were placed with the hen,
who seemed inclined at first to drive them away, but
afterwards looked more kindly on them, though they did
not keep close to her like the others. I went over on the
following day, and when I bent down and held out' my
hand, one of my little friends ran to it and nestled down
confidingly. So far my observations confirm what Spal-
ding says concerning the loss of the instinctive response,
or, at any rate, its absence after the lapse of a few
days. But the following case shows that the instinc-
tive recognition of the hen, if indeed it exist at all, is
very soon lost. I took a chick at two and a half days
old (that is to say, at about the same age as Spalding's
birds) to its own mother, which had three chicks. These
followed her about, and ran at once to her when she
clucked and pecked on the ground. The little stranger

o

6 Habit and Instinct.

took no notice whatever of the clucking of its, till then
unknown, mother, and did not show any tendency either
to go to the hen or to follow the three chicks. He pecked
about independently and unconcernedly, eating grain,
and seizing small stones, but came to my hand when I
held it out towards him, and cuddled down in it. When
the hen took her three chicks under her wing, the stranger
was placed close to her. She clucked and seemed anxious
to entice and welcome the little fellow, seizing an oat-
husk and dropping it before the chick, which, however,
took no notice whatever, but walked away and stood in
the sun. After about forty minutes he seemed more
inclined to go with the other chicks, but still ignored the
existence of the hen. Thus I have not found any truly
instinctive response to the clucking of a hen ; but, as
before noticed, Spalding recorded a different result. And
Mr. Hudson's observations on the effects of warning notes
on unhatched birds indicate a truly congenital response in
their case. We need more evidence.

We may now turn to the instinct of pecking, and the

congenital definiteness of orderly movements which it

involves. As the observations of Spalding, Eimer, Preyer,

and others have conclusively proved, the pecking at grain

and other small objects is a definitely congenital activity,

and one, be it noted, which involves remarkable nicety and

complexity of co-ordination. The aim is, however, seldom

quite correct at first, though very nearly so, the object,

if not struck, being only just missed, though the accuracy

was somewhat exaggerated by Spalding. In some cases

the tendency seems to strike a little short of the object.

Moving the grain or egg-fragments with a pin, or dropping

some before the chick, causes the edible material more

readily to catch the eye. Most noteworthy is the fact

that the young birds only strike at objects which are

Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 37

-well within striking distance; they have not to learn
this distance by experience. To peck at an object of a
■certain size, just within easy reach, is a definitely con-
genital response, and not the result of acquired skill. In
nearly all cases, as one might expect, the simpler process
of striking is more accurate than the more complicated
process of striking and seizing ; and this, again, than the
yet more elaborate process of striking, seizing, and
swallowing. Nevertheless, this yet more complicated
activity, or train of activities, is performed so soon, and
with so few trials — often at the third or fourth attempt —
that one must regard the whole as essentially congenital
in its definiteness, and look upon the few preparatory efforts
as merely the steadying of the inherited organic apparatus
to its work.

Of the birds which I have had under observation,
partridges, both English and French, pecked earlier and
with better aim than any others, but soon desisted if what
they pecked at was not satisfactory. Plovers (my observa-
tions were on the common peewit or lapwing) were slow
to peck, and their co-ordination seemed relatively poor.
Chicks and guinea-fowl were about on a par ; pheasants
somewhat less keen. Ducklings-^those of wild ducks and
tame ducks being, so far as I could note, equal in this
respect — peck early and with fair aim, but they do not
seize and swallow so readily. They mumble what they
seize, and often shake it out of the bill unswallowed.
Moorhens show a somewhat different instinctive tendency.
From the first they crouch down with the head and neck
held back, and the skinny little wings working to and
fro ; in this attitude they open their beaks more like the
callow young of jackdaws or other nursling birds than
;the young of fowls or pheasants. They soon strike, how-
ever, with fair accuracy of aim, at objects held above them ;

38 Habit and Instinct.

but it is some time before they will pick up food from the
ground. I tried with two moorhens the experiment of
feeding them as little as possible from the hand, so as
to induce them to eat independently, but with fatal
results. Mr. Crisp, who has had good opportunities of
watching these birds under natural conditions in the moat
beneath the walls of Playford Hall, in Suffolk, informs
me that the parent birds always feed the young from their
beaks during the first few days of life. The instinctive
attitude quite bears out the accuracy of this observation.

"When they are a little older, and have had some
practice, their keenness of eye, both at long and short
distances, and their accuracy of aim are alike wonderful.
One, about ten days old, after nestling awhile in my hand,
singled out and seized in his bill several not very con-
spicuous hairs on the first joint of my fore-finger. There
was also a speck of white on my hand, which caught his
eye, and at which he pecked with complete accuracy of
aim again and again. A few days after, one pecked at
a minute black speck on my hand, though it was but a
quarter of an inch from the tip of his bill. Shortly after-
wards, in the garden, he spied a small ant moving on the
wall about four feet distant, ran, and seized it. The field
of vision is very soon completely ordered for practical use.

I took a young pheasant, which had been hatched some
time in the night, from the incubator drawer at nine
o'clock in the morning. He was very unsteady on his
legs, so I held him in my hand, and tried to induce him to
peck at a piece of egg-yolk held in a pair of forceps.
He did not do so ; but he followed, with his head, every
movement of the object in a narrow circle about two
inches in front of his beak. Simple as the action seems,
it shows a striking example of congenital co-ordinated
movements accurately related to movements in the visual

Ciome Mabits and Instincts of Young Birds. 39

field, the whole performed without any possibility of
learning or practice, and less than half an hour after the
bird had first seen the light of day. On the other hand,
two nestling jays, brought to me when they were about ten
days old, were quite unable to follow in this way food
moved slowly over their heads. They merely gaped for it
to be put into their mouths. When they began, after a
day or two, to follow an object with the head and eye,
the movements were at first jerky. In a week, when I
swept the food through a circle a foot in diameter in
front of their cage, it was followed smoothly and evenly.
It was curious to see the two jays following it thus, their
heads moving in unison through a small circle corre-
sponding to my wider sweep. Here a certain amount of
individual learning and practice, absent in the case of the
pheasant, was required.

Chicks, pheasants, and other birds which are active
shortly after birth may be induced to peck by tapping on
the ground with the finger-nail, a pencil, or penholder, thus
simulating the pecking action of the hen, and may thus be
induced to seize objects which they would otherwise leave
untouched. Mr. S. E. Peal* states that the Assamese,
when they find newly hatched pheasant chicks in the
jungle, teach the little ones to peck and pick up food by
sharply tapping among the crushed rice and egg on which
they feed them, and say that without this many of them
would die. Professor Claypole informs me, on the
authority of a friend who had practical experience, that
young ostriches hatched in the incubator will not pick
up food for themselves unless the ground be tapped so
as to suggest the action of pecking. But on young
moorhens this has no effect, and I could not find much
response, if any, in plovers.

* Nature, April 9, 1895.

40 Habit and Instinct.

The facts above noted possibly gave origin to the
supposition to which Darwin gave his support,* that peck-
ing is, in young chicks, primarily suggested through the
sound of pecking. But both Spalding and Professor Preyer
showed t that sound does not necessarily play any part in
initiating the pecking activity. And my own observations
fully confirm theirs. It is apparently the sight of the
artificial pecking, and the movement thus caused among
the grains of food, rather than any sound made, that has
suggestive value.

With regard to the objects at which domestic chicks
peck, in the absence of any parental guidance, one may
say that they strike at first with perfect impartiality at
anything of suitable size ; grain, small stones, bread-
crumbs, chopped-up wax matches, currants, bits of paper,
buttons, beads, cigarette-ash and ends, their own toes and
those of their companions, maggots, bits of thread, specks
on the floor, their neighbours' eyes — anything and every-
thing, not too large, that can or cannot be seized is pecked
at, and, if possible, tested in the bill. Similarly with
young pheasants, guinea-fowl, and moorhens. I watched
the latter for an hour the second or third time they were
put out in my little garden. They j)ecked at everything of
suitable size they could lay bill on. There does not seem
to be any congenital discrimination between nutritious and
innutritions objects, or between those which are nice and
those which are nasty. This is a matter of individual
acquisition. They soon learn, however, what is good for
eating, and what is unpleasant, and rapidly associate the
appearance with the taste. A young chick two days old,
for example, had learnt to pick out pieces of yolk from

* "Expression of the Emotions," 1st edit., 1872, p. 47. On the authority
of Mowbray.

t Of. oil., pp. 237, 238.

Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 41

others of -white of egg. I cut Httle bits of orange-peel of
about the same size as the pieces of yolk, and one of these
was soon seized, but at once relinquished, the chick
shaking his head. Seizing another, he held it for a
moment in the bill, but then dropped it and scratched at
the base of his beak. That was enough ; he could not
again be induced to seize a piece of orange-peel. The
obnoxious material was now removed, and pieces of yolk
of egg substituted, but they were left untouched, being
probably taken for orange-peel. Subsequently, he looked
at the yolk with hesitation, but presently pecked doubt-
fully, not seizing, but merely touching. Then he pecked
again, seized, and swallowed.

To some other chicks I threw cinnabar larvse, distasteful
caterpillars conspicuous by alternate rings of black and
golden-yellow. They were seized at once, but dropped
uninjured ; the chicks wiped their bills — a sign of distaste
— and seldom touched the caterpillars a second time. The
cinnabar larvse were then removed, and thrown in again
towards the close of the day. Some of the chicks tried
them once, but they were soon left. The next day the
young birds were, given brown loopers and green cabbage-
moth caterpillars. These were approached with some
suspicion, but presently one chick ran off with a looper,
and was followed by others, one of which stole and ate
it. In a few minutes all the caterpillars were cleared off.
Later in the day they were given some more of these edible
caterpillars, which were eaten freely; and then some
cinnabar larvae. One chick ran, but checked himself, and,
without touching the caterpillar, wiped his bill— a memory
of the nasty taste being apparently suggested by association
at sight of the yellow-and-black caterpillar. Another
seized one, and dropped it at once. A third subsequently
approached a cinnabar as it crawled along, gave the danger

42 Habit and Instinct.

note, and ran off. Then I threw in more edible cater-
pillars, ■which again were eaten freely. The chicks had
thus learnt to discriminate by sight between the nice and
the nasty caterpillars. Similarly, moorhen chicks rapidly
discriminated between small edible beetles and soldier
beetles. Such discrimination is, however, not congenital,
but acquired. The young birds do not for some little time
avoid pecking at their own fresh excrement, though this is
obviously distasteful.

The cinnabar caterpillars are, as I have said, con-
spicuously marked with alternate yellow and black rings.
It would seem that the end of this conspicuousness is to
render association in the individual experience of young
birds more rapid and more certain ; there does not appear
to be any congenital and instinctive avoidance of such
caterpillars with warning colours. Young moorhens
found the conspicuously marked burnet moth distasteful,
the obnoxious part being the wings, for the body from
which the wings were removed was eaten with apparent
relish, while the severed wings were rejected with evident
signs of distaste. I was desirous of ascertaining whether
the different appearance of brandlings (Lumbricus fatidus)
and other small worms was sufficient to enable the moor-
hens to distinguish them, but this was apparently not the
case. The experiment showed, however, the marked in-
fluence of the first experience. For the moorhen which was
given a brandling first was long before he would touch any
worm, while that which was given a brandling after several
less highly flavoured worms, though he was rendered a
little suspicious for a time, picked up each cautiously and
rejected or swallowed it according to the taste. A few days
later, however, both moorhens would eat brandlings when
they were hungry.

My observations with regard to the effects of giving

Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 43

to young birds distasteful insects were made solely with
a view to ascertain whether there was any instinctive
avoidance on the part of the birds. Of this I have not
found a single instance. Cinnabar caterpillars {Euclielia
jacoUce) were tried and avoided after a few trials by all
the birds on which I have made observations, though one
hungry jay ate five in succession, never again eating
another, though he had frequent opportunities. The
brown pupee of this moth were eaten by jays with apparent
relish. All avoided large woolly-bear caterpillars {Arctic
caja) ; but whereas jays, ducks, and moorhens ate small
caterpillars of the wood tiger moth {Nemeophila plantaginis)
and the cream-spot tiger moth (Chelonia villica), the
chicks, pheasants, and guinea-fowl to which they were
given found them distasteful. Jays ate freely the pupae
of the currant moth {Abraxas grossulariata), but on the
following day took them less readily, and with some
wiping of the bill. One of the jays also ate the large
larva of the buff-tip moth {Phalera hucephala), which the
other jay rejected, as did ducklings and chicks. After
wiping it to and fro across his perch, he tore it, eating
the inside with apparent relish, and leaving the skin for
a time. This he subsequently swallowed. Two days
later he ate another in the same manner. Moorhens, as
already mentioned, found the wings of the burnet moth
(Zygmna Jilipenclulm) distasteful. Soldier beetles and
ladybirds were invariably tested, and avoided as the
result of experience. The net result of these observations
is that, in the absence of parental guidance, the young
birds have to learn for themselves what is good to eat and
what is distasteful, and have no instinctive aversions.*
I am not, of course, prepared to say that m no case
* My thanks are due to Mr. G. C. Griffiths for kindly sending me larvae
and pnpa3.

44 Habit and Instinct.

is there such instinctive aversion. A far more extended
series of observations is needed to justify such a sweeping
assertion. The birds on which the observations were made
have, under natural conditions, parents who certainly afford
them some guidance in the matter of feeding. Such guidance
would in some degree prevent the incidence of natural
selection, and would diminish the elimination of those
which, without such guidance, might eat to their destruc-
tion. There are, however, birds, like the megapodes, which
are hatched out in mounds apart from parental influence,
and never know a mother's care. They may show instinctive
avoidances which our well-car ed-for birds do not possess.

That the parent bird does in most cases afford guidance
is unquestionable. And there seems to be an instinctive
tendency on the part of the young to wait upon her bill, or
rather upon any bill. I have observed a young pheasant and
a young guinea-fowl following ducklings, and apparently
waiting for the help that did not come ; for the bird that
waited for anything eatable from a duckling's voracious
beak would assuredly wait in vain. Still, the ducklings are
untidy feeders, and grains of meal would adhere near the
base of the beak ; and these the guinea-fowl would pick off
with care, till — and this was soon the case — he grew to be
independent.

There does not seem to be any marked instinctive
response to the sight of water as such. Prof. Eimer *
placed on a board a large drop of water. At first his
chicks took no notice of it ; but when it was made to
tremble by shaking the board, one of the birds imme-
diately drank from it with perfect success in the well-
known fashion of adult fowls. Spalding says t that his

» Op. cit, pp. 247, 248.

t Macmillan's Magazine, February, 1873, p. 288. Cp. Darwin as quoted
in " Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 229.

Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 45

chicks, though thirsty, did not recognize water by sight,
" except, perhaps, in the form of dew-drops on the grass ;
and they had, to some extent, to learn to drink. . . .
They pecked at the water, or rather at specks in the water,
or at the edge of the water." Dr. Mills says,* "When water
is presented to the chicks they peck at some drops on the
side of the tin containing the water, and accidentally get
the beak into the water, when drinking follows." I set
before my chicks a shallow vessel containing water.
Several of them ran repeatedly through the tin, but took no
notice of its contents. Then, after about an hour, one of
them standing in the vessel pecked at its toes, and at once
lifted its head and drank freely with characteristic action.
Another subsequently pecked at a bubble near the brim,
and then drank. The touch of water in the bill at once
led to the characteristic responsive and congenitally definite
action. I found, indeed, that the best way of inducing them
to drink was to place some grains of food in the tin of
water. They then pecked at the food, and incidentally dis-
covered the nature of water. As an example of the associa-
tion on which the intelligent procedure of animals is so
largely founded, it may be worth noting that a chick which
had drunk but once while he was standing in the shallow
tin, a little later ran through the water, and then stopped
to drink. Wet feet seemed to have suggestive value through
association in previous experience.

Ducklings showed no more instinctive acquaintance
with the nature of water than chickens. They walked
several times through the water, but took no heed of it. On
dipping the beak of one of them beneath the surface, it
then drank repeatedly, shovelling up the water with
characteristic action. Its companion subsequently imitated
its behaviour, and then drank freely. Pheasants, too,
* Tram. B. 8. Canada, Sect, iv., 1895, p. 250.

46 Habit and Instmct.

seemed to take no heed of water in a shallow vessel. They
pecked, however, at drops on my finger-tip, or on the end
of a toothpick, and for long preferred to take it in this way
to drinking from the vessel. Presumably in the natural
f5tate they depend largely for water on the dew-drops that
bead the vegetation. Moorhen chicks liked to take water
from my finger-tips. But when they were dipped in a
bath, by holding them in the hand and gradually sub-
merging the palm, as soon as the water reached the bird's
body he bent down his head and drank.

It has already been noted that if food is moved about
before newly hatched birds, it more readily catches their
eye. The hen, as we may see in any poultry-yard,
lifts and drops before her chicks the grain or other food
which she wishes them to eat. Moving insects, grubs, or
caterpillars more readily attract their attention than
objects which are still, and if small are struck at. A
chick a day or so old will catch a running fly at from the
seventh to the twelfth shot. Pheasants are quite as sharp ;
but ducklings do not catch running flies so readily, per-
haps because they do not walk so well. Even protective
coloration is of little value if there is movement, so sharp
are the eyes of young birds. The caterpillar of the small
white butterfly {Pieris rapas) on a nasturtium leaf, with
which its clear green colour assimilated well, was picked
off by a moorhen chick the moment it moved its head.
Eeeently hatched stick insects (Diapheromera femorata),
which Professor Poulton gave me, were snapped off the
lime leaves directly they moved. As in the case of palatable
and distasteful insects respectively, there does not seem to
be any instinctive differentiation of response according as
the insects are armed with stings or not. That is a matter
of individual acquisition.

The following, however, is an account of one of

Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 47

Spalding's observations : " A chicken that had been made
the subject of experiments on hearing (having been bhnd-
folded at birth) was unhooded when nearly three days
old. For six minutes it sat chirping and looking about it ;
at the end of that time it followed with its eyes the move-
ments of a fly twelve inches distant; at ten minutes it
made a peck at its own toes, and the next instant it made
a vigorous dart at the fly, which had come within reach of
its neck, and seized and swallowed it at the first stroke ;
for seven minutes more it sat calling and looking about it,
when a hive-bee, coming sufficiently near, was seized at a
dart, and thrown some distance much disabled." He also
states that a duckling one day old caught a fly on the
wing.

First, with regard to the accuracy of aim shown in these
observations, I cannot but think that such success in
catching flying insects at the very first shot is unusual ! In
any case, my own observations tell a different tale. During
their third, and again on their fifth and sixth day of life
special experiments were made with a view to testing this
point. Two or three flies were placed under a tumbler in
a good light. The birds pecked at them as seen through
the glass. One by one, they were then allowed to escape.
The chicks made a dash at each in turn, but never
succeeded in catching any on the wing, though they caught
one or two as they crawled out, before they had taken
flight. I tried also with tumblers covered with cardboard
lids, which could be removed when the birds had seen the
insects and were eager to seize them. It may be said
that the conditions were unnatural, and did not give the
birds the best possible chance. But I have watched chicks,
ducklings, pheasants, guinea-fowl, and moorhens strike
repeatedly at flies buzzing round them or flying near them
in the open air, and have never yet seen one caught on

48 Habit and Instinct.

the wing by a bird younger than ten days or a fortnight.
The wild duck, tame duck, and chick I had, together with
other birds, in a room, dashed repeatedly at flies which
settled on the floor. The wild duck caught one for the first
time when it was seven days old ; the chick succeeded
when he was nine days old. I never saw the tame duck
successful. Nor have I ever seen a chick, pheasant, or
duckling, when only two or three days old, catch at the
first shot, even a running fly — one, that is to say, the
wings of which had been clipped. I must therefore repeat
that young birds in my experience do not show that
congenital accuracy of aim which Spalding's observation
implies ; hence his results, until they are confirmed by
other observers, must, in my opinion, be regarded as
unusual and tending to give an exaggerated view of the
inherited skill.

Secondly, with regard to the difference of behaviour
towards the fly which was swallowed, and the bee which
was thrown aside disabled. The implication is that there
is an instinctive discrimination between the edible fly and
the hurtful bee, and that, too, when these insects were on
the wing. It is possible that the buzzing of the bee made
the difference in the behaviour in the two cases ; but all
my own observations are against the view that there is any
truly congenital power of discrimination. This, however,
was not Spalding's view. He regarded a fear of bees as
instinctive, but only imperfectly so, by which it would
seem that he meant that it had not yet reached the stage
of infallible avoidance. To quote his own words, "the
chicks were uncertain, shy, and suspicious." It may
be well, however, to give the whole passage. " When a
week old, my turkey came on a bee right in its path — the
first, I believe, it had ever seen. It gave the danger chirr,
stood a few seconds with outstretched neck and marked

Some Habits and Instincts of Voting Birds. 49

-expression of fear, and then turned off in another direction.
On this hint, I made a vast number of experiments with
chickens and bees. In the great majority of instances the
chickens gave evidence of instinctive fear of these sting-
bearing insects, but the results were not uniform, and
perhaps the most accurate general statement I can give is
that they were uncertain, shy, and suspicious." Now, here,
so far as observation goes, I am able to confirm the facts as
thus generalized, but I differ from Spalding in their inter-
pretation. As I understand him, the shyness and sus-
piciousness were of bees as such, there being an imperfect
congenital avoidance of this dangerous insect because it was
instinctively recognized as dangerous. My own observa-
tions lead me rather to the following conclusions : First,
that there is a congenital differentiation of response
according as the moving objects, or even freshly introduced
inanimate objects, are large or small ; in other words, that
there is some congenital " shyness and suspiciousness " of
nny largish thing moving towards them or thrown to them.
But, secondly, that this becomes very much more marked
through individual experience. For example, a young
chick a day or so old which will peck at a small fly held in
a pair of fine forceps, will hesitate and shrink from a large
bluebottle held thus, especially if it buzzes ; while a little
bird which will run eagerly to small bits of a chopped-up
match, will shrink away from a whole " Bryant and May ; "
and in these cases there has been but little experience by
which the difference of behaviour could be guided. I
have seen half a dozen chicks, on their fourth day of active
life, uttering the danger note round a large carabus beetle
which lay sprawling on its back, and though one chick at
last pecked at it with a little dash, and threw it on one
side, after this neither he nor any of the others dare go
near it. There can be no question, however, that such

50 Habit and Instinct.

differences are emphasized through experience. A large
fly with clipped wings was thrown among some two-days-
old chicks. Only one dared approach it, and he gave the
danger note. Presently, however, he followed and caught
it, after several failures. Shortly afterwards another was
given them; the one who had learnt by experience that
the fly was harmless and nice to eat ran and caught it at
the second shot. "While small worms are picked up with
avidity, large worms are left alone by quite young birds,
and often evoke the alarm note. None of the chicks on
their fifth day dared go near a particularly large worm.
Bits of red-brown worsted, somewhat resembling worms,
were seized with eagerness and eaten with surprising
avidity, so long as they were not more than a couple
of inches long. Of a four-inch bit the chicks were afraid,
until one, bolder than the rest, seized it, whereupon
the others chased him for the prize till he escaped to a
secluded corner and swallowed it. On their eighth day the
chicks stood timidly round a lump of sugar I had thrown in
among them, uttering the danger note, and then ran at it,
pecking rapidly and withdrawing in haste. Young moor-
hens were at first shy of large worms, but soon ate the
biggest I could find. A little pheasant which would run to
my hand for wasp larvse placed upon the palm, one
morning gave the alarm note, and would not as usual jump
upon my fingers. Four or five of the grubs had stuck
together so as to form a large mass of which he was afraid!
Moorhen chicks were at first afraid of the common yellow
underwing moth and of the gammaimoth, though both were
eaten freely after I had given them dead moths.

No doubt the response to the sight of a moving
object may look at first blush like instinctive recogni-
tion. Plovers seized small worms with an avidity which
looked like an inherited recognition of natural food, but of

Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 51

somewhat larger worms they seemed afraid. And my
belief is that the instinctive response is not to a worm,
as such, but to a small moving object, — a larger moving
object evoking a quite different response.

Pheasants and partridges, when they seized a worm for
the first time, shook it and dashed it against the ground ;
one of them did so, indeed, with such vigour that he shook
himself over, and thereafter could not for some time be in-
duced so much as to look at a worm. They also, even more
markedly than chicks, showed a tendency to bolt with such
a treasure as a caterpillar or a worm. This was marked
in the case of two pheasants, one much larger than the
other, though of the same age ; for though the smaller one
never attempted to rob his larger companion of a worm
or insect, yet the latter always bolted off to some little
distance with it. He sometimes tried to bolt with one of
his companion's toes by mistake, when one or both would
topple over. These modes of behaviour appear to be
congenital.

Very interesting is Spalding's observation of the special
manner of catching flies adopted by the young turkey, for it
would seem to bear all the distinguishing marks of a truly
instinctive activity. " When not a day and a half old,"
he says, "I observed the young turkey slowly pointing its
beak at flies and other small insects without actually
pecking at them. In doing this its head could be seen to
shake like a hand that is attempted to be held steady by a
visible effort. This I observed and recorded when I did
not understand its meaning. For it was not until after
that I found it to be the invariable habit of the turkey,
when it sees a fly settled on any object, to steal on
the unwary insect with slow and measured step until
sufficiently near, when it advances its head very slowly
and steadily till within an inch or so of its prey, which

52 Habit and Instinct.

is then seized by a sudden dart." Further observations
are needed on the behaviour of turkeys to larger insects
and to bees.

Eeturning now to bees, I have not a single instance of
their avoidance by young birds from anything like in-
stinctive knowledge of their hurtful nature. Here is
some of the evidence. To some five-days old chicks, one
of which, bolder than the rest, would eat large flies with
relish, I threw in a bee. Most of the chicks were afraid,
as they were of large flies. The bolder chick, however,
snapped it up and ran off with it. Then he dropped it
and shook his head, wiping his bill. Probably he tasted
the poison, and was not stung ; in any case, he was quite
lively and unconcerned in a few minutes ; but he did not
touch the bee again. Later in the day I put beneath a
tumbler a large fly and a small humble-bee with a sting.
Two of the chicks ran round the tumbler, pecking at the
insects. I let the bee escape. The bolder chick seized it,
dashed it against the ground, and swallowed it without
hesitation. To another group of chicks I first gave hive
bees, which were seized, but soon let alone, and then the
droneflies (Eristalis), which so closely mimic the hive bee.
They were left untouched. Their resemblance to the bees
was protective. Later I gave drone flies again, and
induced a chick to seize one by pecking at it with my
pencil. He ran off with it, chased by others. It was taken
from him and swallowed. The other drone flies were then
left untouched, but one was subsequently eaten. Older
chicks run with a dart at a humble-bee, or a large beetle,
dash it rapidly on the ground, and throw it aside disabled.
But they will do just the same with a largish pellet of
brown paper. The mode of behaviour is congenital ; but the
object that calls it forth does not appear to be recognized
by anything like inherited memory. To some ducklings

Some Habits and Instincts of Younz Birds.

a bee was given; one of them seized and swallowed
it and perhaps was stung. He kept on scratching his
beak, first on one side, then on the other, and seemed
uneasy, but was all right again in half an hour, though he
did not seem keen after another offered to him ; nor would
he take any notice of a drone fly. Two or three days
later, however, he took a disabled humble-bee to the
water, mumbled it there for a while, and then ate it.
My experience with moorhen chicks is of a similar
character. On giving a humble-bee to two of them one
seemed shy of it ; the other ate it eagerly. Later, when
they were a fortnight old, I threw them two bees, which
were seized at once and without hesitation, and shaken
violently. One of the birds was probably stung, for he
shook his head, scratched the base of his bill, and went
again and again to the water and drank. He was all
right in about three-quarters of an hour, but for about
that time scolded a good deal. The other ate his bee
without any ill effects. A day or two after they were
given a humble-bee, from which the sting had been removed,
but the bird that had been stung would not go near the
insect ; the other seized and ate it. The next day two
drone flies were given to them. The stung bird would not
go near them ; the other ate both. He subsequently ate one
of the flies (Volucella), which mimics the wasp ; there was
no sign of instinctive avoidance. I experimented one day,
after testing that his avoidance of cinnabar larva still
held good, by giving him a wasp from which the sting had
removed, being desirous to see whether the black and
yellow of the wasp suggested the nastiness associated with
the black and yellow of the cinnabar. But it was not so ;
the wasp was snapped up and eaten.

I have not, in any one instance, found any instinctive
avoidance of wasps. The sting was usually removed before

54 Habit and Instinct.

the experiment. But several young wasps having crawled
out of a nest containing larvae and pups, and having
fallen on to the floor, where a wild duck, a tame duck,
a chick, a guinea-fowl, and a pheasant were roaming in
search of food, the ducks at once snapped them up
and ate them. All except the pheasant (which would
not touch even largish flies) subsequently ate a large
number of the sleepy wasps, and seemed to enjoy them.
The jays also ate several, crushing them to a pulp in the
extreme point of the bill before swallowing them.

It would be wearisome to recount at length further
observations, all pointing with sufficient definiteness to
one conclusion : namely, that, though there is at first
some congenital shyness of largish active, and especially
buzzing, insects, this shyness is not congenitally par-
ticularized, and, in the long run, acceptance or avoidance
is almost entirely due to the acquired results of indi-
vidual experience. It is therefore clear, if this conclusion
holds, that in experiments on the relative palatability
of insects or larvte with either warning or protective
coloration, we must not look for instinctive avoidance,
and that the results will largely depend on the nature of
the previous experience of the bird (and the same is
probably true of other animals) to which they are offered.
There are, of course, individual differences of apparently
a congenital kind. Some birds are constitutionally shyer
than others. Much also depends on the nature of initial
experience. A bird that has in early days seized a bee
with ill effects is shy for a long time, not only of bees, but
of moths, large flies, and beetles, while one which is so
stung at a later stage, is made, perhaps, a little more
cautious generally ; but the main effect is a particularized
one concerning bees or the bee-like drone fly. In several
cases I have noticed that the sting, or possibly a taste

come Mabits and Instincts of Young Birds. 55

of the poison, of the hive bee does not serve as a warning
against humble-bees so long as they do not buzz, but,
on the other hand, may give rise to the avoidance of even
a large fly if it makes a buzzing noise. Some difference
in the results in different animals may, perhaps, be due to
the fact that in some cases the bee, the bitter experience
of which gave the initial avoidance, buzzed, and in some
cases did not.

It seems, therefore, that the tendency to peck at small
objects, always within striking distance, is a congenital
and instinctive activity which involves great nicety and
no little complexity of motor co-ordination; that in
presence of largish moving objects there is hesitation, and
probably instinctive shyness and timidity ; that apart from
this there is no instinctive discrimination ; that what shall
be selected for eating and what rejected is a matter of
individual experience ; and that, by repetition of the ,
selective process, the eating of certain materials, and not
of others, passes into a more or less fixed habit.

I will conclude this chapter with a brief description
of a few observations made on nestling birds.

The callow young of these birds are fed by the parents,
either on grubs, worms, or insects, or other such food
which they collect, or on food which is prepared for them,
or in some cases formed by a special mode of secretion.
They simply open their mouths, gaping widely to be fed ;
but the swallowing reflex is congenitally adequate. A
spotted fly-catcher, about a day old, with eyes not yet open,
would stretch out its neck and widely gape its beak on the
auditory stimulus of a low whistle, gulping down greedily
the little bits of raw beef on which it was fed. Swallows
in the nest will respond at once to a low whistle by
similar gaping actions. The eyes of the fly-catcher were
not open till the third day after I received it. It was

56 Habit and Instinct.

placed in a small " chip " box lined with cotton-wool,
and kept in the corner of the incubator drawer. So soon
as it had taken a morsel or two of food at intervals of
about thirty to forty minutes, it would energetically
thrust its hind quarters over the edge of the box and
void its excrement. Jays and other young nestlings
also show this instinctive procedure, which prevents their
"fouling their own nest." The excrement is enclosed
in a sort of skin, and can be lifted with a pair of forceps
without breaking this pellicle. The old birds in many
cases carry away the excrement in the bill, and drop
it at a distance from the nest. A friend of mine, who
loves birds, and has been accustomed to observe their
habits for years, noticed swallows flying in and out
of the porch of his house, and, to induce them to build,
he caused shelves to be put up there. On these shelves
swallows built their nest. He noted that the young birds,
when old enough to quit the nest and rest on the shelf,
after being fed by their parents, were nudged and pushed
until they turned round and voided excrement, which was
immediately seized by the parent bird with the tip of the.
beak, carried away, and dropped outside.

Nestling jays, which were brought to me when they
were about ten days old, showed no sign of fear, and fed
greedily on what I provided, thriving well, and growing up
into fine birds. The following observation, made on the
ninth day after receiving the birds, is worth recording
as a good example of deferred instinctive i procedure.
I offered one of them a June-bug or summer chafer
{Bhizotrogus solstitialis). It was refused. The other bird
seized it at once in the bill, bent down its head, and tried
on the perch to put his foot on it. After trying this-
unsuccessfully two or three times, he hopped down on to
the floor of the cage, and dropped the beetle, seized it

Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 57

figain as it crawled off, and, after two or three attempts,
swallowed it, tossing it back from the point of the bill into
the throat. This was the first time he took food from
the ground, or swallowed it in this manner.

At a later date, when both had learnt to pick up their
own food, I gave them a small dead bird, which they at once
fell upon and tore to pieces, eating every morsel. I had at
the time two young fly-catchers, which could just feel their
wings in short flights. The cage in which the jays were
kept was outside the window of the room, and when the
fly-catchers were being fed the window was closed. After
their meal the little birds would take short flights in the
room, and if one reached the window-pane, both jays
became much excited. A fatal day came when I carelessly
omitted to close the window. One of the fly-catchers,
without waiting to be fed, flew off as soon as his cage was
opened, and, before I could avert the calamity, reached
the jays' cage and put his head through the wire network.
Like a lance the jay was on him, and the head was nearly
wrenched from the body. The bird died at once, almost
without a flutter.

On another occasion a small frog was placed in the jays'
cage. One of the birds hopped down, but the frog shrieked
so, that both birds were apparently frightened. I had
not the heart to leave the frog in the cage, and gave it
liberty. Nearly a fortnight later (some days after the fly-
catcher tragedy), I put in a small toad, about an inch and
a half long. One jay seized it with the tip of his bill and
threw the toad aside, leaping up on to his perch again.
The toad remained perfectly motionless, resting on all fours,
with the body raised well off the ground, in a seemingly
strained attitude, and continued thus for nearly twelve
minutes. At first one of the jays kept hopping down
from his perch, with wings well up over his back, nearly,

58 Habit and Instinct.

but not quite, striking the toad with his bill, and rebound-
ing, as it were, to the i3erch. Then he desisted, and eyed
the toad. After seven or eight minutes, he turned on his
perch, and very soon the toad dropped on its belly and
rapidly crawled away, hiding in a crack between the board
and the side of the cage, from which position he was
removed and set free. The procedure of the two creatures
— bird and amphibian — was a very pretty example of
animal habit, with apparently a good deal of instinctive
basis.

The fly-catchers I had under observation took the raw
beef on which I fed them from the points of a pair of
forceps with a rapid snap of the bill. Is this because they
are naturally fed on live insects ? Shortly after the tragic
end of one of them, the other died ; but for two days he
had taken food from the forceps, fluttering on the wing.

( 59 )

CHAPTEE III.

LOCOMOTION IN YOUNG BIRDS.

When young birds are hatched in an incubator drawer
they seem at first to be exhausted by the effort, and require
some time to recover from the " catastrophe of birth." I
have generally left them for twelve hours or so, by which
time, if strong and healthy, they generally begin to move
about and get into the corners of the drawer. If then
removed and placed on the floor or ground, chicks, par-
tridges, pheasants, guinea-fowl, and plovers are able to
walk with such accuracy of inherited co-ordination that
there can be no question as to the truly instinctive and
congenital nature of the definiteness shown by these
activities. Ducklings and moorhens are more unsteady
on their legs at first, the leg-movements of the former
being sprawly, and the body not well raised from the
ground. A chick, pheasant, or partridge, can stand on
one leg and scratch the side of his head with the other foot
on his first day of life with only a little wobbling, but
a duckling topples over or tilts backward on to his tail ;
the double co-ordination of standing on one foot and
scratching his head with the other is too much for him.
The clever way in which a little pheasant chick, only
a few days old, will squeeze through a wire netting is
not only exceedingly pretty, but is remarkable as showing
nice control over the locomotor apparatus. Little moor-
hens seem to have a tendency to clamber up on to

Go Habit and Instinct.

anything, such as a cloth heaped up on the ground, and
use their skinny wings in a peculiar alternating hand-over-
hand fashion which is also seen in young dabchicks and in
the South American hoactzin {Opisthocomus cristatus).

This bird has, when quite young, the thumb or bastard
wing armed with a claw, a second claw being developed
on the digit of the wing corresponding to our index finger.
The nestlings crawl about almost like young quadrupeds,
and can hold on to the nest or twigs by means of the
clawed wings.*

If the skinny wing of a newly-hatched moorhen be
examined, the thumb or pollex is found to be relatively
large, and also armed ,with a claw ; and though I have
not observed that this claw is of much use in climbing>
still the wings are used in a manner very different from
that which is seen in pheasants or partridges. These
birds, too, have a tendency to leap up on to one's foot
or a low hassock (and, in the case of a little partridge, on
to my fox-terrier's back as he lay !) which reminds one of
the way in which they climb on to the mother bird's back.
But the scrambling up of the moorhen chick is differently
performed, with a curious hand-over-hand action. One
need hardly point out that such a mode of clambering
would be of use to the little bird under the natural
conditions of its life, and would help it to climb into the
loosely compacted nest. At a later period, when my sole
surviving moorhen was about six weeks old, he was taken
to a farm near which ran a little beck. The manner
in which he scrambled up and down the bank and ran
rapidly to and fro among the rushes, threading his way
with neatness and ease, was noteworthy, since he had

* See J. J. Quelch, Ibis for 1890, pp. 327, 335 ; also W. P. Pyoraft,
Natural Science, vol. v. p. 358; and Fredk. A. Lucas, " Eeport of U.S.
National Museum for 1893," p. 662, where the young birds are figured.

Locomotion in Young^ Birds. 6r

"i

hitherto no experience of obstacles of this kind. It
looked hke a hit of congenital moorhen nature, and
told, perhaps, of its relationship to the land-rail and
the water -rail.

Very soon such young birds as plovers, partridges,
pheasants, guinea-fowls and chicks will begin to run.
On their second day of life they will run freely, and
one cannot but be struck with the manner in wbich they
can guide their course, either to seize their food or to
escape from another bird. Quite curious is the way in
which a little guinea-fowl will do his best to evade one's
grasp when one wishes to put him to bed, running
backwards and sideways in a manner I have not noticed
in other birds. As a further example of the way in
which young birds can very soon make use of their
legs, I transcribe one or two notes with respect to French
partridges. At twenty-four hours old they were placed
in a "rearer" with a warm chamber and an open run,
separated by an opening guarded with strips of flannel.
In the course of a few hours they learnt how to run in
and out of the warm chamber, and in the chamber to
nestle round the warm pipe covered with cotton-wool.
At thirty-four hours old, while I was giving one food, I
left the other in the run, placing a cigarette-box 8^- inches
high before the opening to the warm chamber. He
jumped up on to it, though it was twice his own height,
and got through the curtain of flannel strips into the
chamber. I then placed the other in the run. He made
a jump at the box, and missed ; jumped again, and
successfully landed on the top. He then ran round on
the box, avoiding the edge, and in a minute jumped
through the curtain and joined the other, which was
"peeping" inside. Next evening he jumped out of the
rearer, a height of more than 7 inches.

62 Habit and Instinct.

It is quite possible that under natural conditions the
little chicks find the use of their legs more rapidly than
incubated birds. A writer in the Magazine of Natural History,
quoted by Yarrell, found a sandpiper's nest* in -which
there were three young chicks, and an egg through which
the bill of a fourth was protruding. " Young as they were,
on my taking out the egg to examine it, the little things,
which," says the writer, "could not have been out of
their shells more than an hour or two, set off out of
the nest with as much celerity as if they had been running
about for a fortnight." Other observations of like import
might readily be quoted. But enough has been said
to show that the co-ordination for walking and running is
congenitally definite.

Next as to swimming. Ducklings, a day or two old,
dropped into a tepid bath, kicked vigorously and excitedly
for a few seconds, but in a minute were swimming with
easy, rapid motion, and pecking at the marks on the side
of the bath. The movement of the legs showed great
nicety and accuracy of co-ordination. I compared a wild
duck and a tame duck, both about fifteen hours old, but
could detect no difference in swimming power. Both swam
at first with rather rapid strokes, but well. One, the wild
duck, while swimming kept putting its bill to the joint of
one leg, and seemed to find the presence of water awkward.
It did not, however, lift the leg, as an older bird would
have done. What struck me most in such young birds,
on the first occasion of their being in the water, was their
power of either staying in one spot, paddling rapidly, or
going ahead at a good speed, and tm-ning readily in any
direction.

Young moorhens, taken to the bath when the down was
scarcely dry after hatching, and before they could walk

* Vol. ii. p. 609, from Mag. Nat. Hist, vol. vi. p. 148.

Locomotion in Young Birds. 63

■with any steadiness, and gently lowered into the water on
the palm of the hand, swam off with fair ease. The only
difference in their leg-movements from those of somewhat
older birds was that the strokes were rather slower, more
sprawly, and not quite so neat. The scarce-dry down, too,
soon gets wet, and the bird sinks deeply in the water.
Under natural conditions the young moorhen takes to the
water almost at once. Mr. F. A. Knight tells me that he
has several times disturbed moorhen chicks a day after
hatching (having seen, that is to say, the unhatched eggs
the previous day), and observed them scramble into the
water and swim away. On one occasion, however, the birds
were less clever swimmers, and Mr. Knight's companion
" righted " two of them with her parasol. Mr. Knight
also noted at the time (oh ! that men would always be
careful to note at the time, and take to heart the ex-
cellent precept of the immortal Captain Cuttle !) that
one of the young moorhen chicks that he thus disturbed
dived under a log of wood. Now, I did all in my power
to make my little moorhens dive ; hustled them in the
bath, clapped my hands, banged the door, and boxed their
ears, but without effect. I played them a few chords on
the violin, but even that did not scare them. They seem-
ingly regarded all this as among the inevitable incidents
of education. I put up a barrier across the bath, penning
them into a confined space, and placing on the other side
their favourite raft, made out of an old cigar-box, on to
which they always climbed as soon as possible, thinking
they might dive under the barrier to reach their raft.
And here it may be parenthetically remarked that young
water-birds, ducks and moorhen chicks, which are only
occasionally given a swim, take to the water less eagerly
than those which under natural conditions are from the
first accustomed to be constantly swimming; ducklings

64 Habit and Instinct.

even seem to shrink from the water, if for some days they
are not given access to it.*

Tempted by the raft, then, my moorhen chicks tried to
scramble over the barrier, but would not attempt to dive
under it. I lifted the barrier, so as to leave half an inch
of space between it and the water, and so long as the bird
could put its beak and head through, he would make a
shift to bring the body after; but when the space was
insufficient for this, the little bird would not attempt to get
under the barrier. So all these early attempts to induce
my little charges to dive were abortive. When the last of
the brood was taken to the beck near a farmhouse on the
Yorkshire moors, I hoped he would exhibit his natural
powers as a diver; but for some time he did not do so.
One day, however, when he was about nine weeks old
and becoming pretty well fledged, he was swimming in a
narrow part of the stream, with steep banks on either side,
when an ungainly, rough-haired pup came bungling down,
and made an awkward feint towards the bird. Plop !
down he went out of sight in the twinkling of an eye ; and
after a moment I saw his head appear, just peeping above
water beneath the bank. Though long deferred, here was
the instinctive activity in congenital purity and definite-
ness, and absolutely true to type, for this was the very first
time he had ever dived, nor had he ever seen any bird do so.
I take it that the failure to make him dive in the bath was,
perhaps, partly due to the unnatural surroundings — though
it must be remembered that at first he did not dive in the
beck — but chiefly to my inability to frighten him, so accus-
tomed was the bird to me and my strange ways ; for his
tameness, both with myself and others, was in marked

* The same is true of the gosling. See Lewes's " Problems of Life and
Mind," Prob. i. chap. ii. § 22, note ; also T. B. E. Stebbing, " Essays on
Darwinism,'' p. 73.

J^ocomotion in Young Birds.

contrast with the extreme shyness of such birds in their
natural haunts. In Professor Newton's "Dictionary of
Birds " we are told * that, " though often frequenting the
neighbourhood of men, the moorhen seems unable to over-
come the inherent stealthy habits of the Eallidffi, and
hastens to hide itself on the least alarm ; but under excep-
tional circumstances it may be induced to feed, yet always
suspiciously, with tame ducks and poultry." My little
friend Tinker, as we called him, had, however, over-
come all constitutional shyness, and was as tame as the
tamest of barn-door chicks.

Analogous instances of what, from the description
given, would seem to be truly instinctive activities are
those of the dipper and of the hoactzin. The way in
which the dipper, or water-ousel, dives and runs along the
bottom of a stream, aided by his wings, but clutching with
its claws the stones at the bottom, has often been de-
scribed. I have, however, never seen an old bird attempt
to escape in this way ; when disturbed, he flies off. The
Duke of Argyll describes a case from his own observation
of a young dipper, on being disturbed, dropping from the
nest, and, when it reached a pool, diving instinctively.
It may be well to give in full the passage in which his
Grace describes the facts.f " A pair of dippers built their
nest last year at Inverary, in a hole in the wall of a small
tunnel constructed to carry the rivulet under the walls of
a pleasure-ground. The season was one of great drought,
and the rivulet, during the whole time of incubation and of
the growth of the young in the nest, was nearly entirely
dry. One of the nestlings, when almost fully fledged, was
taken out by the hand for examination, an operation which

* See p. 590.

t Contemporary Eeview, July, 1875, "On Animal Instinct," vol. xxvi.
p. 352.

66 Habit and Instinct.

so alarmed the others that they darted out of the hole, and
ran and fluttered down the tunnel towards its mouth. At
that point a considerable pool of water had survived the
drought, and lay in the path of the fugitives. They did
not at all appear to seek it ; on the contrary, their flight
seemed to be as aimless as that of any other fledgling
would have been in the same predicament. But one of
them stumbled into the pool. The effect was most curious.
When the young bird touched the water there was a
moment of i^ause, as if the creature was surprised. Then
instantly there seemed to wake within it the sense of its
hereditary powers. Down it dived with all the facility of
its parents, and the action of its wings under the water
was a beautiful exhibition of the double adaptation to pro-
gression in two very different elements, which is peculiar
to the wings of most diving birds. The young dipper was
immediately lost to sight among some weeds, and so long
did it remain under water that I feared it must be drowned.
But in due time it appeared all right, and, being re-
captured, was replaced in the nest."

The hoactzin, the curious gallinaceous bird whose
powers of climbing have already been noticed, has when
young the power of swimming and diving. The nests are
built over the water, and when one of the little birds fell
into the water, Mr. Quelch observed that as soon as his
hand was placed close to it the hoactzin rapidly dived
into the dark water, in which it was impossible to see it,
and would rise at distances of more than a yard away.

Mr. Hudson tells us * that he was once examining one
of the eggs of the jacana {Parra jacana) , lying on the palm
of his hand, when " all at once the cracked shell parted,
and at the same moment the young bird leaped from my
hand and fell into the water. . . . Stooping to pick it up

* " Naturalist iu La Plata,'' p. 112.

Locomotion in Young Birds. 67

to save it from perishing, I soon saw that my assistance
■was not required, for immediately on dropping into the
water it put out its neck, and with the body nearly sub-
merged, like a wounded duck trying to escape observation,
it swam rapidly to a small mound, and, escaping from the
water, concealed itself in the grass, lying close and per-
fectly motionless like a young plover." With regard to
the submersion of the body, we must remember that the
down of a freshly hatched bird would be still wet. I have
again and again noticed that young moorhen chicks, even
when the down has dried, if they are dropped into the
water, are (and in this they differ from ducks) completely
wetted, and swim with but little of the back above the
surface. This would, I should suppose, be the case with
the just-hatched jacana when it fell from Mr. Hudson's
hand into the water.

Ducks not only swim, but dive very shortly after birth.
A wild duck, full of life and spirits, placed in my bath
when not six days old, at once dipped his head, and
then dived, swimming some distance along the bottom,
apparently from sheer exuberance of vital power. Ducks
that build in trees take their little ones to the water,
carrying them in some cases in the bill. Acerbi, quoted
by Yarrell,* says of the goosander, " As soon as the eggs
are hatched, the mother takes her chicks gently in her bill,
carries and lays them down at the foot of the tree, when
she teaches them the way to the river, in which they
instantly swim with astonishing facility." The hooded
merganser, the eider-duck, the wood-duck, and other
members of this group of birds, are said to carry their
young in this way. Yarrell says t the same of the
sheldrake. But Sir E. Payne Gallwey, quoted by Mr. H.

* Yarrell, " British Birds," vol. iii. p. 398.
t Oy. cit., vol. iii. p. 237.

68 Habit and Instinct.

Cornish in his " Wild England of To-Day," * states that
he saw one, " when the tide was low, and she was unable
to lead her brood to the sea, carry them on her back, each
duckling holding on by a feather, having, while she lay
down, climbed up and ensconced themselves with the
greatest care." The young are skilful swimmers.

It would be interesting to know whether they take to
the water instinctively ; that is to say, whether the sight
of water is in itself a sufficient stimulus to cause them
to enter the water and swim. Mr. John Watson, on.
the authority of a keeper of long experience, says f of
sheldrakes, that " the ducks, immediately they were
hatched, seemed to be able to smell the salt water, and
would cover miles to gain it." It would be of interest to
put this beyond question by direct observation. I have
not been able to experiment with ducks so fully as I
could wish. A brood of ducklings, hatched out under a
hen, which I watched some years ago, seemed to come to
the side of the pond by chance; they drank from the
water, and then some of them left it ; others waded further
in, dipping their breasts and head under, and then they
went further in and swam. Since the parent birds seem,
under natural conditions, to lead their young to the water,
it is not improbable that the instinctive tendency may not
have been ingrained in the congenital nature. But it is
a question which can only be answered by further direct
observation.

The horned or Sclavonian grebe {VoAicifes auritus) has
a protective habit or instinct which is worth noting. Mr.
Proctor, quoted by Yarrell,^ shot one as it emerged after
diving, " and was surprised to see two young ones, which,
it seems, had been concealed beneath the wings of the
parent bird, drop upon the water, I afterwards shot
* P. 64. t "Nature and "Woodcraft," p. 192. t Vol. iii. p. 414.

Locomotion in Young Birds. 69

several birds of this species," he adds, " all of which dived
with the young under their wings. The young were placed
with their heads towards the tail, and their bills resting
upon the back of the parent bird." It must be remem-
bered that the grebes and divers do not use the wings for
progression under water.

Before leaving the activities connected with swimming,
attention may be drawn to the curious habit observed by
Mr. Thomson, head keeper at the Zoological Gardens.
"Birds which sleep floating upon ponds or tarns," says
Mr. Headley,* commenting on this habit, " are in danger
of drifting to the bank and falling victims to any beast
of prey. To prevent this the ducks and others have the
habit of sleeping with one leg tucked under the wing, while
with the other they keep gently paddling so that they
revolve in a circle. In summer-time, when they have had
a long day, they will begin this early, when there is still
some light, and then is the time to watch them. This
.remarkable habit is a kind of sleep-walking turned to good
account, and is, no doubt, perfectly compatible with com-
plete unconsciousness." It would be interesting to ascer-
tain if this habit be truly instinctive, and how the paddling
in a circle would prevent their drifting ashore. That the
locomotor activities concerned in swimming and diving are
congenital, though no doubt subject to improvement and
, modification by practice and individual acquisition, admits,
I think, of no question.

Passing to the powers of flight possessed by birds, it is
clear that, if a truly instinctive activity, it is, in the great
majority of birds, of the deferred type. Spalding kept
young swallows caged until they were fully fledged, and
then allowed them to escape. " One, on being set free,
flew a yard or two close to the ground, and then rose in

* " The Structure and Life of Birds," pp. 171, 172.

"JO Habit and Instinct.

the direction of a beech tree, which it gracefully avoided.
It was seen for a considerable time sweeping round the
beeches, and performing magnificent evolutions in the air
high above them. The other, which was observed to beat
the air with its wings more than usual, was soon lost to
sight behind some trees. Titmice, tomtits, and wrens,"
says Spalding, " I have made the subjects of a similar
experiment, and with similar results." * Professor Preyer
writes as follows : f " The young redstarts which I have
observed daily before they were fledged, receive no in-
structions for flying. But they exercise their wings in
the nest before the first attempt at flight, often spreading
them and making them whir. The first excursion is
slower than the flight of the parents ; the young creature
flies downward, but it never hits against anything, and
after a few days the certainty of its flight is worthy of
admiration. Confidence comes with practice."

The following experiment, to which Dr. Van Dyck, of
Beyrout, drew my attention, may readily be performed.
If a chick a day or two old be placed in a basket, held
firmly in the hand, and then lowered rapidly through the
air, the fledgeling will stretch out his little immature wings
in such an attitude as would make them break his fall were
they fully developed; or will, if he be a little older, flap
them with flight-like action, in either case showing an
instinctive response. I do not find that moorhen chicks
do this for some weeks, the early movements of the wings,
which are very skinny and unfledged, being, as before
mentioned, peculiar and alternating; they are held out
forwards over the back, and at the sides of the thrown-
back head, when food is offered or when they scold each

* Nature, vol. xii. p. 507.

t " The Mind of the Child," part i. p. 239. Translated by H. W. Brown,

New Tork.

Locomotion in Young Birds. 71

other, or -when they encounter some stranger, such as,
for example, a chick, or even a little one of their own
kind, whose wings or toes they will seize and worry, or
perhaps an impertinent sparrow who invades their garden
precincts.

My first experiments with more fully fledged birds were
on house-martins. Two were taken from different nests.
In one the wings were already well developed, and it flew
round and round the room. In the other the wing feathers
were shorter, and the wings as a whole blunter. This
latter one could only flutter along the ground. I then
allowed it to flutter over a table, and, when it reached
the edge, it flew to the floor with definite progression,
alighting awkwardly about four feet from the table. It
also flew down from my hand held above my head, but
had to be shaken off, as it was loth to start of itself,
clinging tightly to my finger. Seeing that it could only
flutter along the ground, it was very improbable that this
bird had ever left the nest before it was brought to me,
but of this I had no direct proof.

I asked my friend, Mr. H. F. Howard, who had kindly
procured these martins for me, to watch a nest containing
three young swallows, whose parents had built on a ledge
specially placed there for the purpose in the porch of his
uncle's house. In the fulness of time they came to the
edge of the nest, standing there extending and fluttering
their wings. One of them, about a fortnight old, or a day
or two more, we took to the study. It clung to my finger
with its sharp claws, but on being detached, a foot or so
from the floor, flew off. Tossed into the air, it flew round
three sides of the room, but did not rise much, striking
the window-blind about four feet from the floor, and then
coming to the ground. In further trials it alighted awk-
wardly on the edge of a shelf, and clung there, swallow-

72 Habit and Instinct.

fashion, with tail against the ledge. Experiments with a
second bird were to the same effect. Both seemed to he
" feeling their wings ; " and we believed that we could see
some improvement in the art of flying even in the short
time that the swallows were under observation. With the
third nestling we made no experiments. When the others
had been returned to the nest, we stood back a little and
watched them, but were not prepared for what occurred.
One got up on the edge of the nest, paused a moment,
and then dived down and flew off through the outer door.
Where it alighted we could not see, but we searched all
round in vain, my fox-terrier Tony assisting eagerly in
■ the search — so that it must have gone some distance,
and probably alighted in a tree or shrub. The new ex-
perience of aerial locomotion was, it would seem, so
satisfactory (and one can well imagine that it would
bring with it a sense of novel and delightful power)
that it had to be repeated.

Mr. Howard, who watched the further behaviour of the
birds, tells me that the second swallow flew off about
two hours later. He searched for the truants, and after
some time found them perched on the bough of an ash
tree, fifteen or twenty feet from the ground. The old
birds, much excited, were feeding them and endeavouring
to induce them to return to the nest; but all in vain.
They then tried to induce the third swallow to leave
the nest, but though he fluttered his wings, he could
not quite summon up courage to fly. By ten o'clock
the parent birds had gone to roost with their family
scattered. Early next morning, however, all three were
in the nest, and remained there all day. At about twelve
o'clock on the following morning one flew out again, and
was away till nightfall ; and later the second took wing,
though it returned at intervals during the day. , It was not

Locomotion in Young Birds. 73

till the third morning after our experiments "with the two
that their companion took wing — or, to be accurate, that
all three young birds left the nest, for we had not marked
in any way the one that was left. They returned that
night, were absent the two following nights, but returned
again to the nest on each of the two succeeding ones.
After this Mr. Howard left the house.

In the following year my friend, Mr. Howard's uncle,
having reason to believe that one of a brood of young
swallows in his porch had died, procured a ladder and
ascended it to ascertain where the body was lying, but
found that it had disappeared, having evidently been carried
away by the parent birds. The three remaining young
swallows lay crouched against the wall, eying him for a
, few moments, when one of them suddenly dashed past and
flew out of the porch, and was followed a second afterwards
, by the remaining two birds. They flew into the garden,
and alighted in some shrubs, where they were found a few
minutes afterwards by the old birds, who immediately
proceeded to entice and induce them to fly into an adjoin-
ing ash tree (that in which the young birds were found
perching the preceding year), by flying backwards and
forwards to and from it. In the course of half an hour all
three young birds were safely perched on a high branch,
where they remained all day, and were fed by the parents,
but in the evening two of the young birds were again in
the porch.

These swallows had been carefully watched, at intervals
every day, and, beyond occasionally stretching a wing and
preening it, had never made an attempt to use their wings
in flight before their sudden dash for freedom into the
open.

My friend, on a former occasion, was taken to see a
nest of young linnets in a low hedge. He stood watching

74 Habit and Instinct.

them for some minutes, and thought he would come again
and look at them, but whilst leaning over the nest, one of
them suddenly rose and flew ; and all the rest followed in
the same direction, looking like thistle-down blown away
by a sudden puff of wind, and, like that, never more to
return to the same spot.

Both the jays and fly-catchers which I brought up from
quite an early stage, began to use their wings as they
hopped from perch to perch. This involved, however, but
little exercise of the power of flight, and little or no
guidance. The first time the fly-catchers were thrown into
the air in a room, they descended on to the floor in a
gentle curve. Their wings were not strong enough for
sustained and guided flight. The jays were more advanced
in development when they were first given a wider area
than their cage afforded. They flew round the room with
well-directed flight. One tried to alight on a shelf, and,
missing it, came to the ground. The other aimed for the
top of a picture, and, though it alighted awkwardly and
with some scrambling, yet contrived to maintain its bold,
and stood there panting.

Such birds as chicks, pheasants, and guinea-fowl use
the wings to assist them in running and in leaping up on
to and down from any low objects in their run. Individual
practice thus co-operates with the development of congenital
power. They appear to use the wings with some freedom
before they are sufficiently developed to sustain the weight
of the body.

These observations, now given in sufficient detail, con-
firm those of Spalding and Prof. Preyer. It is beyond
question that some birds are able, in the absence of
previous experience, to fly for considerable distances with
an accuracy which is purely congenital, if deferred. No
doubt there is some preparatory fluttering and flapping

Locomotion in Young Birds. 75

of the -wings in the nest, which serves to afford pre-
liminary experience in co-ordination ; but the co-ordinations
of actual flight, with its more or less definite and guided
progress, must be regarded as far more delicate and
intricate than those for stationary wing-exercise on the
brink of the nest. No doubt, under normal circumstances,
the parent birds accompany and encourage the young in
their flight. No doubt imitation plays some part in flight-
development, though probably rather in affording a
stimulus to start on the wing, than as giving any
assistance in the details of wing-usage. Still, such
observations as those which have been given show an
amount of congenital definiteness which cannot be over-
looked. It forms the foundation of an activity which is
perfected by practice and experience. For we may here
apply what Miss Hayward says in another connection in
" Bird Notes." * " Birds inherit a great deal, but not
everything; and perhaps, as with ourselves, what they
inherit has to be cultivated."

It may, perhaps, be said that the young birds, before
they fly themselves, have ample opportunities of watching
the flight of their parents and other old birds. This is true
enough. But who ever learnt to do a difficult thing, even
passably well, by merely watching it done superbly by
another ? Let any one who has never played billiards or
lawn-tennis watch for a week the most skilled exponents
of the art, and catch with the eye, if he can, all the delicate
adjustments which mark the play of the master. Then let
him take cue or racquet in hand, and see what he makes
of the game without previous individual practice. He is
helpless. The movements which looked so easy, the
delicate turns which seemed so natural, will not come to
the beginner, no matter how long he has watched their

* P. 80.

,76 Habit and Instinct.

performance by others. And to suppose that a young
bird can learn to fly as well as the little swallows flew,
merely by watching their parents, is to suppose that which
practical experience and the teaching of psychology alike
show to be intrinsically improbable.

There is, however, a case — perhaps one of the most
remarkable at present known — where a bird whose parents,
we may note, take no interest in its welfare, flies almost
as soon as it is hatched. This is the megapode. The
family of the Megapodidse are peculiar gallinaceous birds,
of the Australian region. They deposit their eggs in large
mounds, which are heaped up by the birds for that purpose
(whence the popular name of "mound-birds," or "mound-
builders "), or in holes in the warm sand. Many hens
lay their eggs in the same spot, and take no further interest
in their welfare, or that of the chicks which are hatched
from them. The eggs are of relatively enormous size, and
are laid at considerable intervals of time. From each there
emerges a young bird which is already well fledged. I
could scarcely believe that the stuffed specimen Mr. Chap-
man showed me in New York was that of a bird only just
hatched. Dr. Worcester, who has had opportunities of
studying Megapodius cumingi in the Philippine Islands, in-
forms me that the newly hatched bird has often to make
its way through six feet of earth before it reaches the
surface. " It is a common occurrence," he says, in a
letter from which he kindly allows me to quote, "in
digging into mounds for eggs, to meet the young birds
on their way to the surface. If not seized before they
can free themselves they will invariably escape, as they fly
actively and promptly. I once made an unsuccessful
■attempt to seize a newly hatched bird while digging in
a mound, and it flew several rods into thick brush,
escaping without difficulty."

Locomotion in Young Birds. 77

Speaking of the allied Maleo (Megacephalon rubripes)
of Celebes, which lays its eggs in warm volcanic sand,
Mr. A. E. Wallace says,* " The young birds, on breaking
the shell, work their way up through the sand and run
off at once to the forest; and I was assured by Mr.
Duivenboden, of Ternate, that they can fly the very day
they are hatched. He had taken some eggs on board his
schooner, which hatched during the night, and in the
morning the little birds flew readily across the cabin,"

Here, then, we have birds in which the instinctive
co-ordination for flight is not, as in the great majority of
birds, more or less deferred,- but is connate. And there is
in this case no opportunity for either parental instruction
or the imitation of older birds.

A congenital basis of • flight may therefore be taken
as established. And on this basis is built the finished
and most admirable product. For no one would be likely
to contend that the consummate skill evinced in fully
developed flight at its best — that activity which is per-
formed sometimes with perhaps the maximum, at other
times it would seem with the minimum, of animal effort —
the hurtling flight of the falcon; the hovering of the kestrel;
the wheeling of swifts ; the rapid dart and sudden poise of
the humming-bird ; the easy sweep of the seagull ; the
downward glide of the stork, which has been observed to
slide down an inclined plane of air with a descent of about
one foot in five from the high rock on which the town of
Constantino is built, and reach the ground at a distance
of more than a mile from its starting-point ; t or even the-
easy descent from the house-roof of a pigeon, with never
a vibration of the wings, till just as it turns to windward
in alighting ; — no one, I say, would be likely to contend

* " Malay Archipelago," edit. 1894, p. 204.

t Britonniere, quoted in the " Dictionary of Birds," p 263.

78 Habit and Instinct.

that the exquisitely nice adjustments necessary for all the
varieties of bird-flight are purely instinctive. In their
finished form they are the result of practice and individual
acquisition, but they are unquestionably founded on a
congenital basis.

" As soon as he has the use of his wings," says Mr.
Headley,* " a young gull may be seen for a good part of
the day busily practising. And the great proficients in
the art — eagles, vultures, storks, and albatrosses^ — have
acquired their skill by experimenting on all varieties of
currents." I have no doubt that Mr. Headley is right.
One has only to watch with care the flight of birds to see
how easily, and with what nicety and accuracy, they feel
the wind and adapt their wing-spread to its force and
direction. A hawk or a gull may be seen sailing round
the coast-line or along a hill-ridge, utilizing the strong
upthrow of air which the natural obstacle produces. In a
light wind the wings of a tern or a gull are widely spread ;
but with a fresher breeze the wing is partially flexed so as
to make a more acute angle where the wing bends near
the middle of its length. Compare the way in which the
sparrow leaps from the ground and whirs off, having no
difiiculty in rising, with the laboured start of the cormo-
rant or the duck, which only by much effort succeeds in
rising from the water and getting up speed. The albatross,
with all his splendid powers of flight, flaps long over the
surface of the sea ere he can rise freely ; and he always
starts against the wind. Observe, again, how the lark
can rise in a vertical line from the meadow, how well he
balances his body, and how skilfully he adjusts his rapid
wing-strokes for mounting directly upwards. It cannot
be doubted that all this specialized skill in flight is
perfected by the individual not without much practice,

* " The structure and Life of Birds," p. 232.

Locomotion in Young Birds. 79

no matter how deeply the congenital ability to fly is
founded in heredity.

Individual differences in the manner of flight are partly
congenital as particularized modes of activity, partly
enforced by congenital differences of structure. When, for
example, a falcon is flown at a heron overhead, the quarry,
as soon as he sees the hawk, flies upwards, the falcon
following. The difference in mode of flight is then well seen.
The heron, with his large concave blunt wings and light
body, rises in narrow circles. The hawk, with her long
pointed wings and relatively heavy body, sweeps through a
wide spiral, more than making up for the greater distance
she has to cover by her rapidity of flight. This continues
until the falcon has gained sufficient advantage to enable
her to stoop at the quarry.

The different modes of flight in correlation with different
types of wing ; the problems connected with soaring and
sailing flight ; these are tempting themes. But they are
beyond our present purpose, and I have nothing new to
say on them. That the bird of skilled flight is able to feel
in some way the strength and varying direction of the air-
currents seems beyond question. Is it the pressure on the
feathers of the breast that affords the necessary data which
the bird utilizes in the acquisition of that experience which
through much practise makes flight perfect ? We do not
know. We can only say that the experience, however
gained, is a factor in that acquired power which is founded
on a congenital basis due to hereditary transmission.

8o Habit and Instinct.

CHAPTER IV.

PUETHEB OBSERVATIONS ON YOUNG BIRDS.

Our consideration of the instinctive activities of walking,
running, swimming, diving, and flying serves to bring out
the fact that, in such cases, what is inherited is a eon-
genital co-ordination of motor responses under the
appropriate conditions of stimulation. Not only is there
inherited a given structure of leg or wing, but a nervous
system through which there is an automatic distribution of
outgoing currents to the several muscles concerned; so
that, without learning or experience, they are called into
play with nicely graded intensity, and exhibit complex
contractions and relaxations in serial order, thus giving
rise to instinctive behaviour of an eminently adaptive
nature.

In discussing the activities concerned in feeding, we
found that there was a similar congenital co-ordination
of motor responses for pecking at a small object within a
suitable distance. But, from the observations, it seems
that the selection of certain of these objects and the
rejection of others is a matter of individual experience.
We were not, however, prepared to found a sweeping
generalization on a limited number of observations on a
few species, and freely admitted that there may very
probably be cases where particular sensory stimuli give
rise to appropriate congenital responses ; in other words,

Further Observations on Yoiins; Birds. 8i

that there may be, in some birds, instinctive avoidance of
certain objects when they are first presented to sight.

We have now to consider the evidence for instinctive
fear of particular animals or objects. For the present,
however, the matter must be regarded from the purely
observational point of view. We will not now attempt to
determine what is the nature, or what the manner of
origin, of the emotional state as such. That must be
deferred to a future chapter. What we have to seek is
evidence of instinctive response, such as shrinking from
an object in such a way as to show an inherited dread of it.

The reader will remember that there is no instinctive
fear of bees or wasps as such, but that there is a
shrinking response, probably instinctive, from any largish
strange object, especially if it moves vigorously or makes
some such noise as buzzing. This leads one to suspect
that the instinctive dread is not of any particular object
of sight, but rather of certain modes of activity. I have
trained my fox-terrier to remain passive and undemon-
strative in presence of the birds, though his trembling
muscles as he stands over them shows that he is exercising
no little control. None of the birds have shown the slightest
fear of him under these conditions. Pheasants, partridges,
and plovers would peck at his nose as he smelt at them,
and run in between his legs. A wild duck, three days old,
nearly broke down his self-control as it mumbled at his
lips. A chick, two and a half days old, when introduced to
the dog, who sat up with his head held down, sniffing at
the little fellow, ran in and out round his forepaws, and
then crept daintily in under the dog's body and cuddled
down in the warmth. Opening the door softly to call one
of my servants, who was in the next room, and whose
feelings would, I knew, be touched at the sight, I saw that
Tony, so soon as my back was partly turned, had seized the

a

82 Habit and Instinct.

chick (matters having really gone too far !) and had gently-
carried it a yard or so across the room. He dropped it
at once, and looked sufficiently sheepish ; but the chick
was quite unhurt, and apparently not much, if at all,
frightened, showing no fear of the dog half an hour later.
Neither chicks, pheasants, nor jays — not even the little fly-
catchers — showed any signs of dread of a kitten, nor did
chicks of an older cat.

The moorhen chicks, though not afraid of me, always
struck their odd attitude and scolded, or seemed to scold,
when I picked them up. They liked to be caressed in the
hand, and would come to my call, and their scolding as
I gently grasped them was probably only an energetic
demand for worms. They struck the same attitude before
the dog when he smelt at them ; but, when he lay down,
would peck at his toes and the points of his ears with
consummate impertinence. He took one or other of them
in his mouth two or three times, but quite gently. The
one which was taken to Yorkshire came up one afternoon
when the dog was lapping from the tin which contained
the birds' water, and pecked vigorously at his nose,
following it up with a dab which narrowly missed his eye.
On another occasion the moorhen hopped on to and sat
on the edge of the basin in which was the terrier's sopped
biscuit, and pecked the dog when he came for his share.
It must be mentioned that Tony is very gentle in his
ways, except where rats, rabbits, and such fair game
are concerned, and never acted aggressively towards the
birds. The moorhen was not afraid of the large gentle
sheep-dogs on the farm. But how a blundering, vigorous
puppy scared him and made him dive we remember.

While there are, no doubt, specific and individual
differences, some birds being naturally shyer and more
timid than others, there is not apparently much difference

Further Observations on Young Birds. 8

J

in the young of wild and tame birds. The wild and
tame duck brought up together, and with other birds,
showed no distinguishable difference in this respect.
Dr. Eae, however, a careful observer, says,* " If the eggs
of a wild duck are placed with those of a tame one under
a hen to be hatched, the ducklings from the former, on
the very day they leave the egg, wiU immediately en-
deavour to hide themselves, or take to the water, if there
is any water, should any person approach, whilst the
young from the tame duck's eggs will show little or no
alarm, indicating in both cases a clear instance of instinct
or ' inherited memory.' " My own observations, so far as
they go, do not corroborate this statement. I have
mentioned with what impudent familiarity the wild duck
treated my fox-terrier, and must repeat that I have
observed but little difference in instinctive timidity between
the young of wild and domesticated birds. Mr. Charles A.
Allen says f of the young of the black duck {Anas obscura),
which he observed under natural conditions, " They
showed no fear, and would cuddle under one's hand very
confidingly."

The little birds soon get thoroughly accustomed to their
surroundings, and are then shy of any new and strange
object placed among them. My jays were wont to bathe
in a shallow tin ; but when I introduced a white basin into
the cage, they were much scared, jumping and fluttering
to and fro, and uttering their harsh note. The first time
I placed the shallow tin in a room where there was a mixed
brood— wild duck, tame duck, chick, guinea-fowl, and
pheasant— the three latter were curiously afraid, standing
and looking at it with outstretched necks, and uttering

* Nature, July 19, 1883. Quoted in "Mental Evolution in Animals,"

p. 196.

t " The Nesting of the Black Duck on Plum Island " : The Auh. vol. x.

(1893), p. 57.

84 Habit and Instinct.

the alarm or danger note, as they did also when I threw
among them a large ball of screwed-up paper. Of a Java
sparrow, too, in a cage they seemed afraid. The ducks,
wild and tame alike, seemed to show any disquiet they
may have felt less markedly — perhaps because they have
no danger note which can be readily noticed. But they did
-not go near the tin for more than an hour. I have omitted
to try the effect of introducing the dog to their notice for
the first time at a comparatively late period — after they
are ten days or so old. I should expect them then to show
signs of timidity ; not because he is a dog, but because he
is new and strange to their experience. For in some respects
timidity increases with increased experience of the ways of
this wicked world.

Very noticeable is the effect on chicks of any sudden
noise — a sneeze, a clap of the hands, a sharply struck chord
on the violin, or the sudden pitching among them of a piece of
screwed-up paper. They scatter and crouch, or sometimes
simply crouch down where they are ; the constant piping
" cheep-cheep " ceases, and for a moment there is dead
stillness, each bird silent and motionless. In a minute or
so up they get, and resume their cheeping notes. Plovers,
when they hear a sudden noise, also crouch at once. The
effect on pheasants is somewhat different. I have seen
them stop dead and remain silent at a sudden sharp knock
at the door. While two of them, thirteen days old, were
walking about and uttering a contented peeping sound, a
loud chord was struck on the violin. Both stopped dead ;
the peeping noise ceased, and one of them who was walking
with his leg just lifted from the ground remained for half
a minute in this attitude, with neck stretched out, as if
struck quite still and mute in the attitude in which he
chanced to be when the sharp sound fell on his ears.
Then he took a few steps, and again stopped quite still for
about the same period.

Further Observations on Young Birds. 85

Mr. F. A. Knight well describes this mode of behaviour
in the pheasant chick. He tells * how an old bird, seen
on Exmoor, "silently emerging from the tangle of the
hedge, stalks across the path with slow and stately pose,
moving her head jauntily, as if with the conscious pride
of motherhood. A yard behind her follow in single file
the little members of her family, struggling manfully
through the jungle by the hedgerow. Two of them have
just got clear — tiny, fluffy balls of down, not many days
out of the shell — when the old bird, suddenly aware of
danger, utters two sharp notes of warning. Instantly the
two small figures are still, as if they were turned to stone.
They do not even move so much as to crouch down in the
grass. One of them had just turned its head — perhaps to
look for its companions — and so it stands, motionless. A
new-comer would have little chance of making out the tiny
forms among the stones and herbage of the bank. We
pass within a yard of them, and still they make no sign.
Meanwhile the old bird has vanished through the opposite
hedge, and, when the danger has passed, will rejoin her
little charges."

The effect of a sudden startling noise on moorhen
chicks is different. It seems to make them run away to
some corner. I was observing one day some little plovers
and a young moorhen, all about a week old, when the door
slammed. The effect was curiously different. The plovers
dropped where they stood ; the moorhen chick started so
violently, and began to run with such vigour, that he
toppled over and lay struggling on the floor. A day or
two before, the moorhens and plovers were placed together
in the same enclosure for the first time. The former,
which were five days old, at once gave the danger or alarm
note. One ran away ; another showed fight and pecked
* " By Moorland and Sea," p. 1G8.

86 Habit and Instinct.

at one of the plovers, but timidly withal. In a quarter of
an hour or so they were all in happy agreement. Of my
quiet dog these little moorhens showed no fear, but of
vigorous young plovers they seemed somewhat afraid !

The following observations of Spalding's have often
been quoted: "When twelve days old one of my little
•proteges, while running about beside me, gave the peculiar
chirr whereby they announce the approach of danger.
I looked up, and behold a sparrow-hawk was hovering
at a great height overhead. Equally striking was the
effect of the hawk's voice when heard for the first time.
A young turkey, which I had adopted when chirping within
the uncracked shell, was, on the morning of the tenth day
of its life, eating a comfortable breakfast from my hand,
when the young hawk, in a cupboard just beside us, gave a
shrill chip, chip, chip. Like an arrow the poor turkey
shot to the other side of the room, and stood there motion-
less and dumb with fear until the hawk gave a second cry,
when it darted out at the open door right to the extreme
end of the passage, and there, silent and crouched in a
corner, remained for ten minutes. Several times during
the course of that day it again heard these alarming
sounds, and in every instance with similar manifestations
of fear."

With regard to the first observation, on the effect of a
sparrow-hawk overhead, it may perhaps fairly be questioned
whether the reaction was in response to the particularized
stimulus of the sight of a hawk as such. I noticed that a
moorhen chick was startled and cowered in the reeds when
some geese flew at a considerable height above him. Miss
Hayward noted a case in point. A robin, she says,* " was
piping on the edge of my veranda as usual, asking for a
bit of bacon ; but when I went to the window, opened it,
* "Bird Notes," p. 105.

Ftirther Observations on Young Birds. 87

and threw the bacon to him, instead of picking it up, he
stood quite still, with his eye laboriously turned towards
the zenith; and so he remained staring. . . . Then I
opened the window wide and looked up ; and there passing
over the house and flying at a great height was a heron.
That was what the robin was watching." Although a
heron may occasionally make a meal of a robin, I question
whether we may legitimately infer that there was any
instinctive recognition of an enemy as such. At the same
time, it is commonly believed that fowls in a yard evince
an excitement when a hawk flies overhead, which they do
not show when a rook passes over. It is, however, prob-
able that such discrimination, if it be a fact, is due to the
hen handing on the traditional fear of a hawk by uttering
a warning note, as her parents had done when she was
a chick. If so, chicks hatched in the incubator should
show no such discrimination. Those who have shot
under a kite know that game-birds are deceived by a
passable but very inexact imitation of a bird of prey.

So, too, with regard to the cry of a hawk which startled
Spalding's young turkey. I have seen young birds startled
by such a variety of strange and unusual sounds, that I
am inclined to believe that had Spalding struck a loud
chord on a violin, his turkey would have behaved in much
the same way ; that, in a word, there is in this observa-
tion no evidence of instinctive knowledge of the hawk as
a bird of prey, and therefore dangerous, but an instinctive
response to a sharp, unusual sound.

To ascertain whether there was any instinctive avoid-
ance of a snake-like animal on the part of young pheasants,
I procured a large blind worm and set it in front of the
incubator drawer in which the birds passed the night. On
opening the drawer, the pheasants hopped out almost on
to the top of the blind worm, which was fairly active ; but

88 Habit and Instinct.

they took no notice of it. Presently, however, one of the
birds pecked at its eye, and then again and again at
the tongue as it played in and out of the hlind worm's
mouth. This observation naturally leads one to surmise
that the constant tongue-play in snakes may act as a
lure for young and inexperienced birds ; and that some
cases of so-called fascination may be simply the flutter-
ing of birds round this tempting object. I distinctly
remember, when a boy, seeing a grass-snake with head
elevated and quite motionless, and round it three or four
young birds fluttering nearer and nearer. It looked
like fascination ; but it may well have been that each
hoped to be the first to catch that tempting but elusive
worm ! Presently they would, no doubt, be invited to
step inside.

Mr. F. Howard Collins tells me that when cruising in
the Mediterranean off the south-east coast of Spain, and
out of sight of land, during half a gale, a dove took refuge^
on his yacht, evidently blown off the shore by the wind..
The bird displayed at no time any fear or alarm whatever
at the men on board, who took it into the forecastle, where
from the first it seemed quite at home, and remained there,
quite contentedly, hopping about, picking up food, and.
roosting, and all this although more than a dozen men.
were constantly passing to and fro. No cage or restriction
was used. It remained on board some six months, until
the cruise was ended, and then was taken ashore by one
of the men, with whom it lived at least a year or more.
Whether the tameness arose from that common cause,
hunger and starvation, or from the fact that the bird
had never previously seen a man, must remain un-
known.

All these observations seem to lend support to Mr.
Hudson's contention that fear in birds is, in reference ta

Further Observations on Young Birds. 89

particular animals, a matter of "experience and tradi-
tion." * There is probably no instinctive fear of man,;
and if one move gently and quietly, one may feed young
fledgelings in the nest. There is probably no instinctive
fear of a cat, and if she creep up stealthily she may
get close to young birds, unless they hear the alarm
note of their parents or other birds. What does seem
to evoke an instinctive response is the rapid approach
of any quickly moving vigorous animal, or even a leaf
driven by the breeze. "A piece of newspaper," says
Mr. Hudson, "carried accidentally by the wind is as
great an object of terror to an inexperienced young bird
as a buzzard sweeping down with death in its talons."
As experience is gained, it is the unusual which evokes
the response which indicates fear. A plover will drop and
crouch on hearing the crisp crunch of a paper bag crushed
in the hand.

With birds reared under natm-al conditions by the
parents, their alarm note serves as a warning, and, as
Mr. Hudson well describes, tradition hands on the fear
of particular enemies and dangerous animals. " Hawks,'*'
he says, " are the most open, violent, and persistent
enemies birds have ; and it is really wonderful to see
how well the persecuted kinds appear to know the power
for mischief possessed by different raptorial species, and
how exactly the amount of alarm exhibited is in pro-
portion to the extent of the danger to be apprehended."
These differences, however, would seem to be neither the
result of heredity nor of merely individual acquisition,
but of racial experience handed on by tradition through
the instrumentality of danger notes.

Here too, however, as in the case of response to the>
sight of materials which may serve for food, or which are,j

* " Naturalist in La Plata,", chap v, p. 53.

90 Habit and Instinct.

on the other hand, distasteful, we must avoid the error of
a too sweeping generalization. No doubt there may be
cases in which instinctive fear is evoked at the sight of
particular objects of alarm. To deny this would be going
beyond the evidence, and would savour strongly of dog-
matizing on negative premises. Where tradition is neces-
sarily excluded, as seemingly is the case with the megapodes,
it may be that the instinctive avoidance of any rapidly
approaching animal, whether it be harmful or harmless,
is insufficient to guard the young from destruction; and
there may be ingrained in the megapode constitution
through natural selection a congenital fear of such animals.
We must now pass to the notes emitted by young birds.
Whatever may be the case with the elaborated song of
birds, which is regarded by Mr. C. A. Witchell and others
as for the most part the result of tradition and imitation,
there can be no question that the sounds emitted by many
young birds are truly instinctive, and that some of them
are fairly differentiated from the first. In domestic chicks
I could distinguish at least six notes. First the gentle
" piping," expressive of contentment, heard on taking the
little bird in one's hand. A further low note, a sort of
double sound, seems to be associated with extreme pleasure,
when, for example, one strokes the chick's back and
caresses it. Very characteristic and distinct is the danger
note — a sound difficult to describe, but readily recog-
nizable. This is heard on the second or third day. If a
large humble-bee, a black beetle, a big worm, a lump of
sugar, or in fact anything largish or strange, be thrown
to the chicks, the danger note is at once heard. Then
there is the cheeping, piping sound, expressive apparently
of wanting something. It generally ceases when one goes
to them and throws some grain, or even stands near them.
My chicks were accustomed to my presence in the room.

Further Observations on Youn^ Birds. 91

Vb

and generally were restless when I left them ; and under
such circumstances they made this sound. Then there is
the sharp squeak when one seizes them against their
inclination. Lastly, there is the shrill cry of distress,
when, for example, one of them is separated from the rest.
A chick that was brought up with ducklings always cried
thus when they were taken away for a swim. I have very
little doubt that all these sounds have, or soon acquire, a
suggestive value of emotional import for the other chicks.
Certainly the danger note at once places others, both of
their own kind and of different species, on the alert. But
the suggestive value seems to be, in part at least, the
result of association, and the product of experience ; though
this is a point upon which it is difficult to speak with any
certainty. With pheasants a gentle piping note of con-
tentment, and a shriller cry of distress were differentiated
from the first. On the sixth day an alarm or danger note,
much like that of the domestic chick, was heard when the
little pheasant came suddenly upon a piece of paper the
size of a half-crown ; and afterwards, if I seized in my
forceps a worm from one of the pheasants, he would utter
the note and show fight. Another bird uttered the note
when he saw a Java sparrow in a cage. The complaining
note of the partridge is uttered six or seven times quickly
in succession, followed by a pause. The note of the plover
is high-pitched and much like that so familiar in the older
bird. So, too, the guinea-fowl in down utters from the first
notes quite characteristic of its kind. Its danger note, also,
is not unlike that of the domestic chick. The piping of the
ducklings is comparatively monotonous, and I have not
heard in them any danger or alarm note. Moorhen chicks,
as above noted, cheep in the egg before they are hatched.
On the first day two notes were marked — a calling note
lower in pitch than that of the chick, and rather harsh

92 Habit and Instinct.

and raucous ; and a " tweet tweet " of pleasure, something
like the contented note of a canary bird. At the end of a
week there seemed to be five distinguishable notes or types
of note. First a harsh " crek crek " when asking for food,
when excited in any way, or angry ; this was always
uttered in crouching attitude, with head thrown back and
the wings held out and forward, waving about in the
curious and exceedingly characteristic manner before
noted; secondly, a querulous call, expressive of discomfort;
thirdly, a sharper, quicker sound of pain, when, for
example, a moorhen's wing was seized by one of his
neighbours; fourthly, a gentle, persistent sound of con-
tentment; and, lastly, the canary-like "tweet tweet" of
perfect contentment. That, at any rate, the harsher note
is of suggestive value there seems no doubt; for I have
again and again seen one thrown into the characteristic
attitude on hearing the " crek crek " of its companion.

That suggestive warning notes are of great value to
birds in their free life can scarcely be doubted. Miss
Haywood says,* " I have frequently seen a bird that was
feeding quietly at the window unaware of my presence at
the other side, turn sharply round on hearing the warning
note of the robin, and look about it for danger." So, too,
it is a matter of familiar knowledge that, under natural
conditions, the various sounds made by the hen are of
suggestive value to her chicks ; but how far the several
tones produce a congenitally definite response, or how far
the play of individual experiences reaches in this matter,
it is hard to say. Mr. Hudson, however, states, as the
result of personal observation, that a young bird hammer-
ing in the shell will cease in its efforts on hearing the
warning note of the parent bird. And he also states that '
the warning cries of the foster-parent have no effect on

- ' • "Bird Notes," p. 39.

Further Observations on Young Birds. 93

the young cow-bird (Moluthrus) at any time. On the
whole I am disposed to believe that the warning cry
evokes a truly instinctive response.

Let us now turn to some apparently insignificant but
not uninteresting activities, some of which constitute
distinctive traits in the several kinds of young birds, and
.all of which, though they may be perfected in definiteness
through individual practice and guidance, have a sufficiently
definite congenital basis to be regarded as fundamentally
instinctive.

A duckling a few hours old will scratch the side of his
head. It is true, he may topple over in the process
through insufficient co-ordination; for the simultaneous
performance of poising on one leg and having a good
scratch is no easy matter. But let not either the familiar
simplicity of the act of scratching, nor some observed
difficulty in carrying it out, blind us to the fact that
this is a congenital activity, and that of no little com-
plexity, indicating a quite definite inherited organic nexus.
A local irritation (I have produced this artificially with
young birds, and found the response quite definite) sets
agoing a most complete set of movements in the hind limb
of that side, the result of which is that just that particular
spot is scratched ; or sometimes the bill is applied to the
point of irritation in the body, ivhich is definitely localized
in the absence of previous practice or the establishment
of " local signs." Similarly, a young moorhen chick that
had seized a piece of lettuce, which stuck in its mouth and
projected at the hinder end of the gape, scratched at it
rapidly and vigorously and with perfect definiteness. And
a recently hatched pheasant, fed by hand, whose bill had
got clogged with food, wiped it on the ground with ex-
ceeding precision and neatness. These may perhaps be
regarded rather as reflex actions than as instinctive

94 Habit and Instinct.

activities. As we have seen, the line is hard to draw. In
any case, they indicate that accuracy of response, implying
great nicety of organic mechanism, which is at the root of
all instinctive activity.

The preening of the down is definitely congenital. I have
seen a little plover, hatched in the evening, and taken out
of the incuhator drawer for the first time next morning,
bend back his head and apply the bill to the down of
throat and breast. In moorhen chicks the specialized way
in which, after a bath, they wring the water out of the
fluffy down-feathers and shake it from the bill with a
little jerk of the head is noteworthy, though I have not
observed its performance for the first few days. Both
chicks and pheasants and other young birds, when they
are freshly released from the basket in which they sleep,
run with little spurts indicative of the energy accumulated
during a period of inactivity and repose ; ducklings and
moorhen chicks sometimes do the same. Quite different,
however, is the little dance with which somewhat older
chicks, and especially young moorhens, greet their liberty
and the freshness of the morning air. Ducklings stretch
their necks and flap their immature wings, and then race
round in mere exuberance of spirits. And the way in
which they preen, rubbing the bill to and fro over the
breast, applying it to the tail and rubbing it and their
whole head across and along the back, notes them as
ducks to the manner born. The scratching of the ground
by chicks and pheasants is definitely congenital. They
did this in some cases on the third or fourth day, while
in others it was deferred till the eighth or ninth, the con-
ditions being closely similar, and the surface that of
newspaper with generally a little sand strewn on it. I
noticed that some scratched very vigorously on the smooth
surface of the empty tin in which they generally found

Fiirther Observations on Young Birds. 95

water. Keenness after food is a predisposing cause. I have
described how a little pheasant, which was fed on wasp
grubs from my hand, would, when he had finished them
all, leap upon my palm and scratch for more. But though
the scratching is unquestionably congenital, its continuance
is dependent upon experience of some good accruing from
the action. A chick placed in a rearer at night, in the
run of which there was sand and earth and pieces of coke
or charcoal, together with some grain and other food,
would scratch here for chance grains buried in the earth ;
but when, in the day, he had the run of the room, on the
floor of which only a sprinkling of sand and grit was
scattered (the grain being therefore readily visible), he
rarely scratched after the first day or two. Experience had
guided the originally congenital activity in accordance with
circumstances. I did not notice the guinea-fowl scratch
the ground. Its tendency seemed rather to thrust the beak
sideways through the earth. Very curious was the way in
which the little plovers thrust their bills deeply into the
soil and ploughed it forwards in a way quite different
from that of rasorial birds. Sand-dusting in chicks is
also definitely instinctive, and was observed generally about
the eighth day. There was only a little sand strewn over
the newspaper or floor, so not much good came of the
operation. Still they persisted in it for a quarter of an
hour at a time, squatting down, ruffling themselves,
and fluttering their wings in the most approved fashion.
The ducklings thoroughly enjoyed a dip. • Each morning,
at nine o'clock, a large black tray was placed in their
pen, and on it a flat tin containing water. To this they
eagerly ran, drinking and washing in it. On the sixth
morning the tray and tin were given them in the usual
way, but without any water. They ran to it, scooped at
the bottom, and made all the motions of the beak as if

96 Habit and Instinct.

drinking. They squatted in it, dipping their heads and
waggling their tails as usual. For some ten minutes
they, continued to wash in non-existent water, the
coolness of the tin to their breasts perhaps giving them
some satisfaction. Then I gave them water. The next
day the experiment was repeated with the dry tin. Again
they ran to it, shovelling along the bottom with their beaks,
and squatting down in it. But they soon gave up the
attempt to find satisfaction in a dry bath. On the third
morning they waddled up to the dry tin, and sadly departed.
One of my moorhen chicks, about a week old, showed, once
and once only, a slight dipping up and down of its breast
in the tin, but soon desisted ; nor was he seen again to do
anything of the sort, though he and the others enjoyed
standing in the water. Some five weeks later, one of the
birds was taken to a farmhouse in Yorkshire, and, on the
first morning after his arrival, was carried down to
the beck. When he reached the part of the stream where
it ran and broke over the pebbles, he stopped, ducked, and
took an elaborate bath, dipping his head well under, flicking
the water over himself, ruffling his feathers, and behaving
as such birds do when they bathe. Each day he did the
same, with a vigour which increased up to about the third
morning, and then remained constant. Whether this was
the same bird which before made an abortive attempt, I
am not certain, but probably not. In any case, the
definiteness of the first regular bath was very marked.
When the moorhen chicks were just a month old, I
noticed for the first time the characteristic upward flick
of the tail, then still quite black and downy, the white
under tail-coverts of the adult bird not appearing (as seven
yellowish-white feathers on each side, which were spread
by the bird when specially happy) for another month.
With regard to bathing, the following observation on

Ftirther Observations on Young Birds. 97

jays is worth noting. Ten days after receiving them as
nestlings about a week or week and a half old, I placed in
their cage a shallow tin containing water. They took no
notice of it, having probably never seen water before, for
they were fed chiefly on sopped food, which gave them all
they required. Presently one of them hopped into it,
whether purposely or by accident it is difficult to say,
squatted in it, bending his legs, and at once fluttered his
feathers, as birds do when they bathe, though those of the
breast scarcely touched the water. The other seized the
edge of the tin in his bill, and then pecked at the inside,
thus wetting his beak. He too fluttered his feathers in
a similar fashion, though he was not in the water at all.
A little later the first again entered the tin, and dipped
his breast under water ; this was followed by much
fluttering and splashing. The bird took a good bath, as
did the other shortly afterwards, and then spent half an
hour in a thorough grooming, with much fluttering of
wings, the crest feathers being constantly raised and
lowered, expressive of an emotional state.

Mr. H. T. Charbonnier tells me of a similar observation
of his own. A magpie about five weeks old, which he had
reared from quite an early stage of its life, when placed in
a cage and supplied with a pan of water, made one or two
pecks at the surface, and then, outside the pan without
entering the water at all, proceeded to go through all the
gestures of a bird bathing, ducking its head, fluttering its
wings and tail, squatting down, and spreading itself out on
the ground. It afterwards and by degrees acquired the
habit of bathing really, and seemed always anxious for
a bath in rainy weather.

The inquisitiveness of the jays was well marked. Soon
after being placed in a cage, they examined every corner,
every projecting bit of wire, and every mark on the wood

98 Habit and Instinct.

at the sides and the glass above. Any new object
introduced was carried about and curiously examined. A
wax match was soon torn to shreds. After hopping about
with an object for a time, and trying to tear it to pieces,
they would take it to a corner of the cage, and try and
hammer it in with vigorous blows of the beak. Agaiu and
again, as it caught their eye, they would return to it,
hammer at it for a while, and then hop off. Under natural
conditions they would no doubt have buried it. Many
little, apparently instinctive, traits were observed, such as
the attitude assumed in sleeping, with the head turned,
and the bill buried in the feathers, and the lifting of the
head over the wing when they wished to scratch the head ;
but further details would only prove wearisome.

I have already, perhaps, presumed too largely on the
reader's patience. The diary-notes — themselves selected
from a considerable body of observations recorded day
by day — may well appear in many cases to savour of
triviality. It is only, however, by careful and minute
observation that we can hope to gauge the length to which
heredity runs. In anatomical investigations we must pay
patient attention to details of structure ; and in investiga-
tions into the phenomena of habit and instinct, we must
not shrink from the labour and the expenditure of time
involved in daily and almost hourly observation, if we
would attempt to distinguish between what is inherited
in a relatively perfect condition, and what is acquired by
experience or through imitation.

Such observations as have been given in this and the
preceding chapters require to be extended to other species,
and over longer periods of time. If what is here set down
should induce others to take up a mode of investigation
which will be found full of interest, and in which much
still remains to be done, one of the objects in placing on

Ftirther Observations on Young Birds. 99

record the details of my own work will be fulfilled. There
are many activities and modes of behaviour which are
generally assumed to be instinctive and due to heredity,
but which may be the result of tradition, handed on by
example from parents to offspring. Partridges, for
example, when they jug, nestling close together at night,
would seem, from the appearance of the droppings, which
are generally deposited in a circle of only a few inches in
diameter, to arrange themselves in a circle, tails inwards
and heads outwards. Is this behaviour instinctive or is
it traditional ? The young of the colin (Ortyx virginiana),
we are told,* "when the shades of evening approached,
crowded together in a circle on the ground, and prepared
themselves for the slumbers of the night by placing their
tails all together, with their pretty mottled chins facing to
the front in a watchful round-robin." The fact that these
birds behave thus, apparently instinctively, would lead one
to surmise that the behaviour is instinctive in the partridge.
My own birds died at too early an age for this point to be
determined.

We may now summarize some of the general conclusions
to be drawn from our observations as follows : —

1. That which is congenitally definite as instinctive
behaviour is essentially a motor response or train of motor
responses. Mr. Herbert Spencer's description of instinct
as compound reflex action is thus justified.

2. These often show very accurate and nicely adjusted
congenital or hereditary co-ordinations.

3. They are evoked by stimuli, the general type of
which is fairly definite, and may, in some cases, be in
response to particular objects. Of the latter possibility we
have, however, but little satisfactory evidence.

4. There does not seem to be any convincing evidence

* Yarrell, "British Birds," sub. spec.

lOO Habit and Instinct.

of inherited ideas or knowledge (as the term is popularly-
used) ; that is to say, the facts can be equally well explained
on the view that what is inherited is of the nature of an
organic response.

5. Association of ideas is strong, and is rapidly formed
as the result of individual acquisition.

6. Acquired definiteness is huilt, through association,
on the foundation of congenital responses, which are
modified, under experience, to meet new circumstances.

7. Acquired definiteness may pass, through frequent
repetition, into more or less stereotyped habit.

( loi )

CHAPTEE V.

OBSERVATIONS ON YOUNG MAMMALS.

The most systematic observations on young mammals with
which I am acquainted are those of Dr. Wesley Mills.* They
deal with the sensory endowments, instinctive activities,
the early habits of the dog, pure-bred and mongrel, the
cat, the rabbit, and the guinea-pig; and are recorded in
the form of diaries, to which comparisons of the results
obtained are appended, and from which conclusions are
drawn and clearly set forth. The observations on the guinea-
pig supplement arid extend those of Prof. Prayer published
in his work on the " Mind of the Child."t Spalding con-
tributed to the British Association in 1875 a paper $ in
which he described a few observations on young pigs.
And Mr. W. H. Hudson has recorded § some interesting
observations on the sheep and deer of South America.

Just as the young of different kinds of birds are hatched
out at different stages of development — the megapode
being able to fly shortly after birth, and the domestic chick
emerging from the shell in a far more advanced stage of
development than the pigeon or the rook — so is it with
mammals. Not to do more than mention monotremes, like
the duck-bill {Ornithorhyncus) that lays eggs from which

* Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, sect. iv. (1894), pp. 31-62 ; and 2nd series
sect. iv. (1895-6), pp. 191-252.

t Part i., " The Senses and the Will." Eng. trans, by H. W. Brown.
New York, 1893.

J " Habit and Acquisition." See Nature, vol. xii. p. 507.

§ " The Naturalist in La Plata," chap. vi.

I02 Habit and Instinct.

very immature young emerge, or marsupials, like the
kangaroo, in which the young are brought forth in an
immature condition, and are then transferred to a pouch ;
there is much difference even among the placental
mammals with which we are familiar. The day-old puppy
is far more helpless than the day-old lamb ; the new-born
kitten is much more immature than the new-born guinea-
pig. And in comparing the activities, or the sensory
endowments, of the young at birth, this fact must be taken
into consideration.

The puppy and the kitten, for example, can do little
more than crawl for some days after birth, and are slow
in attaining definite and accurate co-ordination of the
hind limbs. Eabbits, rats, and mice move about in
a sprawling, feeble way; and though a rabbit a day or
two old can stand for a moment, yet when he shifts his
position he only crawls awkwardly. Cattle, sheep, and deer,
however, can stand and walk very soon after birth.
•' Though both the red and fallow fawns can follow the
hinds within a few minutes after birth," says Mr. Cornish,*
" the careful mothers hide them in the tall fern and nettles,
and it is only the older fawns that are seen in the open
ground or trotting with the herds. When the fawn is
born, the mother gently pushes it with her nose until it lies
down in the fern, and then goes away and watches from a
distance, only returning at intervals to feed it, or, if the
wind changes or rain threatens, to draw it away to more
sheltered ground."

" I have had frequent opportunities," says Mr. W. H.
Hudson,t " of observing the young, from one to three days
old, of the Cervus campestris, the common deer of the
pampas, and the perfection of its instincts at that tender

* u

Wild England of To-day," pp. 124, 125.
t " The Naturalist in La Plata," pp. 110, 111.

Observations on Young Mammals. 103

age seems very wonderful in a ruminant. When the doe
with fawn is approached by a horseman, even when accom-
panied with dogs, she stands perfectly motionless, gazing
fixedly at the enemy, the fawn motionless at her side ; and
suddenly, as if at a preconcerted signal, the fawn rushes
directly away from her at its utmost speed, and, going to a
distance of six hundred to a thousand yards, conceals itself
in a hollow in the ground or among the long grass, lying
down very close with neck stretched out horizontally, and
will thus remain until sought by the dam. When very
young it will allow itself to be taken, making no further
effort to escape. After the fawn has run away, the doe
still maintains her statuesque attitude, as if resolved to
await the onset, and only when the dogs are close to her
she also rushes away, but invariably in a direction as
nearly opposite to that taken by the fawn as possible. At
first she runs slowly, with a limping gait, and frequently
pausing as if to entice her enemies on, like a partridge,
duck, or plover when driven from its young ; but as they
begin to press her more closely her speed increases,
becoming greater the further she succeeds in leading them
from the starting-point."

Of the sheep on the pampas, the same author tells us *
that the first instinct of the newly born lamb is to struggle
up on its feet ; its second to suck ; and its next important
instinct, which comes into play from the moment it can
stand on its feet, to follow after any object receding from
it, and, on the other hand, to run from anything approach-
ing it. " If the dam turns round and approaches it from
even a very short distance, it will start back and run from
her in fear, and will not understand her voice when she
bleats to it; at the same time it will confidently follow
after a man, dog, horse, or any other animal moving from
* hoc. dt, pp. 106-108.

I04 Habit and Instinct.

i ■

it. A very common experience on the pampas, in the
sheep country, is to see a lamb start up from sleep and
follow the rider, running close to the heels of the horse."
" This blundering instinct is," however, " quickly laid aside
when the lamb has learned to distinguish its dam from
other objects, and its dam's voice from other sounds."

Speaking of the old native breed of sheep, which,
descended from those introduced three centuries ago, have
in great measure lost the qualities which make sheep
valuable to man as a food and wool-producing animal,
but have, on the other hand, to some extent recovered
the vigour of a wild animal, Mr. Hudson says,* "I
have often seen a lamb dropped on the frosty ground in
bitterly cold windy weather in midwinter, and in less than
five seconds struggle to its feet, and seem as vigorous as
any day-old lamb of other breeds. The dam, impatient at
the short delay, and not waiting to give it suck, has then
started off at a brisk trot after the flock, with the lamb,
scarcely a minute in the world, running freely at her side."

Some other mammals, belonging to different groups, are
fairly active very soon after birth. Guinea-pigs, seventeen
hours old, placed on Dr. Mills's study table, ran so fast as
nearly to reach the edge before they were caught. Hares
are said to run almost as soon as they are born. Mr.
Hudson, in the chapter just quoted, describes how quite
young bats were able (though they could not fly) to
" work their way upwards through the leaves and slender
twigs in the most adroit manner," until they reached
a considerable height, "when they proceeded to hook
themselves on to a twig and assume the inverted position
side by side." If we may credit "the experienced
hunter," whom Thunberg quotes, a hippopotamus calf,
only just born, escaped from the Hottentots who rushed

* Loc. cit, pp. 108, 109.

Observations on Young Mammals. 105

upon it, " and at once made the best of its way to the
river." One would like confirmation of this observation,
but it is not readily obtainable. There is an oft-
quoted statement of Spalding's of which confirmation
should not be hard to get. He put a new-born pig
in a bag, keeping it there for seven hours, and then
placed it outside the sty, ten feet from its mother. It
ran straightway to the sty, went along the outside of it,
and tried to get to the sow, though to reach her it had to
struggle under a bar, a feat it successfully accomplished.
Spalding supposed that it was guided by the maternal
grunting ; but, as Prof. Preyer points out, guidance by the
sense of smell is not excluded. If Spalding be correct,
there is shown an accurate sensing of the direction from
which the sound proceeded,

I have consulted those who have opportunities for
observing, and asked them to repeat the observation.
But, beyond some strong expressions of scepticism, I
have so far obtained no decisive evidence. Mr. Mann
Jones tells me that " an accurate observer (ex-agricul-
turalist, sawyer, miner, and poacher) says, ' The word
" walks " should not be used for the young of the pigs
we know in Devon. Until thirty-six to forty-eight hours
after birth, they at first sprawl, and later on stagger, when
they move.' This," adds Mr. Jones, " accords with my
own observations on the breeds he refers to." Other breeds
seem to be more active soon after birth. Confirmation of
Spalding's experiment is, however, desirable.

Now, when a guinea-pig, startled by such a sound as
a low whistle, runs off rapidly within a few hours of birth,
we have a case of instinctive response well-nigh in per-
fection. That there is not similar behaviour on the part
of the puppy and the kitten is, in large measure, due to their
incomplete physical development. As this development

] o6 Habit and Instinct.

proceeds, and the limbs gain strength, the instinctive
activity of locomotion, thus necessarily " deferred," may
manifest itself. But since the manifestation is — unlike
the deferred instinctive dive of the duck or the moorhen —
gradual, and since, under normal conditions, the gradual
development is accompanied by a good deal of individual
practice, the walking or running, though founded, no
doubt, on an instinctive basis, is not purely congenital.
It is, in part at least, the result of acquisition. The habit
is in such cases of double origin, partly instinctive, and
partly acquired. This is so in a great number of cases ;
and in them it is difficult to assign their due shares to
instinct and to habit. It is just for this reason that there
has been so much diversity of opinion in the matter.
Spalding,* in combating the views of "that school of
psychology which maintained that we and all other animals
had to acquire, in the course of our individual lives, all
the knowledge and skill necessary for our preservation,"
went too far in the opposite direction in asserting " that
the progress of the infant is but the unfolding of inherited
powers." Such unfolding there is, but it is under the
guidance of individual experience. The regular flexions
and extensions of the legs, " which appear even months
before the first successful attempt to walk, when the child,
held upright on the floor, is pushed forward," are in-
stinctive, as Prof. Preyer t points out, and as Prof. Mark
Baldwin % has also shown. But under normal circum-
stances the walking of the child is not solely an instinctive
activity : acquisition largely co-operates. Like the finished
flight of birds, it is a joint product of instinct and acquisi-
tion. In the precocious guinea-pig instinct predominates ;

* Nature, vol. xii. pp. 507, 508.

t Preyer, op. cit., p. 271.

t " Mental Development of the Child and the Race," p. 82.

Observations on Young Mammals. 107

in the immature kitten acquisition appears to be the chief
factor.

A very interesting observation is that which Dr. Mills
summarizes as follows : " I have found, in the case of all
puppies, and several other kinds of animals examined
(the cat and the rabbit, for example), that even on the
first day of birth they will not creep off a surface on
which they rest if elevated some little distance above the
ground. When they approach the edge they manifest
hesitation, grasp with their claws, or otherwise attempt to
prevent themselves falling, and it may be cry out, giving
evidence of some profound disturbance in their nervous
system." And he adds, "It is.interestmg to note that a
water-tortoise I have had for some years, will at any
time walk off a surface on which it is placed," and fall
to the ground. The newly born animals on which Dr.
Mills experimented were still blind, so that the effects
were not due to sight, but probably to the lack of support
experienced when the edge of the surface was reached ;
and they exemplify a very interesting mode of apparently
instinctive behaviour. Spalding's observation on a two-
days-old pig may be quoted for comparison. "When
placed on a chair, it knew the height to require considering,
went down on its knees, and leapt down." The expression
" knew the height to require considering " is unfortunate
and open to criticism. But the kneeling preparatory to
leaping down is a matter of direct observation, and not of
inference. Mr. Mann Jones, in a letter with which he
has favoured me, says, " The going down on the knees
(i.e. bending the wrist joint) is the ordinary resting position
in both young and old pigs, and the only inference war-
rantable from the action is that the muscles were tired
by standing. I doubt whether any mammal," he continues,
"ever 'leapt' from such a position. If the pig attempted

io8 Habit and Instinct.

to get down from the chair without first getting on its feet,
it would merely slip off. Practical men to whom I have
spoken deprecate the use of the word ' leapt ' as totilly ►
inappropriate." When I suggested to a worthyHPa^rofer-'^
that he should repeat the observation for me, his indirect
reply, " But who will pay for the pig ? " sufficiently in-
dicated what, in his opinion, would he the result of the
experiment. If any pig-breeder should read these pages,
he may perhaps be induced to try some such experiment.

As control over the limbs is gradually acquired the
locomotor activities are perfected. But here constitutional
differences are shown. Both at the age of three months
and in adult life, the power of motor control in the cat,
and the delicacy and accuracy of co-ordination, are greater
than in the dog ; and in the adult dog they are greater
than in the adult rabbit. The control in the cat over the
fore limbs is especially marked in correlation with their
use in climbing and in seizing prey. The kitten finds it
easier to climb up than to descend. On its 101st day,
for example. Dr. Wesley Mills's kitten, taken by surprise,
climbed a tree just at hand to a height of some thirty feet.
But it feared to descend, and was, after a time, lowered
down at the end of a pole. A kitten in a tree, apparently
unable to come down, is not an unfamiliar sight. The
tendency to climb seems to be an innate proclivity in the
cat ; as does also its alertness in the dusk of evening. So,
too, in the rabbit, spasmodic, jerky, jumpy movements are
early seen ; scratching at the surface still earlier ; the
characteristic wiping of the face with the fore paws quite as
soon (second day) ; and at a later period (about the fifteenth
day) the squatting up on the hind legs, and the mode of
running characteristic of its kind. Quite different is the
scuttling run of the guinea-pig. Dr. Mills does not note
any instinctive tendency in the rabbit to burrow. But

Observations on Young Mammals. 109

Mr. Drane observed * that a tame hare persistently tried
to burrow in his bed. The carriage and movements of the
tail in the dog and the cat, each after its kind, exemplify
congenital tendencies ; and the socially dependent nature
of the dog, as compared with the self-sufficiency of the cat,
is early seen. In the kitten the arching of the back, the
characteristic response which we interpret as the accom-
paniment of fear or anger — opened mouth, guttural hissing,
and a final spit — are undoubtedly congenital traits ; as
are also the licking of the fur (paw, sixteenth day ; neck
and chest, twenty-second day, in Dr. Mills's kitten), the
washing of the face (twenty-ninth day), and the stretching
after the manner of an old cat (thirty-first day). Con-
genital but deferred is the purring of the cat (fifty-fourth
day); congenital, too, would seem to be the tendency in
the kitten, much more markedly than in the puppy, to
crouch and stalk a moving object of small size, the re-
sponse being, it would seem, evoked by any such moving
object. I could detect no difference in the reaction to a
clockwork mouse and the real animal. Still, I have no
doubt that the smell of a real mouse is not without its
effect. Dr. Mills's observation, in fact, show this to be
so. So, too, the smell of game will set a game-dog on the
qai vive. When I am incubating pheasants' or partridges'
eggs, my fox-terrior takes an olfactory interest in the
drawer which he does not show to the same degree with
hens' eggs or those of ducks. This is still more the case
with the young birds. Such difference of behaviour is,
no doubt, partly due to association and experience; but
in greater degree, it is generally believed, to what is given
through inheritance.

Starting at very different levels of physical development,

• Trans. Cardiff Naturalists Society, vol. xxvii. part ii., 1894-95.

no Habit and Instinct.

the guinea-pig and the rabbit agree in their rapid attain-
ment of maturity in such powers as they possess. The
guinea-pig, very soon after birth, is able to care for itself,
and capable of maintaining an independent existence ; the
rabbit at birth is " blind, deaf, incapable of any con-
siderable locomotive power, and, generally speaking, in a
perfectly helpless condition." Yet, starting at such
different levels, these two animals both run so rapidly
through the early stages of the unfolding of what is con-
genital, accompanied by the learning by experience of what
is of chief value to their relatively simple life, that at the
end of three or four weeks there is " little to note by way of
further advance." "After the first month of existence,"
says Dr. Mills, " comparison with the dog, cat, and allied
creatures ceases to be suggestive. The rodents are left
quite behind. They seem capable of little education,
either by man or by nature. In other words, they get
little by experience beyond that which strengthens their
instincts and emphasizes their simple psychic life." On
the other hand, Mr. Mann Jones has found that some
rabbits are capable of a good deal of education, and are
by no means lacking in intelligence. Of rats, too, his
experience is of a similar kind. And Mr. Drane has given
an interesting account of what may be done with the hare
as a pet.

With regard to the development of sensory power, the
guinea-pig soon after birth shows so clearly that it sees,
hears, tastes, etc., that it would be hazardous, in the
opinion of Dr. Mills, to assert that these functions do not
exist at birth. This, too, seems to be the case with the
hare. Development by use there no doubt is, but the steps
towards perfection are taken with great rapidity. The
congenital element predominates.

All young mammals seem sensitive at birth, or very

Observations on Young Mammals. 1 1 1

shortly after, to warmth and cold, and show a tendency
to seek the warmth — of the mother's body, for example.
Sensitiveness to touch seems also quite early developed.
"When the mouth or nose of a kitten, on the second day,
was touched, and especially when the inner surface of the
nostrils was irritated, withdrawal of the head followed.
With young rabbits, on their first day, the slightest touch,
or even a light puff of air from the mouth, causes much
disturbance; they move in an irregular, ill co-ordinated
way, but evidently are greatly affected. A fly crawling
across the face caused jerky movements of the head
as a whole, and of the ears. When solutions of Epsom
salts and of common salt were placed in the mouth of
a rabbit not twenty-four hours old, to test its power of
taste, there was some movement of the paws to wipe it
away. On the seventh day it used the paws fairly well
to get rid of any irritant, such as a feather, put against
the mouth. The period that elapses between stimulus
and response varies. In the dog and cat, for example,
there is a much longer "latent period," in the case of
the reflex started by a pinch, than is shown by the rabbit.
On the sixteenth day a kitten was seen to use the hind
leg to scratch the ear or head ; and such a reflex is seen
in the dog at about the same time (seventeenth day).
In both these animals, as before noted, the co-ordinated
movements of the hind limbs develop somewhat slowly.
A Himalayan rabbit, on the other hand, used its hind
leg to scratch itself as early as the second day. There
can be little doubt that such reflexes, whereby local irri-
tations are connected with Hmb-movements effective for
their removal, are congenital in their nature, and form
the basis of further and more accurate localization of the
point of irritation, and of further adaptation of the move-
ments necessary for its removal.

1 1 2 Habit and Instinct.

Prof. Preyer's experiments seem to show that young
guinea-pigs both taste and smell at a very early age —
counted by hours rather than days. With its eyes
bandaged, the little animal avoided oil of thyme and
camphor, and licked at sugar, but not at glass or wood.
Dr. Mills also found that a guinea-pig, on its first day,
sucked at a feather dipped in sugar-solution, but
turned away from one dipped in aloes. A couple of them
were put in a box with some brown sugar, peppermint rock,
salt, and camphor. They licked at the salt only once ;
but they went again and again to the sugar. In the
rabbit taste and smell seemed to be well developed by the
seventh day. In the dog and cat. Dr. Mills is not pre-
pared either to affirm or deny that taste and smell are
present at birth, but if they do exist he is sure that they
are of the feeblest, are of very little use to the animal,
and play but a very subordinate part in its life during the
blind period. Still his kitten, on the second day of life,
sniffed and became uneasy when Dr. Mills rubbed his
hands well on a St. Bernard and then placed them near
the little cat's nose. By the twentieth day smell had
become of great suggestive value in the dog.

The rabbit, kitten, and puppy are born with the eyes
closed, so that sight is impossible. In the rabbit the
eyes open on the tenth, eleventh, or twelfth day ; in
the kitten, on the eighth or ninth day; and in the
puppy, on about the eleventh to the thirteenth day,
there being well-marked individual differences. The
eyes of the guinea-pig are open at birth; and at
the end of seventeen hours these precocious animals
see well and exhibit the winking reflex. This reflex is
seen feebly in the kitten on the eleventh day, in the rabbit
on the fourteenth day, and in the puppy on the fifteenth
day; in each case, that is to say, two or three days

Observations on Young Mammals. 1 1 3

after the eyes are opened. It seems to be but slowly
developed in the dog and cat, and is never so marked as
with man. For some days after the eyes are open, the
time being longer for the dog than the cat. Dr. Mills found
it difficult to get evidence of anything like distinct sight,
and, in the dog especially, sight seems at this stage quite
subordinate to smell. In the rabbit, too, on the sixteenth
day. Dr. Mills can say no more than " I think they begin
to distinguish objects by sight." In these cases experience
seems to play an important part in the development of
anything like distinct vision.

The rabbit, like the kitten and the dog, appears to be
deaf at birth ; but one moved its head and ears on the
tenth day (twelfth in the case of the Himalayan rabbit)
when a dog-whistle was sounded. The kitten showed
signs of hearing on the eighth day ; but it was not till
the seventeenth day, or thereabouts, that puppies
responded in a definite way to sounds; the responsive
ear-movements in the two animals being somewhat
different. The hearing soon becomes delicate and
accurate as to direction. In such observations it is, of
course, necessary to remember that it is only by the
answering movements that one can obtain any evidence
of sensation. It may be that there are sensations, but
that answering movements are not yet developed in re-
sponse to them ; on the other hand, what we interpret as
a felt sensation may be at first only a physiological
stimulus.

Much has been written on the instinct or reflex of
sucking. There is no doubt that the lip and mouth -
movements for sucking may be initiated in a just-born
infant or young mammal by inserting any suitable object
into the mouth. Prof. Prayer found that with young
guinea-pigs, only eight to sixteen hours old, and separated

114 Habit and Instinct.

from the mother after two hours, concentrated water-solu-
tions of tartaric acid, soda, and glycerine, introduced into
the mouth through glass tubes, were swallowed just as
eagerly as milk and water, with vigorous sucking. He
found, too, that the empty tube, placed on the end of the
tongue, occasioned just such sucking. And he believes
that, under the influence of hunger, touch, as a reflex
stimulus, overpowers any taste-stimuli acting at the same
time. It is certainly probable that the act of sucking is
a reflex started by the appropriate sense- stimuli, and, as
such, is of a purely congenital nature. But what leads the
infant to the nipple of the mother's breast, or the new-
born animal to the teats of its dam ? In the case of the
human infant, it finds its way very imperfectly and in-
adequately, being, under ordinary circumstances, guided in
its random efforts by the mother. Prof. Preyer believes
that, in the case of animals, they are at first guided to the
teats by the sense of smell. He states that puppies,
rendered incapable of smell by the severance of the
olfactory nerve, could no longer find the mother's teats
so long as they were blind. They crept about on her belly,
trying to suck everywhere. Blind puppies in the normal
state, on the other hand, find the teats at once. Dr.
Mills, however, expresses a different opinion as the result
of his observations. " I have not changed my opinion,"
he says, " as expressed in my first paper on the dog,
that the puppy, and, I will now add, the kitten, find the
nipple of the mother by touch rather than smell, and
that they are drawn towards the belly of the mother by
the warmth of the part." This also is the opinion of
Mr. Mann Jones. "So far as my observations go," he
says in a letter from which he kindly allows me to
quote, "I am inclined to think that the heat of the
mother's belly determines the approach of the young to

Observations on Yottng Mammals. 115

the teats; but many would fail to find them in good
time, were it not that sows, bitches, and cats push the
young with their noses (or even, in the case of the two
latter species, with their paws) towards or into the warm
area, when they get outside it. Further, I have seen
both bitches and cats get up and again lie down so as
to bring the teats into closer proximity to the mouth
of any young which failed to find them. It has been
noticed by a man who is a remarkably good observer
and has had much to do with animals, and also by
myself, that when a lamb is weakly and fails to find
the teat, the mother not infrequently uses its shoulders,
head, and neck as a lever to place the lamb on its
legs; and, having accomplished this, straddles over the
lamb, and brings the teats against its lips; and these
efforts are continued until the little animal sucks."

Of the pampas sheep Mr. Hudson says, "When
born the lamb's first impulse is to struggle up on to its
feet ; its second to suck, but here it does not discriminate
like the newly hatched bird that picks up its proper food "
— a conclusion, by the way, from which my own observations
lead me to dissent — " for it does not know what to suck.
It will take into its mouth whatever comes near, in most
cases a tuft of wool on its dam's neck, and at this it will
continue sucking for an indefinite time. It is highly
probable," Mr. Hudson says, "that the strong-smelling
secretion of the sheep's udder attracts the lamb at length
to that part ; and that without something of the kind to
guide it, in many cases it would actually starve without
finding the teats."

Mr. Mann Jones, in the letter from which I have quoted,
says, " A lady, who observed closely, assured me that in
some breeds of pigs the young so often fail to find the teat
by their own unassisted efforts, that many would probably

1 1 6 Habit and Instinct.

have died if assistance had not been given ; and she had
seen many instances where the teat had at length to be
placed in the mouth of the young pig to prevent starvation.

" So far as I have been able to observe, the direct
action is most ready where the difference between the
temperature of the mother and that of the atmosphere
is greatest. Young pigs, pups, and kittens are impelled
towards the mother by the irregular action excited by the
difference of temperature much more decidedly when it
is great."

We are considering, it must be remembered, the very
beginnings of this activity which is of such essential im-
portance to the young mammal. There can be no question
that experience plays its part in the further development of
the act ; and that here, as elsewhere, practice makes
perfect. Whether the gentle rhythmic pressure of the
fore paws on the mammary glands is partly instinctive,
it is difficult to say. No doubt experience renders the
act more effectual. Darwin believed that a habit of such
rhythmic pressure is engendered. We may often see a
kitten or older cat gently pounding at a cushion as she
lies dozing and purring.

To revert to the initial establishment of the behaviour
characteristic of the suckling ; in the absence of further
evidence, we may perhaps accept the view that the young
are drawn to the mother by the sense of warmth, and
come in contact with the teats either as the result of
random movements and vague attempts to suck something
(other parts being often sucked as well as the teats), or in
response to stimuli affecting the sense of smell, or through
some external guidance.

The suggestive value of smell is of great importance
both to animals of the hunting type, such as the dog or the
cat, and of the hunted type, such as the rabbit ; and it is

Observations on Young Mammals. 117

therefore of interest to ascertain how far the effects of
certain odours are congenitally definite. There is an oft-
quoted observation of Spalding's in this connection. " So
old," he says,* " is the feud between the cat and the dog,
that the kitten knows its enemy even before it is able to
see him, and when its fear can in no way serve it. One
day last month, after fondling my dog, I put my hand into
a basket containing four blind kittens, three days old.
The smell my hand carried with it set them puffing and
•spitting in a most comical fashion." Experiments of my
own have led me to question whether the reaction is so
particularized — so specially a response to the smell of a
dog as such — as Spalding believed. A whiff from a
bottle of ammonia, and some straw from a pigsty, pro-
duced much the same effect. Dr. Mills, too, says that he
has been very much impressed by the fact, that at an early
age the kitten, when suddenly disturbed in any way, re-
acts much as if a dog had come upon it, though in a
less marked manner. " Nevertheless," he adds, balancing
the evidence, " the behaviour of a kitten, even a few days
after its birth, towards even the smell of a dog on the
hands, is very suggestive of an instinctive fear or dislike
of a dog. At the same time, I have seen a kitten act
much the same way when an irritant was placed near
its nose, or, after it could hear, when it was startled by
a noise." Even Dr. Mills himself, when he appeared
before his kitten, on its twenty-seventh day, in a
somewhat startling coat—" light in colour, with pro-
nounced vertical stripes "—caused the animal to open
its mouth, and, on his going nearer, to hiss. Mr. Mann
Jones tells me he has " often introduced young kittens to
dogs, and vice versa, and that there was no sign of re-
pugnance on the part of the younger animal, nor of the

* Nature, vol. xii. p. 507.

1 1 8 Habit arid Instinct.

older if not accustomed to ' badger,' as the result of
keeping bad company."

There can be no doubt that the mode of response
— the opening of the mouth, the guttural hiss, followed,
if the disturbance is yet stronger, by an explosive
" spitting " — when the kitten is startled or affected by a
strongly disturbing stimulus is congenital and eminently
characteristic. That it is called forth in a kitten when
it is a few weeks old (and accompanied by an equally
characteristic arching of the back and raising of the fur)
on sight of a dog, especially one approaching her, is
a matter of familiar observation. But I have seen the
same response to a large rabbit. In kittens of this
age — say three weeks to a month — I have not found
that the smell of the hand, after fondling a dog and
getting the dog to lick it, evokes more than a curious
sniffing. Even if the smell of a dog call forth instinctive
behaviour, accompanied by emotional disturbance, this
must be regarded as an organic response, accompanied,
indeed, by certain conscious states affording data to ex-
perience, but not reviving those purely mythical states of
consciousness spoken of as ancestral memories. To say
that through smell a kitten "knows its enemy even before
it is able to see him," is to put the matter picturesquely,
but not satisfactorily from the point of view of scientific
interpretation. At most there is a congenital response
of a useful kind, at once anticipating the results of ex-
perience and affording a basis for experience to work
upon.

In any observations on instinctive antipathy, all
influence of the parent must be excluded. I once carried
a blind puppy to a litter of kittens to see if they would
show signs of such antipathy, the cat being away. Not
getting any response, much to my surprise at that time,

Observations on Young Mammals. 1 1 9

I repeated the experiment. Unfortunately, the cat was
there, and I long bore on my lip the mark of her claw.
The kittens were much disturbed, and there was ample
opportunity for the establishment of an association
between this uneasiness, due to the old cat's behaviour,
and the smell of a dog.

I have seen my fox-terrier smell at a young lamb,
about a fortnight old, that was lying in a field, and the
lamb showed no signs of fear, even when the two animals
were nose to nose, till the ewe came up bleating fussily ;
then the young thing started up and ran to its dam. I
take it that many popular notions concerning instinctive
fear are erroneous and exaggerated, and that what Mr.
Hudson showed for birds — that the fear is mainly due to
experience and tradition — is also true for mammals. With
regard to one such popular notion, this is what Mr. Selous
says: * " I think it is a mistake to say that oxen and horses
have an instinctive fear of the smell of a lion. I have
always found that a shooting-horse, trained to carry meat,
will allow you to pack a reeking lion-skin upon him with
as much indifference as an antelope-hide, so long as he
has never been frightened or mauled by one of the former
animals ; this, at least, is my experience."

Still, there may be an instinctive basis in some cases
where animals are by nature enemies. And we must
remember that what is instinctive often forms merely
the foundation upon which what is acquired is built in
the course of individual development. Dr. Mills puts this
very clearly. " The whole history of the kitten," he says,
"is an illustration that, however strong instincts may be
in an intelligent animal, its psychic life is determined by
experience, i.e. there come to be almost no pure instincts —
instincts unmodified by experience, if such a thing is

* " Travel and Adventure in Africa," p. 126.

I20 Habit and Instinct.

conceivable, as the language of some writers would seem
to imply. Each day of this kitten's life showed me a
progress dependent on experience, and the same applies
to the dog ; but I must add that, for the first eight or ten
weeks, the kitten seemed to get the most out of its ex-
perience." Of course, the development of experience is
in accordance with, and in large degree determined
by, the innate character of the animal. This, too, is fully
realized by Dr. Mills ; for he says, in commenting on
and comparing the diaries of the pure-bred dog and the
mongrel, that "heredity is, was, and ever will be stronger
than environment." The hereditary factor in the de-
velopment of acquired experience must never be for-
gotten.

But though, as Dr. Mills says, in an intelligent animal,
there come after a while to be " almost no pure instincts,"
that which was given as instinct having been utilized,
modified, and adapted through experience and acquisition,
yet the fundamental distinction between that which is
congenital and instinctive, on the one hand, and that
which is acquired through individual experience, on the
other hand, remains unaltered. Nor does the fact that
all acquisition is rendered possible by an innate faculty
for acquiring — nay, more, for acquiring in this way or that
in accordance with hereditary character — diminish a whit
the value of the distinction. The instinctive action is
prior to experience ; the acquired action is due to expe-
rience. And this distinction holds, no matter how hard
it may be to decide whether this action or that is in the
main instinctive or in the main acquired. The final
products of individual development may be, and no doubt
generally are, of twofold origin, partly instinctive and
partly due to acquisition ; but this, I repeat, does not in
any way serve to annul the distinction between the

Observations on Young Mammals. 121

two several elements in the final product. If we add water
to our whisky, there is no longer pure whisky ; the whisky
has been more or less modified, but the spirit is still
there none the less, and we cannot neglect its presence.
So, too, if we add the water of experience to the whisky
of instinct, we have a joint product of which so much comes
from the bottle and so much comes from the jug. And
when Dr. Mills contends that in the kitten "its psychic
life is determined by experience," we must take him to
mean that the whisky of instinct is, as a matter of fact,
always more or less watered down in the course of in-
dividual development.

When animals are brought up by their parents, it is
often a matter of difficulty to determine how far any
specially characteristic behaviour is due to the influence of
the parent, whose behaviour is similar, and how far it
is due to instinct. But when the young are separated
from their parents at an early age, the instinctive basis is
often rendered more clear and obvious. The following
observations of Mr. Charles F. Batchelder, which he has
kindly given me permission to quote, are of interest
in this connection.

" The nest in which our grey squirrel {Sciurus caro-
linensis leucotis, Sapper) rears its young is usually built
among the higher branches of some large tree. It is a
bulky mass of sticks and leaves, entirely covered above,
and entered only by a small passage through the side
of the structure. In the middle is a cavity, softly lined,
where the young are born, and where they spend their
infancy, cut off from sight of the outside world.

" From such a nest, near the top of a tall white pine
(Pinus strobus, Linn.), on May 12, 1877, I obtained two
young grey squirrels, out of a litter of four. They were so
young and feeble that, as they clung to my rough woollen

122 Habit and Instinct.

coat, it was no easy matter for them to climb, even with
the good foothold that it afforded. It was evident that
they had never ventured so far as the outside of their nest ;
and up to that time they certainly could have had no
opportunity of making the acquaintance of the ground,
which lay far below them, and concealed from the nest by
a screen of thick branches.

" When I had brought them home, starvation seemed
to threaten them, for they did not know how to eat solid
food, nor would they lap milk. To overcome this difficulty,
I improvised a nursing-bottle by putting a quill through a
hole in the cork of a small wide-mouthed bottle, which
I filled with a mixture of cream and hot water. This they
took to readily. After a few days they learned to drink
milk from a saucer, and gradually, through bread and
milk, they were introduced to more solid viands.

"After they had lived some time on such food as bis-
cuits and bread-crusts, I gave them one day some hickory-
nuts, one of the staple articles of diet of an adult grey
squirrel, whose powerful teeth take but a few moments to
penetrate the thick, hard shells. They examined the nuts
attentively, evidently looking upon them as unusually
interesting novelties, and at last the more enterprising of
the two set to work on a nut, as if he wished to find out
what prize it might contain. With hitherto unexampled
patience he laboured over it, until at last, after more than
half an hour's diligent gnawing, he gained access to the
kernel. With a few days' practice they acquired skill and
speed in extracting these hard-shelled delicacies ; and after
that they lost all interest in such things as biscuits, and
hickory-nuts formed the principal item on their bill of fare.

" These squirrels were often taken from their cage for
hours at a time, and given the freedom of a room. Here
they got abundant exercise, climbing and jumping over the

Observations on Young Mammals. 123

furniture, racing up the window-curtains, and leading, as
well as they could, well-regulated squirrel lives. It was
here, when they were a month or two old (unfortunately, I
have no record of the exact date), that they first displayed
a very interesting instinct. Many a time I saw one or
the other of them take a nut, when there were more
than he could eat, look about the room until he found
a suitable place, then put the nut down on the carpet in
some sheltered corner, such as against the castor of a
sofa-leg, or in the corner of the carved foot of a bureau.
He would press the nut down on the carpet, and then go
through all the motions of patting the earth over it, after
which he went about his business as if that nut were
safely buried.

" I have neglected to mention that in a state of nature
the adult squirrels of this species do not, as a rule, in
times of plenty, gather hoards of nuts ; but take the
superfluous ones and bury them singly, at a depth of an
inch or two in the ground, digging a little hole, if neces-
sary, pushing the nut into the hole, covering it, and
then pressing and patting the earth over it. They
bury so many that they could hardly remember exactly
where each was put ; but they have no trouble in finding
most of them by their sense of smell, which seems to be
very acute. One is often to be seen running about on
the ground, sniffing here and there, and stopping now and
then to dig, when he rarely fails to unearth a nut.

" I was interested to observe that my young squirrels
were satisfied to bury their nuts in the nearest approach
to a hole that they could find on the ground (carpet),
and were not disturbed by the fact that when the
process was completed the nut still remained plainly
visible. It is also interesting to note that (as I have
shown in some detail above) at the time they were removed

124 Habit and Instinct.

from their parents they not only had never seen the
operation of burying a nut, but were totally unacquainted
with the properties both of earth and of nuts."

In this case the untaught instinctive procedure is all
the more marked since it effected no good purpose. So
far as it goes, too, it would seem to be pure congenital
whisky undiluted by the water of experience. On the
other hand, the way in which Dr. Mills taught his kitten
habits of cleanliness is an equally instructive object-
lesson in acquisition through association, accompanied,
however, by some instinctive traits, such as the pawing of
the sand.

I have drawn largely on the observations which Dr.
Mills has placed on record in the papers to which reference
has been given. Let me assure the reader that much
remains of equal interest and importance. The diaries
should be carefully read by all students of animal habit
and instinct. Especially interesting are the observations
on the so-called " play instinct," the outcome of an excess
of vital energy finding expression in varied activities, all
of them more or less directly correlated with those which
are of importance in subsequent life, and giving oppor-
tunity for the development of the motor control so essential
to that life. Interesting, too, is the marked effect on
development of allowing a mongrel puppy, hitherto brought
up in comparative seclusion, to mix with other dogs.
" His advancement was literally by leaps and bounds."
The less social nature of the kitten, so far as members
of its own kind were concerned, is also noted. " The
behaviour of one kitten," says Dr. Mills, "has less
influence on the others than that of one puppy on its
fellows." The length of time required by the kitten —
much more marked than is the case with the puppy — to
learn how to lap milk successfully, and, later, to eat

Observations on Young Mammals. 125

solid food, seems to show that there is here raore acquisi-
tion than instinct. The very early spontaneous attempt
at eating in the rabbit, and the fact that, though the
dog is so essentially a carnivorous animal, yet until a
certain stage of development is reached, the puppy "is
no more excited by meat than by any object whatever,
show in the clearest way that there is an order in psychic
as in physical development," both in the race and in the
individual. Enough has, however, been quoted to illus-
trate the nature of instinctive response and of acquired
habit as exemplified by young mammals.

Those who are familiar with the life and ways of
domesticated and wild species will be able to recall to
mind a number of instinctive traits. The way in which
the dog turns round before lying down, the way in
which he holds up his paw when excited and on the
scent, the manner in which the mother cat carries her
kitten, the strange instincts of cattle which Mr. W. H.
Hudson has so well described and discussed, the number-
less characteristic traits which animals, each after his kind,
display, would fill a volume. Concerning all such, I would
beg the observer to note carefully how far they are
unmistakably and indubitably congenital, and how far
they may result from individual acquisition through
experience or imitation.

126 Habit and Instinct.

CHAPTER VI.

THE EELATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS TO INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR.

There is scarcely anything more wonderful in the whole
range of biological phenomena than the series of changes
which take place during the incubation of the egg. On the
surface of the central mass of yolk, when the egg is laid,
there is a little patch of somewhat lighter colour. Placed
under the hen, or in the drawer of an incubator and kept
at a temperature of about 104° Fahr. for three weeks or
so, such a transformation occurs that there emerges a little
chick which, in about twenty-four hours, will be actively
pecking at small objects, selecting some and rejecting
others. Unless we are prepared to assert that birds are
throughout their lives unconscious automata, mere machines
of marvellously cunning make, we must regard the little
chick, a day old, that is every moment gaining fresh
experience of the. world into which it is born, as endowed
with consciousness. It not only seems to feel, but to shape
its actions in accordance with what it has already felt in
the few hours of its active life ; seeking the repetition of
certain experiences and avoiding the recurrence of others.
It appears to be guided by some such consciousness as
that by which we too are guided in our own actions. The
consciousness may lack much of that complexity which
human consciousness presents ; it may be wanting in
certain features which for us are distinctive; it may be
altogether more naive and rudimentary. But it suffices

Consciousness and Instinct. 127

as a means of guidance amid the comparativelj^ simple
conditions of the chick's life.

Now, if, on the one hand, it cannot be said without ex-
travagance that the egg with which we start is endowed
with consciousness ; and if, on the other hand, it cannot
be said without extravagance that the day-old chick is an
unconscious automaton; there must be some intervening
moment at which this consciousness has its origin. When
is this, and how does it arise ? If we attempt to answer
this question with anything like thoroughness, we shall
open up the further question. From what does conscious-
ness take its origin? And this would lead to a difficult
and, for most of us, not very interesting discussion. We
should have to decide whether consciousness arises out
of merely material and physical conditions within the
developing chick; or whether it is somehow introduced
from some external source; or whether it arises out of
something associated with the material egg which, though
not yet consciousness, developes into consciousness.
These problems we will not here attempt to solve. The
probabilities appear to me to be in favour of the third
alternative; on which view the question takes the more
practical form. When does consciousness become effective?
By effective consciousness, I mean that which enables
an animal to guide its actions in the light of previous
experience. It is clear that, on the hypothesis indicated,
we cannot deny that there may be sentient states (if
one may so term them), which merely accompany organic
or other processes, but which are not thus effective
in the guidance of life. They are of no practical value,
however, unless they afford data by which the animal is
able to profit by his experience. In the series of changes,
for example, which take place in the duly fertilized egg,
there may be sentient states of this kind. But there is no

128 Habit and Instinct.

reason to suppose that the sequence is in any material
respect guided by such accompanying sentience, if it exist.
It is just because the actions of the chick do seem to be
guided by the results of experience, that we may fairly
infer the presence of effective consciousness.

We have reason to suppose that this effective conscious-
ness accompanies the functional activity of the higher
brain-centres, probably those of the superficial layer or
cortex of the cerebral hemispheres. These are in connec-
tion with certain other nerve-centres, the lower brain-
centres, and those of the spinal cord ; and these, again,
with various parts of the body through the intervention of
nerve-fibres, which are divisible into two great groups — the
afferent nerves, which .transmit currents inwards from the
several parts of the body to the nerve-centres; and
the efferent nerves, which transmit currents outwards from
the nerve-centres to the several parts of the body.

Now, it is the business of the lower centres to co-
ordinate the functional activities of the body by means of
outgoing currents along the efferent nerves ; and this co-
ordination, effected by the lower centres only, sometimes
reaches extraordinary complexity and delicacy. It would
seem, however, that their co-ordinating influence lies
wholly within the sphere of organic and physiological
action. There may be sentience, in the sense above alluded
to, but there is no effective consciousness. The co-
ordinating activity of these lower centres, in so far as it
is not guided and controlled by the influence of the higher
centres with their accompaniment of effective conscious-
ness, we may describe as automatic ; and we will restrict *
the phrase " animal automatism " to organic activity that

* I say " restrict," because Prof. Huxley has used the phrase in a far
broader sense. For a discussion and criticism of his usage, see the Monist for
October, 1896.

Consciousness and Instinct. 129

results from the co-ordinating influence of these lower
nerve-centres. An automatic act, then, is one which is
performed without the immediate and effective intervention
of those organic processes in the cerebral cortex or else-
where which are accompanied by consciousness.

The higher brain-centres, therefore, are those the
functional activity of which is alone, so far as we know
or may safely conjecture, accompanied by effective con-
sciousness, in the sense in which we are using the term.
They are the centres of guidance and control ; or, to speak
more accurately, if somewhat pedantically, they are the
centres in which occur those organic processes which
exercise an influence on the lower centres, and which have
conscious accompaniments. They are called into play,
directly or indirectly, by the incoming currents of the
afferent nerves; and they exercise their influence on the
lower automatic centres, either (1) by increasing their
activity, or (2) by checking it, or (3) by increasing here
and checking there, and thus modifying the activity in
accordance with the effects of incoming currents.

So much technical description seems to be necessary
as a preliminary to a consideration of the question, — What
is the relation of consciousness to the performance of
instinctive activities? This question may be put in
another form : What is the relation of automatism, as we
have defined it, to the performance of these instinctive
activities ? Let us leave generalities, and take a particular
case, fixing our attention on the very first occasion on
which a chick pecks instinctively at a grain of food or
other such object at suitable distance. The logical
possibilities are as follows :

1. The action may be completely automatic.

2. The action may not be completely automatic, but in
some degree gmdedb by consciousness.

K

130 Habit and Instinct.

If completely automatic, it may be either —

A. Accovipanied by consciousness.

B. Unaccompanied by consciousness.

Combining these and stating them in a more convenient
form for the purpose of discussion —

1. The chick may be an altogether unconscious
automaton.

2. It may act under the guidance of consciousness, and
not altogether automatically.

3. It may act automatically, but its automatic response
may give rise to consciousness, in the light of which its
future action may be guided and controlled.

Let us assume, to begin with, that the first possibility
expresses the facts of the case, and that the chick is, so
far as the activity in question is concerned, a completely
unconscious automaton. It may be conceded that the first
peck can be quite adequately explained on this view ;
response following stimulus under conditions which are
purely organic and wholly within the sphere of the merely
automatic co-ordination of the lower centres. It may,
indeed, be urged that it is not reasonable to suppose that
the chick pecks at the grain without seeing it, and this
implies the presence of consciousness. But, in the first
place, we are not in a position to affirm that there is
anything more than a physiological stimulus of the retina ;
and, in the second place, even if we were, it would still be
conceivable that, though the incoming effects of the retinal
stimulus give rise to the sight of the grain, the outgoing
nerve-currents which call the muscles into co-ordinated
activity (and it is this co-ordinated response that con-
stitutes the instinctive activity as such) are not only
automatic, but unconscious. Indeed, there is much to be
said in favour of the view that the outgoing nerve-currents,
and the molecular processes in the lower nerve-centres to

Consciousness and Instinct. 131

■which they are proximately due, have no conscious accom-
paniments in the case of the first performance of an
instinctive act. Still, looking at the instinctive response
as a whole and in all its bearings, there seem good reasons
for supposing that, if it be automatic, it at any rate in some
way affords data to consciousness; and that if the chick
be an automaton, it is not merely an unconscious auto-
maton. But how, it may be asked, can the observer
decide whether consciousness be thus present as an
accompaniment, though, so far, without guiding influence ?
Only by watching the subsequent behaviour of the bird.
We are forced, then, to consider the after-effects in order
to determine whether the first peck is accompanied by
consciousness or not. And if we do thus watch the bird
in its subsequent efforts, we find that they rapidly improve
in accuracy, and soon have all the appearance of being
under guidance and control, so that they can be modified
or checked according to the nature of the object, nice or
nasty, as the case may be. Now, we may safely lay down
this canon : That which is outside experience can afford no
data for the conscious guidance of future behaviour. When
we say that conduct is modified in the Hght of experience,
we mean that the consciousness of what happened, say
yesterday, helps us to avoid similar consequences to-day.
If the happenings of yesterday were unconscious, they
could afford no data for to-day's behaviour. If, then, the
first peck is unconscious, it is as such completely outside
the experience of the chick, and can therefore afford no
data for subsequent guidance and control. Similarly, the
second, third, and succeeding pecks, so far as automatic
and unconscious, afford no data to experience. But
observation shows that the activities concerned in pecking
are not only guided to further perfection, but play a part
in that active life of the little bird which cannot without

132 Habit a7id Instinct.

extravagance be interpreted as unconscious; for only by
appealing to consciousness can they be thus guided.
Hence we seem forced to reject the hypothesis of
unconscious automatism on the grounds that the activi-
ties in question do afford data to experience, can be
modified, and are therefore subject to voluntary control,
by giving rise to sensations and feelings which enter into
the conscious life of the chick.

Let us assume, then, in accordance with the second
possibility, that the very first peck is carried out imder
the guidance of consciousness. Now, guidance and control
are based on previous experience. A chick, for example,
will seize the first soldier-beetle he meets with ; but
after one or two trials of this distasteful morsel, though
he may run towards one, if he catches sight of it moving
at some distance from him, he checks himself so soon
as he sees clearly what it is. He controls his tendency
to peck at it in the light of his previous experience of
its unpleasant taste. It is clear, however, that the first
time a chick pecks there is no individual experience in
the light of which the activity can be guided or controlled.
Hence we can only admit the second possibility on the
hypothesis that experience is inherited. But though
it is quite conceivable that the effects wrought by
experience are transmitted in some way, at present un-
explained, through heredity — that, for example, the
acquired skill of one generation may become congenital
in the next — this is something very different from the
inheritance of experience itself. Unless we are prepared
to admit some form of metempsychosis ; unless we believe
that the individual remembers that which happened to
its parents or grandparents ; — we must hold fast to the
fact that the conscious experience of the individual is
limited to the events of its own lifetime. Remembering,

Consciousness and Instinct. 133

then, that the phrase " inherited experience " is merely a
condensed expression for the hereditary organic effects,
if such there be, wrought through experience, we are forced
to conclude that in the case of the first peck the chick
has no experience in the light of which its action could
be guided and controlled. If consciousness be present
it is not yet effective. And our second hypothesis is
thus placed out of court.

We are, therefore, thrown back upon our third
possibility — that the automatic response gives rise to
consciousness in the light of which the chick's future
activities may be guided and controlled. On this view
the first peck — and it must be remembered that we are
concentrating our attention on the very first occurrence
of an instinctive response in the course of individual life
— though it is an organic and automatic response, never-
theless affords data to consciousness; it thus provides
the initial experience by which subsequent efforts at
pecking may be guided and controlled. Is not this,
however, it may be asked, in contradiction of what
was stated a few pages back, that there is much to be
said in favour of the view that the outgoing currents
as such have no conscious accompaniments in the case
of the first performance of an instinctive act ? No. The
contradiction is only apparent, not real.

It is, indeed, highly probable that all the primary data
which contribute to the building up of experience are
afforded through the intermediation of incoming nerve-
currents. Grouping these in a convenient but not
logically exclusive manner— for the motor sensations and
those of the skin include elements supplied by touch — we
may say that such data are supphed first from the organs
of special sense, those of sight, hearing, taste, smell,
touch, the temperature senses, and the sense of direction ;

134 Habit and Instinct,

secondly, from the organs concerned in bodily movements ;
and, thirdly, from the heart, blood-vessels, skin, lungs,
glands, digestive organs, and so forth. Thus we have
(1) special sensations, (2) motor sensations, and (3) visceral
sensations, all of them experienced through the inter-
vention of incoming nerve-currents which reach the
higher brain-centres whose activity is accompanied by
consciousness. Now, in the case of the first peck, there
are, to begin with, the initiating sensations of sight;
and, secondly, the motor sensations due to the performance
of the act of pecking. There may be visceral sensations
as well, but these do not now concern us. When we
say, then, that the first peck, though it is an organic and
automatic response, nevertheless affords data to con-
sciousness, we mean that the act of pecking yields to
consciousness motor sensations already combined in
complex groups, and due to incoming currents from the
organs concerned in this particular kind of movement.

A further statement of the matter from the physio-
logical point of view may serve to make the conception
clearer. We have seen that what is unquestionably
inherited, and what is, therefore, an essential feature in
all instinctive response, is motor co-ordination. A
stimulus gives rise to a commotion of some sort in the
cortical region of the brain, and this is accompanied by
sensation, say of sight. It also gives rise to a com-
motion in the lower brain-centres, or in some cases
those of the spinal cord, such as to cause the automatic
distribution of outgoing currents along efferent nerves
to certain motor organs, — those concerned, for example,
in pecking or in swimming. And these outgoing currents
are so nicely and delicately ordered and graded in intensity
as to produce just the particular movements required.
This is the inherited motor co-ordination, probably a

Consciousness and Instinct. 135

purely organic matter of the physiological order. But
when the activity is carried out thus automatically in
response to the appropriate stimulus, its performance
is accompanied by consciousness. This is due to complex
groups of incoming currents from the parts concerned
in the response carried along afferent nerves to the
sensorium — probably the cortical centres of the brain.
Thus are afforded to consciousness the primary ex-
perience-data, already grouped according to the nature of
the organic response. This point is of some importance
in psychological interpretation. The primary grouping is
inherent in the data, and much of the labour of conscious
correlation is thus saved. The grouped data constitute what
Mr. Eutgers Marshall terms instinct-feelings. To condense
the conception into a phrase, we may say that the organic
genesis of the brain-changes which accompany the primary
experience data is hy backstroke (that is to say, afferent
in origin). The instinctive motor co-ordination is by
outstroke, through the intermediation of efferent nerves,
and so far it is a purely physiological and organic matter ;
there is, then, an afferent backstroke from the organs
concerned in the instinctive response, and by this back-
stroke ingoing nerve-currents are conveyed to the higher
brain-centres. Here it is that there emerges the initial
bit of conscious experience in the light of which subsequent
responses of the same kind may be guided to finer issues.
For it must be remembered that we are dealing with
the very first occasion on which the instinctive response
occurs. On this one occasion the accompanying con-
sciousness arises wholly by backstroke. On subsequent
occasions, under associative suggestion, revivals in
consciousness of previous experience-data modify the
whole process and introduce the effective guidance of
consciousness.

136 Habit and Instinct.

The net result of our discussion of the matter is there-
fore this, that on the occasion of the first performance
of an instinctive activity the co-ordination involved (and
it is sometimes quite elaborate) is automatic, and cannot
be regarded as under the guidance of consciousness ; but
that the carrying out of the activity furnishes data to
consciousness in the light of which the subsequent per-
formance of a like activity may be perfected, or modified,
or checked. Prom this it follows that only on the
occasion of its first performance does such a congenital
activity present itself for our study in its instinctive
purity. For on subsequent occasions it is more or less
modified by the results of the experience acquired by the
individual. It then possesses acquired elements in
addition to those which are congenital and instinctive ;
and when such acquired modification is rendered stereo-
typed and uniform by repetition, it is, so far as thus
modified, a habit. In such organisms as birds and young
mammals, therefore, instincts are to be regarded as the
automatic raw material which wiU be shaped and moulded
under the guidance of consciousness into what may be
called instinct-haUts, if by this compound term we may
understand activities founded on a congenital instinctive
basis, but modified by acquired experience.

In the case, too, of such an instinctive procedure of the
deferred type as that presented by the diving of a young
moorhen, though, on the first occasion of its performance
the congenital automatism predominates, yet it is difficult
to believe, and is in itself improbable, that the individual
experience of the young bird does not, even on the first
occasion, exercise some influence on the way in which the
dive is performed. If we desire to reach a true interpre-
tation of the facts, we must realize the fact that an
activity may be of mixed origin. And if we distinguish—

Consciousness and Instinct. 137

as we have endeavoured clearly to distinguish — between
instinct as congenital and habit as acquired, we must not
lose sight of the fact that there is much interaction
between instinct and habit, so that the first exhibition of
a deferred instinct may well be carried out in close and
inextricable association with the habits which, at the period
of life in question, have already been acquired.

Accepting this view, at any rate provisionally, we may
now proceed to ask what is the nature of that conscious
impulse which is commonly assumed to accompany the
performance of an instinctive activity. In truth we do not
know and can only conjecture on general grounds. Indeed,
the presence of any such impulse as a psychological factor
is wholly conjectural. We see a chick pecking at a grain
of corn, and say that it has an instinctive impulse to
respond to the stimulus in this way. "We place a tiny
moorhen or duckling in the water and see it swim off ; and
say that the touch of water on the breast calls forth
an instinctive impulse to paddle. We observe that the
larva of the great water-beetle leaves the pond and buries
itself in damp earth, and again attribute its behaviour
to the promptings of an instinctive impulse. It may be
that such a psychological impulse is present in each case.
It would certainly be hazardous to deny its presence. But
we know very little about it ; and perhaps the safest course
is to look at the matter from a physiological and organic
point of view, leaving the question of the possible psycho-
logical accompaniment an open one. Let us, howeyer,
first see what the physiological conditions are.

The psychology of impulse would seem to be in out-
line somewhat as follows. In matters of human conduct
impulsive action is contrasted with the actions which are
performed in distinct reference to motives. Thus, impulsive
behaviour is distinguished from deliberate conduct, the

138 Habit and Instinct.

former, being, it would seem, the more deeply ingrained in
the mental nature, lying far nearer to automatism than the
latter, the deliberate act. And many of us have often a hard
struggle to hold in check, by the exercise of our better
judgment, the impulsive tendencies which are natural to us
through inheritance or the force of acquired habit. A
heightened emotional state, such as that of anger or fear,
desire or irritability, is often a predisposing condition to
impulsive action. The dipsomaniac experiences recurrent
periods when his whole being seems to crave for that which
he knows is ruining him body and soul. He passes the
open door of a public-house where he sees a man raising a
glass to his lips ; the added stimulus in this critical state
is too much for him. He yields to the impulse, calls for
brandy, and gulps it down. Given a state of craving or
emotional excitability ; given an opportunity for its satis-
faction ; the impulse, I take it, is the immediate
accompaniment of the organic conditions of the moment ;
when the organic tension accompanied by the somewhat
indefinite states of consciousness we term, according to its
intensity, a need, want, or craving, is reinforced by a
definite stimulus prompting to its immediate satisfaction.
Now the impulse, if this brief sketch of its nature be
correct in outline, is essentially an internal state which
prompts us to the performance of certain actions. It is
the antecedent on which the actions themselves are con-
sequent. The performance of the action — such as the blow
struck by an angry man — is not to be regarded as the
cause, but as the result of the impulse. And in us the
term impulse is applied to the psychological condition of
the moment ; it is a state of consciousness. But it is one
that has certain organic accompaniments, and is the
outcome of physiological conditions. And since, in a
consideration of instinctive behaviour, the psychological

Consciousness and Instinct. 139

aspect is a matter of somewhat hazardous inference, it is
advisable to fix our attention on the organic aspect. Let
us therefore endeavour to apply to instinct the conclusions
■which seem to result from our brief sketch of the nature
of impulse.

Taking once more the case of the recently hatched chick
as a simple and sufficiently typical one, we may put the
matter in this way. The need for food is beginning to
make itself felt, and to throw the organism into a state of
preparedness for the response appropriate to the satis-
faction of hunger. Acting on the chick thus prepared to
respond, the sight of a small, perhaps moving, object
stimulates the pecking activity as an organic response, and
the result of this is that the organism under the influence
of the general need, supplemented by the special stimulus,
is, so to speak, thrown into a state of unstable equilibrium.
It is consciously or unconsciously urged to strike at the
moving object. The stimulus is continued ; and at length,
when the instabihty reaches a certain pitch, the organism
topples over to the peck. For the stimulus must generate
a certain amount of organic instability before the organic
mechanism will fall to the response. Now it is quite
possible that before the organism actually falls to the
response, there are outgoing currents which throw the
mechanism into a state of preparedness to respond, and
that there is a faint backstroke from the motor mechanism
thus partially stimulated, which is accompanied by a
conscious state. Let us assume that this is so, and
endeavour to fill in hypothetieally the conscious accom-
paniments of the successive stages of an instinctive
response. First, there is an indefinite feeling of want
or need, such as hunger, afferent in origin ; then there is
the felt stimulus at sight of a moving grub or worm, also
obviously afferent; on this there may follow a state of

140 Habit and Instinct.

consciousness due to an afferent backstroke from the
incipient innervation of the organs concerned in the
response ; and then there succeeds the consciousness which
accompanies the actual carrying out of the automatic
response by which the general discomfort, and the
particular effects of the stimulus, are relieved by an
appropriate motor act and its consequences. This again,
on our interpretation, is afferent in origin. Now impulse
may perhaps be fairly regarded as the condition immedi-
ately preceding the actual response which restores stability
after the preceding instability generated by a special
stimulus acting upon an organism already unstable
through the general effects of a want ; such condition
being, I repeat, afferent in origin. To put the matter
more generally, we may say that such an impulse is
the tendency of the organism to satisfy its immediate needs
and to fulfil the conditions of its being ; and that accord-
ing as this tendency is checked or realized, we speak of
the thwarting or the satisfaction of impulse.

It is right, however, to warn the reader that the term
" impulse," like many other terms in psychology, is used in
different senses by different authors. The impulse of
which we speak is sometimes spoken of as blind impulse —
the Trieb of German authors. It is right also to repeat
that in the case of the initial performance of an instinctive
activity the presence of any such conscious impulse is
hypothetical. On the other hand, that the organism under
the influence of a stimulus or complex group of stimuli is
thrown into a state of unstable equilibrium, and that
stability is reached through the appropriate response, seem
to be legitimate inferences from the observed facts. And
perhaps the safest statement that we can make with
regard to the subjective accompaniment is that, if there be
such an accompaniment, it may take some such form as

Consciousness and Instinct. 141

we have above described as impulse. If we understand
then by impulse an organic tendency which may have a
conscious accompaniment, we shall have gone as far as
seems at present justifiable in going, where instinctive
behaviour is concerned.

It now only remains to say a few words concerning the
relation of the acquired automatism of habit to the con-
genital automatism of instinct. When we say that some
oft-repeated habit is carried out automatically, we mean
that it is done without conscious guidance and control.
The cerebral cortex with its concomitant consciousness has
somehow left the impress of its control, uniformly exercised
in certain specific ways, upon the automatic mechanism.
How this is effected we do not know. But the fact is a
familiar one. Many actions which at first require our fully
conscious guidance and control pass, through frequent
repetition, into the condition of automatic acts generally
accompanied by consciousness as an adjunct, but some-
times performed unconsciously. They have become merely
organic responses conscious or unconscious. They conform
therefore to our definition of automatic acts as those which
are performed without the immediate and effective inter-
vention of those molecular changes in the cerebral cortex
which are accompanied by consciousness.

Whether in the case of automatic actions of the
acquired type the channels of nervous discharge in the
brain still run through the cortex, or whether by a process
of " short-circuiting " they are restricted to the lower brain-
centres, it is impossible at present to say. If we knew
with anything approaching certainty what special parts of
the cortex are concerned in the essentially controlling
process, it might be possible to decide between these two
views. Unfortunately we do not. All that can be said,
and that with as much confidence as is permissible in such

142 Habit and Instinct.

a difficult matter, is that whatever parts of the cortex (or
other region of the brain) were concerned in effective
guidance and control are, in the automatism begotten
of habit, so concerned no longer.

As in the case of the congenital automatism of instinct,
so, too, in the case of the acquired automatism of habit,
the stimulus or group of stimuli produces a state of
instability, the restoration of stability being effected by the
performance of the habitual activity. If we apply, as above
suggested, the word "impulse" to the tendency of the
organism to pass on the application of a specific stimulus
from the relative instability of a need or want to the
relative stability of satisfaction, we have in the case of
acquired automatism an habitual impulse answering to the
instinctive impulse. When such a tendency is in any way
checked or thwarted, the preliminary state of instability
would seem to be thereby increased or emphasized, and
the impiilsive tendency is 'pari passu augmented. A very
acute thinker and able writer — ^Mr. Henry Eutgers
Marshall — goes so far as to say that " the word ' impulse '
is in general use to indicate those phases of consciousness
which are produced by the inhibition of instinctive
activities that have been stimulated by the presence of the
objective condition that usually calls them out, but which
for one reason or another are not at once realized." * In
this I think Mr. Marshall goes too far. The impulsive
tendency is indeed emphasized and augmented ; but to say
that it is produced by the inhibition appears to be an over-
statement of the case.

In conclusion one may picture the organism starting
with a certain amount of congenital automatism of the
more or less definitely instinctive type, and passing on to
reach a certain amount of the acquired automatism of

* Nature, vol. lii. p. 130.

Consciousness and Instinct. 143

habit. The latter state is in part a modification of the
former ; but it contains superadded elements as well. And
it is one of the functions of that Intelligence with which
we shall deal in the next chapter, to exercise a guiding
influence in the establishment of the acquired automatism
of habit.

iz).4 Habit and Instinct.

CHAPTEE VII.

INTELLIGENCE AND THE ACQUISITION OF HABITS.

"When a drill-sergeant takes in hand a number of raw
recruits, he has to keep a vigilant eye on the actions
of each, checking useless, misguided, or mistaken activity
in this direction, eliciting more prompt and vigorous
response to his commands in that direction, making the
men act, not as isolated units, but as constituent members
of a corporate body, and aiming throughout at that
co-ordinated action on which their future efficiency will
depend ; so that, when they take their places in the ranks,
each may be ready to perform his own part in due sub-
ordination to the combined action of the whole, without
faltering and without hesitation. The men are duly
organized into squads, companies, battalions, and so on ;
and thus we have a disciplined army with its brigades,
divisions, and army corps ; with its artillery, engineers,
cavalry, and infantry ; with its intelligence, commissariat,
and medical departments, each with distinctive responsi-
bilities, and under its own especial officers ; the whole
capable of the most varied and yet most orderly evolutions
at the will of the commander-in-chief.

It is the function of consciousness, represented in the
flesh by the cerebral cortex, to drill and organize the active
forces of the animal body in a somewhat analogous manner.
But when it enters upon its duties, consciousness finds
that a considerable amount of the drilling has already been

Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits. 145

done. There is no need to teach the organic mechanism
how certain activities are to be performed, for they are
already carried out automatically. The intelligence
department, with its special senses and so forth, is
already organized so far as the supply of information
is concerned. The commissariat department, digestive
organs, heart, lungs, and the rest, is in pretty good
working order, and eagerly on the look-out for supplies.
Many complex activities, adaptive actions of the reflex
kind and of the type we have termed instinctive, are at
once performed under appropriate conditions without the
guidance of consciousness. Consciousness merely looks
on and makes a memorandum of what is going forward.
The number and the complexity of those instinctive
activities that consciousness thus finds ready to its hand
varies in the different grades of animal life ; being at a
maximum in such forms as insects and spiders. They are
more marked in birds than in mammals, and seem to be
inconspicuous or difficult to trace in man. There are,
however, also many more or less isolated activities, with
very little initial adaptive value ; and these resemble raw
recruits. Such are the comparatively aimless and random
limb movements of the human infant, as he lies helpless
on his mother's lap. Consciousness has to combine and
organize these vague efforts in directions that are useful
for the purposes of animal life, and adapted to the condi-
tions under which the forces of that life are employed ;
gradually to bring the effective work done by the several
companies, represented by groups of muscles, into due
relation to each other, and, assuming the supreme com-
mand, to carry on the battle of life at the best advantage.

Such an analogy as this must not be pressed too far.
It is adduced merely for the purpose of illustration. The
drill-sergeant, for example, is dealing with intelligent

146 Habit and Instmct.

beings, themselves capable of directing and controlling
their own actions. But consciousness as drill-sergeant
is dealing with automatic movements or activities,
instinctive or random as the case may be, themselves
incapable of self-guidance. What the analogy here serves
to illustrate is this : that neither drill-sergeant, on the one
hand, nor consciousness, on the other, can directly produce
the activities which are dealt with. The activities must
be given. All that can be done is to stimulate some to
increased energy of action, and to check or repress others.
And just as the drill-sergeant must vigilantly watch
his men, since he is dependent on such observation for
information as to the correct performance of their
actions, so, too, is consciousness entirely dependent on
the information received through the incoming channels
of afferent nerves for the data upon which its guidance,
through the exercise of augmentation and inhibition,
is based. Further, just as the superior officer has
to bring into due relation the evolutions which are
carried out under the control of subordinates, so does
consciousness correlate the data received through many
groups of afferent nerves, and co-ordinate a number of
varied activities into a more or less definite course of
behaviour. It is true that the analogy here again to some
extent fails, since the drill-sergeant and his superior
officer are separate individuals, while consciousness is
continuous, and is drill-sergeant and superior officer rolled
into one. But though this continuity of consciousness
remains unbroken, we have abundant evidence, in the
course of our own experience, that, during the gradual
establishment of the supreme conscious control of the
bodily activities, the regulation of details of active
response is step by step relegated to sub-conscious
guidance, which, though constantly in touch with, requires

Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits. 1^7

but little attention from, the supreme centres of voluntary
control. The horseman, the billiard player, the pianist,
knows well that, when once skill has been attained, such
further guidance as is required under the special con-
ditions of any particular occasion may be safely left
to sub-consciousness, scarcely troubling the attention at
all. Habit has in large degree rendered these actions
part of the acquired automatism. But consciousness, like
a wise superior officer, still keeps vigilant watch. So long
as the performance is satisfactory and accurate, the
superior officer sees as if he saw not ; but when anything
goes wrong, consciousness, as superior officer, steps in
more or less smartly and decisively.

Few are likely to question the importance in animal
life of the acquisition of habits, including as we must under
this term nearly all the varied forms of animal skill. For
even when the skill is founded upon a congenital and
instinctive basis, it is (except perhaps in some instinctive
activities of insects and other invertebrates) improved,
and guided to finer and more delicate issues, in the course
of individual experience. So that we may regard the
function of consciousness as twofold ; first it is concerned
in the establishment of habits; and, secondly, in the
utilization of all the active powers, including the habits so
established, in meeting the varied requirements of daily
life. How, then, is the guidance of consciousness effected ?
Upon what principles are the acquisition of skill and the
utilization of skill to be explained ?

There can be no question that, from the psychological
point of view, the association of impressions and ideas,
some illustrations of which have already been incidentally
given, is of fundamental importance. Whatever may be
the position assigned to so-called " association by con-
tiguity " in human psychology, there can be no question

148 Habit and Instinct.

as to its essential importance in the more primitive
psychology of such animals as young birds. When chicks
learn rapidly to distinguish between the caterpillars of the
cinnabar moth and those of the small white butterfly, so
that they gobble up the one without hesitation and avoid
the other without fail, they give the plainest intimation
that an association has been formed in each case
between appearance and taste. Prof. Preyer notes
that his chicks rapidly learnt to associate the sound
of tapping with the presence of food. I have already
described how one of my chicks, which had but recently
learnt to drink, standing in its tin, subsequently stopped
as it ran through the water in such a way as to lead one
to infer that wet feet had become associated with the
satisfaction of thirst. Young pheasants seemed to associate
water with the sight of a toothpick, on which I gave them
some drops. Ducklings so thoroughly associated water
with the sight of their tin that they tried to drink from it
and wash in it when it was empty, nor did they desist
for some minutes. A moorhen chick, for whose benefit we
had dug up worms with a spade, and which, standing by,
jumped on the first-turned sod and seized every wriggling
speck which caught his keen eye, would soon run from
some distance to me as soon as I took hold of the spade.
There is no need to multiply instances. The study of young
birds is an impressive lesson in association psychology;
and one daily grows more convinced of the importance of
association in the acquisition of experience of this homely
and elementary but essentially practical kind.

But it may be said that though association is unques-
tionably important, yet its efficiency in the guidance of
action depends upon something deeper still. Granted
that, in a chick which has first seen and then tasted a
nasty morsel, an association is formed between sight and

Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits. 149

taste, so that on a subsequent occasion its peculiar
appearance suggests its peculiar nastiness. What is the
connection between the nastiness of a cinnabar caterpillar
and the checking of the tendency to eat it, or between the
niceness of the caterpillar of the small white butterfly, and
the added energy with which it is seized ? Why do taste-
stimuli of one kind have the one effect, and taste-stimuli
of a different kind have just the opposite effect? What
are the physiological concomitants of the augmentation of
response in the one case, and of the inhibition of response
in the other case ? I conceive that there is but one honest
answer to these questions. We do not know. This and
much beside must be left for the science of the future to
explain. This much may, however, be said. Certain
stimuli call forth disturbances, probably in the cortex of
the brain, the result of which is the inhibition of activities
leading to the repetition of these stimuli ; certain others
call forth cortical disturbances, the result of which is the
augmentation of the activities which lead to their repetition.
The accompaniments in consciousness of the former we call
unpleasant or painful ; the accompaniments in con-
sciousness of the latter we call pleasurable. This appears
to be a plain statement of the facts as we at present
understand them.*

Now, there can be no question as to the strongly-marked
hereditary element in such augmentation of response when
the cortical disturbances have pleasurable concomitants
and the inhibition of response when the cortical disturb-
ances have unpleasant concomitants. This is, in fact,
founded on the innate powers or faculties which the
organism derives from its parents and more distant

* Compare Prof. J. Mark Baldwin's statementa in his " Mental Develop-
ment of the Child and the Eaoe" (1895), p. 278 and elsewhere, concerning
what he terms "biological or organic imitation."

150 Habit and Instinct.

ancestors. But if the cortical augmentation and inhibi-
tion are founded in heredity ; and if this augmentation
and inhibition form the basis upon which all acquisition
and all control are based ; what becomes of the distinction
between instinctive and acquired activities ? What, of
that between automatic and controlled behaviour ?

Let us look again at the facts which we are endeavour-
ing to interpret. A chick sees for the first time in its
life a cinnabar caterpillar, instinctively pecks at it under
the influence of the visual stimulus ; seizes it, and under
the influence of the taste-stimulus instinctively shrinks.
So far we have instinct and automatism. Presently
we throw to it another similar caterpillar. Instinct
and automatism alone would lead to a repetition of
the previous series of events ; seeing, seizing, tasting,
shrinking. The oftener the experiment was performed
the more smoothly would the organic mechanism work,
the more definitely would the same sequence be repeated —
seeing, seizing, tasting, shrinking. Is this what we
actually observe ? Not at all. On the second occasion
the chick, under the influence of the previous experience,
acts differently. Though he sees, he does not seize, but
shrinks without seizing. We believe that there is a revival
in memory of the nasty taste. And in this we seem
justified, since we may observe that sometimes the chick
on such occasions wipes the bill on the ground as he does
on experiencing an unpleasant taste, though he have not
touched the larva. The chick, then, does not continue to
act merely from instinct and like an automaton. His
behaviour is modified in the light of previous experience.
What, then, has taken place in and through which this
modification, born of experience, is introduced? In
answering this question we disclose the essential feature of
the distinction we have all along been drawing — that

Intelligence and the Acqtiisition of Habits. 151

between congenital and acquired activities. The answer
may be given in two words — association and the suggestion
that arises therefrom. The chick's first experience of the
cinnabar caterpillar leads to an association between the
appearance of the larva and its taste ; or, from the physio-
logical point of view, to a direct connection between the
several cortical disturbances. On the second occasion
the taste is suggested by the sight of the cinnabar larva ;
or, physiologically, the disturbance associated with taste
is directly called forth by the disturbance associated with
sight. It is through association and suggestion that an
organism is able to profit by experience, and that its
behaviour ceases to be merely instinctive and automatic.
And such association would seem to be a purely individual
matter — founded, no doubt, on an innate basis, linking
activities of the congenital type, but none the less wholly
dependent upon the immediate touch of individual
experience. Hence the development of consciousness as
effective for the guidance of life, takes its origin in the
linkage, through association, of sentient states. In the
absence of such linkage sentience is a mere adjunct
accompanying certain organic transactions in the nervous
system or elsewhere.

In watching, then, the behaviour of young birds or
ot^r animals, we observe a development which is to be
interpreted as the result of conscious choice and selection.
For the chick to which a handful of mixed caterpillars is
thrown, chooses the nice ones, and leaves the nasty
untouched. This selection is dependent upon an innate
power of association which needs the quickening touch of
individual experience to give it actuality and definition,
without which it would lie dormant as a mere poten-
tiality. On this conscious selection and choice depends,
throughout its entire range, the development of those

152 Habit and Instinct.

habits which are acquired as opposed to those which are
congenital ; and on it depends, as we shall hereafter see,
the whole of mental as contrasted with merely biological
evolution.

Let us be quite clear as to what is here meant by
conscious selection. By it is meant, that activities are
determined by the associative effects produced in conscious-
ness ; or, in other words, that thej' are due to experience.
The organism that profits by experience, avoiding this
because it has been found unsatisfactory, and choosing
that because previous trial has shown it to be good,
exercises conscious selection.

The foundations of animal intelligence * rest on indi-
vidual choice or selection, which in turn is dependent
upon association, and the suggestion it renders possible.
For how could a chick learn to avoid cinnabar caterpillars
if the sight of their black and golden-ringed bodies had not
become associated with their distastefulness, and that so
intimately and with such a nicety of mechanism that the
instinctive tendency to peck at any small object at suitable
distance is arrested by the restraining impulse due to the
associated taste ? A single experience is often sufficient to
establish an association. I noticed that one of my seven-

" The reader may be referred for a comparison of the " mentality of the
higher animals " with that of man to Lecture xxiv. in Professor Wundt's
"Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology." "The criterion of 'in-
telligent ' associative action and of intelligent action proper [that to which
I should restrict the term ' rational,' and ' intellectual '], can," he says,
"only be this — that the effect of association does not go beyond the
connection of particular [or at most 'generic' as distinguished from
'general'] ideas, whether directly excited by sense-impressions, or only
reproduced by them, while intellectual activity in the narrower sense of
the word presupposes a demonstrable formation of concepts, judgments, and
inferences, or an activity of the constructive imagination " (Eng. Trans.,
p. 357). In Professor Wundt's opinion, in which I concur, "the animal
actions which border most closely on the realm of human understanding give
us no warrant for inferring the existence of true concepts, judgments,
and [logical] inferences " (JhiA. p. 359).

Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits. 153

days-old chicks pecked repeatedly at something near the
corner of the turned-up newspaper which formed the wall
of the enclosure, the paper being propped against a more
solid support. The speck which had caught Blackie's keen
eye turned out to be the number of the page. He then
transferred his attention to the corner of the paper, which
he could just reach. Seizing this he pulled at it, bending
the paper down, and thus formed a breach through which
he escaped into the wider field of my study. I caught
and put him back near the same spot. He went at once
to the corner, pulled it down and escaped, but was
captured, and set down on the other side of the pen.
Presently, he sauntered round to the old spot, reached up
to the corner of the newspaper, pulled it down, and again
effected his escape. A single chance experience had
sufficed to teach him, and the association held good. I
parted with him in the evening of that day, so that I am
unable to say how long the association lasted ; but other
observations lead me to believe that an association once
formed is not soon obliterated. A moorhen that had
learnt to avoid cinnabar caterpillars refused to touch one
though three weeks had elapsed since he had seen any or
had opportunity of reviving the association, and though, in
the mean time, he had seen many strange worms.

It does not appear to me that we are forcing upon a
technical term a meaning widely divergent from that
which current usage sanctions in a familiar word, in desig-
nating as "intelligent'' Blackie's repeated escape from
confinement when chance had taught him how to break
bounds. In what essential respect does it differ from the
behaviour of Tony, my fox-terrier, who opens the gate by
lifting its iron latch with his head, having, after looking
out between the bars in a number of places in the railings,
at length chanced to gaze out under, and at the same

154 Habit and Instinct.

time inadvertently lift, the latch ? He, too, after a while
profited by the fortunate results of an originally fortuitous
experience, and now opens the gate whenever he wants to
do so. At any rate, using the word as a technical term
for behaviour based on direct association, this profiting by
individual experience is of the very essence of intelligence.
No doubt important conditions to the intelligent over-
coming of difficulties are persistency and varied efifort.
I have noted this again and again in the case of young
birds. It was especially noticeable in jays. Every
projecting bit of wire or piece of wood in their cage was
pulled at from all points, and in varied ways. Every
new object introduced into the cage was turned over,
carried about, pulled at, hammered at, stuffed into this
corner and into that, and experimented with in all possible
ways. Such persistency and varied effort affords to in-
telligence abundant material from which some fortunate
and helpful association may arise.

Dr. Mills, in his diary of the kitten,* describes how
persistent were its efforts, from the twenty-sixth to the
twenty-eighth day of life, to get into some partially filled
book-shelves, even when the entrance was barred up.
" The history of the kitten's whole bearing towards the
book-shelves has been to me," he says, " a most in-
structive one. I have never witnessed such perseverance
in the accomplishment of an object in any young animal
— not excepting the child. It seemed that the greater
obstacles the greater the efforts the kitten put forth to
overcome them — behaviour that we usually consider
especially human, and ever an evidence of unusual
strength of character."

No doubt there are well-marked variations in this
innate persistency and experimentalism, if we may so

* Trans. Boy. Soc. Canada, 2iid series, Tol. i. sect. iv. pp. 197, 210.

Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits. 155

call it. Not long ago I was walking on a Sunday after-
noon with a gentleman who took with him five young
hounds. We came to a gate the lower bars of which
were close together, the upper bars being further apart;
and, when we had chmbed over, we watched the pups.
All at first struggled to get through the lower bars, but
they were too narrow. Presently first one, then another,
and then a third, tried higher up, and scrambled through
the wider opening. The fourth persistently struggled at
the lower bars ; the fifth occasionally struggled, but spent
most of his time in , whining. Here then, are three,
if not four, grades of intelligence. First, the cleverest
pup, who soon got through by trying a new place, and
showed the way ; secondly, two others who soon followed
his example — the third apparently through imitation ;
then the stupid but persistent pup ; and, lastly, the
one who gave it up and whined — unless, indeed, we regard
the desisting from hopeless attempts as a mark of intelli-
gence. My friend went back and called the three suc-
cessful pups after him, and they got through without
much difficulty. He then rejoined me in the field, and
the intelligent pups at once scrambled up to the wider
opening : they had learnt their lesson. But the other
two still struggled and whined ; and though we remained
in the field for twenty minutes, neither of them learnt
the trick of that gate. An intending purchaser of one of
these five pups would hardly have selected either of
these two duffers !

The point, however, which it is desirable to emphasize
is, that intelligence involves selection or choice ; that
the profitable experience is chosen for repetition ; and that
such conscious selection is rendered possible only through
association. It may indeed be asked. Why bring in this
word "association" so often? Why not say simply that it is by

156 Habit and Instinct.

memory that the profiting by experience is made possible ?
There can, of course, be no objection to ascribing the facts
to memory. But let it be clearly noted that the memory
is of such a kind that this suggests iliat ; it is just the
connection by means of which tins and that are linked
together, so that this revives that in memory, to which the
term " association " is applied.

What, then, we may now ask, is the relation of ex-
perience to impulse '? In reply to this question, we may
say that the congenital impulse may, through experience,
be confirmed, modified, or held in check; and that such
confirmation, modification, or inhibition gives rise to an
acquired impulsive tendency. Let us, however, look a
little more closely into the nature of this acquired im-
pulsive tendency. It is not going too far to say that every
bit of practical experience leaves the organism something
different from what it found it. The chick that has had
experience of the nastiness of the cinnabar larva is
neither organically nor impulsively what it was before
the experience. It is an organism with different reactive
tendencies. And the difference is due to acquisition. Let
us state this in terms of the conception of impulse
which has already been formulated. Impulse, I said, is
the tendency of any organism to satisfy its needs and fulfil
the conditions of its being. Now, the chick comes into the
world with certain congenital impulses, certain tendencies
to satisfy its congenital needs and to fulfil the inherited
conditions of its being. But at the touch of experience
its needs are modified or further defined ; the conditions of
its being are no longer what they were, for they too have
undergone modification or further definition. On the eon-
genital basis has been grafted an acquired disposition.
When new stimuli come there is an impulsive tendency
to realize, not the old being, the conditions of which were

Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits. 157

determined solely by heredity, but a new being, in -which
that -which -was due to inheritance is modified by that
which has been acquired through individual experience.
Thus -we may say that after a little experience the im-
pulsive tendencies are the net result of two factors — in-
heritance and individual acquisition.

By repetition, the results of acquisition become more
and more firmly ingrained in the organic and impulsive
constitution. Habit is second nature. The congenital
automatism -with -which the animal starts gives place,
under the play of repetition, to an acquired automatism.
Between the earlier stereotyped congenital response on the
one hand, and the later stereotyped acquired response on "
the other hand, lies the period of youthful plasticity. The
stimuli to the first — the stereotyped congenital response —
are to some extent unspecialized ; the chick will peck at
any object of a suitable size at an appropriate distance.
But the stimuli to the second — the acquired response —
are specialized, defined, or particularized. The experienced
chick habitually responds in one way to looper caterpillars,
and in a different way to cinnabars. The former, the
congenital responses, tend to meet the general require-
ments of the race ; the latter, the acquired responses, are
adapted to the special requirements of the individual. A
congenital tendency leads the little moorhen either to
assume the defensive attitude, or to run away, at the sight
of any large approaching object ; acquired tendencies
lead it to tolerate or welcome the approach of the familiar
fox-terrier or man, but to react even more vigorously on
the approach of the unfamiliar goose or sheep. It is in
the period of youthful plasticity that intelligence has its
most important part to play— so far as the genesis of \
habit is concerned— at any rate, in such organisms as
young birds, whose intelligent adaptability is in marked

158 Habit and Instinct.

contrast with the stereotyped stupidity (as it appears to
us from its relative lack of plasticity) of the ordinary hen.
And even with human beings there is at least some truth
in the sigh with which the philosopher regarded the
hright and active Eton and Harrow boys at Lords', when
he remembered that, ere many years had passed, they would
become mere bishops and members of parliament. But
there always remains, it must be noted, over and beyond
the period of youthful plasticity, a greater or less balance
of intelligence for further adaptation throughout adult life.
The higher the mental grade of the organism, and the
more varied the conditions of that life, the greater the
balance of intelligence that remains — only, however, to
grow less and less as maturity verges on senility.

It is on the relation of intelligence to repetition, and
hence to that acquired habit which becomes second nature,
that we have to fix our attention. For those activities
which are frequently repeated, become ingrained in the
organic nature as more or less fixed habits * of response ;
and the more firmly the habit is ingrained, the more
imperious is the impulse to the performance of the habit.
Just in so far as the individually acquired nature gains
strength and permanence does the need for its realization
under the appropriate conditions of stimulation increase
in force and insistency. The craving which accompanies
the thwarting of habitual activities increases in strength
fari passu with the growth of acquired automatism. The
organism which to begin with was a creature of congenital
impulse becomes more and more the creature of acquired
impulse. It is a new being, but one with needs yet more
imperious than those with which it was congenitally
endowed.

* These are the acquired instincts of Prof. Wundt, "Lectures on Human
and Animal Psychology," Trans., p. 397.

Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits. 1 59

It is, however, a practical problem of no little difficulty
to determine in particular instances whether a given
adaptive activity is an instinct or a habit; whether it
is congenital in its definiteness, or has acquired this ^
definiteness by intelligent selection and recurrent repetition.
The observations which have been described in preceding
chapters had for one of their objects, the determination of
this point for some of the activities of bird life. Let us
now take a particular case — for such a case is both more
instructive and more interesting than mere generalities —
by which the difficulty in question may be further
illustrated.

In 1874 Darwin drew attention, in the columns of
Nature,* to the fact that primrose flowers were cut off, and
a piece of the calyx, between one- and two-tenths of an inch
in length, was removed. He attributed the destruction to
birds, who would thus obtain the nectar contained in the
flower, but asked for further information.

Many letters appeared in response to Darwin's appeal.
Among them one by Major E. E. Festing, who said,t
"A month ago I saw a caged hen bullfinch that would
treat any quantity of prinu-oses which were given her in
precisely the way described by Mr. Darwin. She gave
one snip only to each flower, not again touching the
remains of it, which fell to the floor of the cage." And
other evidence pointed to the bullfinch as the bird which
possessed this habit.

Darwin returns to the subject in a subsequent number,^:
and writes as follows : " It is clear that the ovules are the
chief attraction ; but the birds, in removing by pressure
the ovules, could not fail to squeeze out the nectar at the
open end, as occurred when I squeezed similar bits between

* Vol. ix. p. 482. t Nature, vol. x. p. 6.

X Ibid., vol. X. p. 24.

i6o Habit and Instinct.

my fingers. The birds thus got a dainty morsel, namely,
young ovules with sweet sauce." And then, in reference
to the instinctive character of the action, he continues,
" In my former letter I remarked that if the habit of
cutting off the flowers proved to be a widely extended
one, we should have to consider it as inherited or
instinctive; as it is not likely that each bird should dis-
cover, during its individual lifetime, the exact spot where
the nectar, and, as I must now add, the ovules, lie con-
cealed, or should learn to bite off the flower so skilfully
at the proper point. That the habit is instinctive. Prof.
Frankland has given me interesting evidence. When
he read my letter he happened to have in the room a
bunch of cowslip flowers and a caged bullfinch, to whom
he immediately gave some of the flowers, and afterwards
many primrose flowers. The latter were cut off in exactly
the same manner, and quite as neatly, as by the wild
birds near here. I know that this is the case by having
examined the cut-off portions. Prof. Frankland informs
me that his bird pressed the cut-off portions of the calyx in
its beak, and gradually worked them out on one side, and
then dropped them. Thus the ovules were removed and
the nectar necessarily squeezed out. Now, the caged
bullfinch was caught in 1872, near, but not in, the Isle
of Wight, soon after it had left the nest, by which time
the primroses would have been out of flower; and since
then, as I hear from Prof. Frankland, it had never seen a
primrose or a cowslip flower. Nevertheless, so soon as
this bird, now nearly two years old, saw these flowers,
some machinery in the brain was set into action, which
instantly told it in an unerring manner how and where to
bite off and press the flowers so as to gain the hidden prize."
This appeared to be a final solution of the matter.
But the observations of a subsequent correspondent

Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits. i6i

tended to throw doubt on the instinctive nature of the
bird's procedure. " I have a bullfinch," she says,* "which
was hatched last summer after primroses were over. They
were, therefore, quite new to him when I offered him the
first I could get this season. He pulled it to pieces quite
indiscriminately, biting stalk, flower, or calyx quite in-
differently, and the same with a few more which were
given to him at the same time. But since then he has
often had a few at a time, perhaps twenty or thirty in all,
and he now almost always bites out the lower part of the
calyx as described by Mr. Darwin in Nature. Sometimes
he bites a little too high up, but almost instantly tries
again with better success. When that part is eaten, he
attacks the stalk rather than the corolla.

" Last spring I offered primroses to four bullfinches
belonging to friends. Not one seemed to pull the flower
to pieces according to any method. Two of them I saw
only once. Another (an old bird, and somewhat shy), after
being supplied with the flowers for several days, seemed
as unskilful in picking out the titbit as he was at first.
The fourth was a young bird. His mistress was called
away before she had heard what was the peculiarity for
which I was watching. A few days later she told me she
had given him primroses in the mean time, and had
noticed that he ate only the green part. [This was not
the case with the first I offered him.] In those few days
he had learnt the art of primrose-eating, not, indeed,
quite perfectly, but wonderfully well considering how little
practice he had had. — C. A. M."

It will be seen, then, that it is by no means so easy
as might at first sight be supposed, to determine whether
an habitual activity is truly instinctive or is due to the
play of individual selective intelligence.
* Nature, Tol. xiii. p. 427.

M

1 62 Habit and Instinct.

There is a point of considerable importance to which
attention may here be drawn. Assuming that the habit
of the bullfinch is due to intelligence, let us carefully
note the role that it plays. It is essentially selective.
The bullfinch, to begin with, pulls the primroses to pieces
with what may be termed an exuberance of activity. But
in the midst of it all, just one particular snip at the tube
of the flower is found to provide the ovules and the sweet
sauce. All the rest is then neglected, and the one effectual
snip selected for repetition.* The role of intelligence,
therefore, is not to furnish a new activity which shall be
adapted to what we, the onlookers, call the end in view,
but to select from a number of relatively indeterminate
activities that one which experience proves to be effectual.

It. has again and again been pointed out that the origin
of variations and their selection in the struggle for
existence, are different problems, however intimately they
may be associated in the process of evolution. The fitter
variations must be given ere they can survive. So now
it must be pointed out that the origin of activities some
of which may be adaptive is a different problem from that
of the intelligent selection of those which are adaptive.
The more adaptive activities must be given ere they can be
selected from among those which are less adaptive.

Herein, then, lies the utility of the restlessness, the
exuberant activity, the varied playfulness, the prying
curiosity, the inquisitiveness, the meddlesome mischievous -
ness, the vigorous and healthy experimentalism of the
young. These afford the raw material upon which
intelligence exercises its power of selection. Observers of
human life have not failed to contrast this youthful

* Prof. Mark Baldwin has developed thia point in his interpretation of
the psychology of the child. See his " Mental Development in the Child
and the Race," chap. v. ; and American Naturalist, July, 1896, p. 548.

Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits. 163

expansiveness ready to try all, dare all, and do all, with
the narrower and more restricted, if more concentrated,
efforts of those in whom the stern lessons of experience
have checked so much that is picturesquely impossible.
And this exuberant expansiveness of youth is a biological
and psychological fact of profound significance.

One or two examples in further illustration of habits
which may be fairly regarded as acquired may now be
given. Mr. J. Southwell* has described how sparrows
at first pulled to pieces yellow crocuses to get at the
nectar, but afterwards simply bruised the perianth tube
sufficiently to extract the sweet fluid ; and he suggests
that this habit — begotten, be it noted, of intelligent
restriction — is acquired, and not inherited.

In the Zoologist^ for January, 1896, Dr. Lowe describes
a curious habit of the blackcap which he observed in
Tenerife. The birds visit the flowers of Hibiscus rosa-
sinensis and tear out pieces from the two upper segments
of the calyx, thus causing a drop of sweet fluid to exude.
This acts as a "bait," attracting numerous insects on
which the birds feed. A similar habit has been observed
in the Grand Canary in the case of a tit {Parus tenerifw),
which perforates the calyx of a shrubby species of Abutilon.
"The object of this proceeding seems to be to afford
a ready means by which ants may arrive at the nectary."
These, " after consuming the nectar, are found in a semi-
torpid state, making no attempt to escape on being dis-
turbed. They thus fall an easy prey to the tits, which
visit all the flowers at short intervals during the day,
and clear off all the ants. Another bird closely resembling
the willow wren also makes periodic visits to the Abutilon
flowers for the purpose of feeding on the ants," but was
not observed to take any part in lacerating the calyx.
* Nature, vol. x. p. 7. t Vol. xx. pp. 1-10.

164 Habit and Instinct.

How far, if at all, these habits are instinctive, we do not
know. The plants which the birds treat in this way
are. Dr. Lowe says,* all exotics, so that the habit has in
all probability been acquired since their introduction into
the Canary Islands. It would seem to be the result of
intelligence, and handed on through imitation.

Another change of habit, probably of intelligent origin,
is afforded by the oft-quoted case of the kea {Nestor
notabilis) of Middle Island, New Zealand. It belongs to
the family of the brush-tongued parrots, and, according
to Mr. Taylor White,t lived on the mountains above the
forest-line, feeding upon the lichen on the stones. If
this was the case, it would seem to be a modification
of the normal habits of the family, which usually feed
on nectar, insects, fruits, and berries. About 1868 it
was observed to attack living sheep. Those which, having
missed a shearing, had long wool died suddenly, the only
apparent cause of death being a wound far down the back.
This was found to be due to the kea, which was, according
to Mr. White, attracted to the sheep by the resemblance
of the wool to lichens, the spot chosen being due to the
fact that it there escaped the efforts of the sheep to
dislodge it. The bird's object was to obtain blood; but
it may subsequently have found the kidney fat which lay
beneath. Whether this curious change of habit is tending
to become hereditary and instinctive we do not know.
Imitation would presumably be sufficient to account for
the handing on of the habit. But the bird is being
destroyed by the owners of sheep, and will probably ere
long become extinct.

Mr. Joseph Willcox records a curious habit of the crow

* Zoologist, vol. xix. 1895. Cp. Wallace's " Darwinism," p. 75.
t Froc. Acad. Nat. Sei. Philadelphia, 1877. Abstracted January, 1878 ;
noted in Nature, vol. xiii. p. 589.

Intelligence and the Acquisition of Habits. 165

blackbird of Florida {Quiscalus purpureus). Standing
on the brink of a river, he "noticed a commotion among
a congregation of these birds, which were anxiously
looking into the water. A large bass was pursuing its
favourite food, the small fry, and the latter, in their
frantic efforts to escape, jumped out of the water, and
many of them fell on the land. The blackbirds, evidently
experts at the game, immediately pounced upon the small
fish and swallowed them before they could get back into
the water."

Intelligence, like Mr. Micawber, is always keenly on
the look-out for something to turn up, and, when it does
turn up, profits by the experience thus gained. If a crow-
blackbird, for example, standing by the water-side, saw
first a commotion in the water, and then young fry leaping
out on the sand, and found the latter pleasant to the taste,
he would probably haunt the water's edge next day, and,
should he see a commotion in the stream near the bank at
some distance off, would hurry thither in the expectation
of finding a dish of whitebait. All of this is rendered
possible by that association of impressions and ideas with-
out which intelligence would not exist. And then his
neighbours and friends, seeing him enjoying a good meal,
will soon be self-invited guests at the repast.

That the imitation implied in the last sentence is an
important factor in the development of habits, there can
be no question. Although the psychological and physio-
logical conditions of imitation are by no means thoroughly
understood, it will be well to devote the next chapter to
the consideration of this factor.

1 66 Habit and Instinct.

CHAPTER VIII.

IMITATION.

That imitation, or what we are accustomed to regard as
sucli, is an important factor in animal life, especially
among gregarious animals, is scarcely open to question.
But the biological and psychological conditions are not
easy to understand. Some forms of imitation are often
spoken of as instinctive ; but some are voluntary, and
under the guidance of intelligence. It is to the latter that
the term " imitation," in its usual acceptation, would seem
\o be properly applicable. And the exact nature of the
connection between this conscious and voluntary imitation
and the involuntary instinctive process to which we apply
the same term, requires careful consideration. Let us
first look at some of the facts which illustrate imitation of
the latter and apparently instinctive type.

If one of a group of chicks learn by casual experience,
such as I have before described, to drink from a tin of
water, others wUl run up and peck at the water, and will
themselves drink.* A hen teaches her little ones to pick
up grain or other food by pecking on the ground and
dropping suitable materials before them, the chicks seem-
ing to imitate her actions. One may make chicks and
young pheasants peck by simulating the action of a hen
with a pencil-point or pair of fine forceps. According to

* Dr. Mills records a similar observation on puppies {Trans. Boy. Soc.
Canada, sect. iv. (1894), p. 43.

Imitation. 167

Mr. Peal's statement, before quoted, the Assamese find that
young jungle pheasants will perish if their pecking re-
sponses are not thus stimulated ; and Prof. Claypole tells
me that this is also the case with ostriches hatched in an
incubator. A little pheasant and guinea-fowl followed
two ducklings, one wild, the other tame, and seemed to
wait upon their bills, to peck where they pecked, and to be
guided by their actions. It is certainly much easier to
bring up young birds if older birds are setting an example
of eating and drinking; and instinctive actions, such as
scratching the ground, are performed earlier if imitation
be not excluded. I have observed that if a group of chicks
have learnt to avoid cinnabar caterpillars, and if then one
or two from another group are introduced and begin to
pick up the caterpillars, the others will sometimes again
seize them, though they would otherwise have taken no
notice of them. One of the chicks, coming upon a dead
bee, gave the danger or alarm note ; another at some little
distance at once made the same sound. A number of
similar cases might be given. But what impresses the
observer, as he watches the early development of a brood
of young birds, is the presence of an imitative tendency
which is exemplified in many Uttle ways not easy to describe
in detail.

What generalization, then, can be drawn from this
somewhat indefinite group of facts ? What is their rela-
tion to instinctive procedure in general ? Instinctive pro-
cedure, we must remember, is congenital behaviour of a
more or less definite kind, involving the inherited co-
ordination of motor activities due to outgoing nerve-currents,
and initiated by an external stimulus under organic con-
ditions of internal origin. Now, it would seem that where
the external stimulus is afforded by the behaviour of
another organism, and the responsive behaviour it initiates

i68 Habit and Instinct.

is similar to that which affords the stimulus, such respon-
sive behaviour may be described as imitative. A chick
sounds the danger note ; this is the stimulus under which
another chick sounds a similar note, and we say that the
one imitates the other. Such an action may be described
as imitative in its effects, but not imitative in its purpose.
It is objectively, but not subjectively imitative. Only from
the observer's standpoint does such instinctive behaviour
differ from other modes of instinctive procedure. It is for
him that the instinctive response falls under the head of
imitation. We seem justified in asserting that, from the
biological point of view, any stimulus or group, of stimuli,
may give rise to a congenital response of any kind. In
the case of an imitative action, the stimulus is afforded by
the performance by another * of an action similar in
character to that which constitutes the response. From
the observer's point of view, this is noteworthy, and, from
the point of view of biological interpretation, important.
But from the performer's point of view, if one may so say,
it is in line with all other cases of instinctive activity.
A stimulus, visual, auditory, or other, is followed auto-
matically by a co-ordinated response, and there is no
similarity between either the stimulus or the states of
consciousness accompanying it, on the one hand, and the
response, or its conscious concomitants, on the other
hand.f Such, it would seem, is the nature of instinctive

* This seems to be part of tlie accepted implications of the word
" imitation." Prof. Mark Baldwin uses the term with an extended signifi-
cation, so as to include, under the head of imitation, repetition of an action
by the same individual. Prom the observer's point of view, it is, of course,
open to us to call the repeated act one that is imitative of the previous act of
which it is a repetition ; but if we do so we must abandon the accepted
usage, according to which " imitation " is applied to the repetition by one
individual of the behaviour of another individual. There appears to be no
sufficient reason for such a complete change of accepted usage.

t Prof. Mark Baldwin has suggested that imitation should be defined aa
a response which tends to reproduce its own stimulus — a " circular activity,"

Imitation. 169

imitation, or that congenitally automatic behaviour which,
from the observer's standpoint, is imitative.

Passing reference may here be made to those instinctive
actions for which mimicry is now a recognized biological
term. Certain distasteful butterflies, for example, are
mimicked by others, which are believed to have escaped
destruction because of their mimetic resemblance to the
others. There is no intentional imitation. The mimicry
is of purely objective significance. And not only in form,
but also in their instinctive behaviour, are many of these
insects, and perhaps some birds, mimetic of others. Such
behaviour is, from the purely objective point of view,
imitative. But since there does not seem to be any good
ground for supposing that the mimetic behaviour is called
forth by the stimulus of such behaviour in the models, it
does not fall under the head of the instinctive imitation we
are considering. By using the term "mimetic" in its
biological signification,* we may mark off these cases of
mimicry in behaviour from true examples of instinctive
imitation — that is to say, instinctive behaviour called forth
by similar behaviour in others.

Now, as we have already seen, instinctive procedure
forms part — and a not unimportant part — of the raw
material on which intelligence exercises its influence,
fashioning and moulding it, and guiding the activities
concerned to finer issues in individual adaptation. The

as he describes it. But the instinctive imitations of young animals do not
necessarily tend to reproduce their own stimuli. A chick, seeing its com-
panions run away or crouch, will do so itself; and this we should describe
as an imitative action, but (save for the observer) there is here no repro-
duction of the initiating stimulus (see " Mental Development of the Child
and the Eace," jjasiim).

* Mr. C. A. Witchell, for example, in treating of the song of birds, uses
the term " mimicry" as equivalent to " imitation," which is confusing to the
biologist, for whom " mimicry " as a technical term has acquired a restricted
signification.

1 70 Habit and Instinct.

first performance of an instinctive activity, \yhether
imitative or not, affords the data to consciousness for
the perfecting or the modification of the activity and the
formation of instinct habits — that is to say, acquired
modifications of congenital responses. Given, therefore,
a congenital and instinctive imitation, intelligence may
utilize it as the basis of an imitative action of the conscious
type. To such conscious or intentional imitation we may
novr turn.

When a child consciously and of set purpose tries to
imitate another child or an older person, his action is in
all cases founded on a certain amount of preliminary
experience. Let us suppose that he is imitating the action
of another in tracing with a pencil a simple curve. This
is impossible unless he have already acquired some data in
the light of which control over his arm and finger move-
ments may be exercised. His object is to apply this
control in such a way as to reproduce the movements of
the other so as to obtain the same results. He must have
some data to work with. Either instinctive imitation has
afforded such data, or acquired experience of the use of his
limbs and fingers has taught him that, to do this thing
which another is doing, and so reach similar results, he
must guide his movements in certain definite ways. Given
such preliminary data, further progress would seem to be a
matter of trial and error, the repressing of such movements
as lead to failure, the emphasizing and repeating of such
movements as lead to success. Failure is accompanied by
more or less painful dissatisfaction; success, by more or
less pleasurable satisfaction. Thus, step by step, further
control is gained until the imitative action is sufficiently
perfect.

It would be convenient to distinguish between two allied,
but at the same time somewhat different, processes ; and

Imitation. 171

for our present purpose, thougli the distinction of terms
cannot, perhaps, be conveniently maintained, we will
describe the reproduction of another's action as imitation,
and the reproduction of the objective results of the action,
copying. In the case of the curve, the child first imitates
the action — holds the pencil and moves the fingers in
certain definite ways. But as soon as a passable result is
reached, it is on this, and not on the movements, that he
fixes his attention. His object is no longer to imitate the
action so much as to reproduce the copy. Copying, though
often based upon imitation, as we are using the words,
may thus be distinguished therefrom. And just as
instinctive imitation is in line with, and similar in cha-
racter to, all other instinctive activity, so is copying in line
with, and similar in character to, all other intelligent
acquisition. Certain actions are performed, and according
as their results afford satisfaction or dissatisfaction, they
are enforced or suppressed. At the same time, just as
instinctive imitation is marked off from other modes of
instinctive activity by the fact that it gives rise in the
observer to a visual or other impression similar to that
which initiated the response, so too is copying to be
distinguished from other modes of intelligent activity by
the fact that (both from the observer's and the performer's
point of view) its results reproduce the stimulus * which
initiated the appropriate activity. And it is on these
results that, in copying, the attention is chiefly fixed.

A further example will bring this out more clearly. In
the reproduction by the normal child of the sounds its
companions utter, there is far more of copying than of
intentional imitation, as we have used these words. The

* This reproduction of stimulus is made a cardinal feature in Prof. Mark
Baldwin's treatment of imitation in his "Mental Development in the Child
and the Eace."

172 Habit and Instinct.

child probably inherits a congenital power of articulation,
which may fairly be termed instinctive, since articulation
involves a relatively definite co-ordination which is absent
in the case of merely inarticulate sounds. His own
articulations afford auditory stimuli which, by association,
become linked with the effects in consciousness of those
motor processes by which they are produced. He obtains
certain results from his own activities, and hears also
the results of the activities of others. Thus the data are
afforded for copying these results, and the child gradually
learns to reproduce articulate sounds, and incidentally
and unconsciously to imitate certain motor activities. I
say "incidentally and unconsciously," because the action
of the vocal cords is hidden from his sight, and the learn-
ing to produce certain sounds cannot, in the normal child,
be in any important degree the result of imitating the lip-
movements of others. And it is instructive to note that
the acquired articulation of deaf mutes i& mainly a matter
of imitation, and not of copying, since the sounds pro-
duced are inaudible to the producer, and thus afford no
data for copying. The normal child, in learning to
articulate like its companions, thus copies certain sounds,
and unconsciously imitates certain actions — though, from
the observer's point of view, the actions are, no doubt,
imitative.

As has before been said, the distinction in the use of
the terms " imitation " and " copying " — often used inter-
changeably — could not, perhaps, be conveniently main-
tained. The distinction is here used as a temporary one
to emphasize the difference between reproducing an action
or movement, and reproducing a given result of such
activity. Sometimes the attention is chiefly fixed on the
one, sometimes on the other. Both are commonly called
imitation ; when, for example, we say that a child imitates

Imitation. i "j^y

the tones of another's voice. Both are commonly called
copying ; as when we say that monkeys copy their masters.
The context, as a rule, sufficiently indicates which process
predominates — whether the attention of the imitator is
chiefly fixed on the curve to be reproduced, or on the
movements necessary to reproduce it ; on a sound to be
made, or the actions necessary to make it.

We have already seen that intelligent procedure is the
result of certain processes in the cerebral cortex or else-
where, which have pleasurable or unpleasant concomitants
in consciousness. The actions which bring pleasure are
repeated and strengthened; those which are unpleasant
are checked or inhibited. What, then, are the special and
peculiar conditions of intelligent imitation ? Wherein lies
the distinguishing feature of the incentives in consciousness
to the voluntary copying, either of movements or their
results ? A child hears certain articulate soimds produced
by his companions, and hears also certain articulate
sounds which he himself utters. What is the incentive to
imitation ? The only answer to this question which seems
admissible is that the resemblance of the sounds he utters
to the sounds he hears is itself a source of pleasurable
satisfaction ,- and that, within certain limits, the closer the
resemblance the greater the satisfaction. The tendency
to imitate is based upon an innate and constitutional bias
to get pleasure out of such resemblances; to gain satis-
faction by reproducing what others are producing. If
there be no such innate proclivity, it is difficult to see
whence the incentive to imitation can be derived. At a
later stage in the process of development, emulation is,
no doubt, an important factor, and there arises a desu-e
not only to imitate but to improve upon the copy.

And here it may be well to remind the reader of the
distinction which has already been drawn between what is

174 Habit and Instinct.

instinctive and what is innate. Both have their foundations
in heredity. But we have restricted the term instinctive to
the congenitally responsive behaviour evoked by an external
stimulus under given internal conditions. We have treated
the instinctive activity from the frankly objective and
biological point of view, and have regarded the instinctive
response as prior to experience. That which is innate, on
the other hand, is the inherited tendency to deal with these
data in certain ways. Acquisition is impossible if there
be not an innate power of association, and if there be not
innate susceptibilities to pleasure and pain. The in-
stinctive response as such is independent of association,
and independent of the pleasurable or unpleasant effects
of that response. That which is instinctive is the basis
of definite congenital and organic responses ; that which is
innate is the basis of acquisition, rendered more or less
definite in experience, and leading up to habit. Instinctive
imitation is thus an organic response independent of ex-
perience; intelligent imitation is due to conscious
guidance, the result of experience, and based upon the
innate satisfaction which accompanies the act of repro-
ductive imitation.

Let us now pass on to consider the place of intelligent
imitation — what we may perhaps fairly term imitation
proper — in the animal kingdom. Its very ubiquity makes
it difficult to exemplify in a way that shall be adequately
convincing. The abnormal arrests our attention more
readily than the normal, and hence the cases of imitation
usually cited are generally of this class. In the song of
birds, for example, imitation is probably a most important
factor, but it is chiefly the imitation of another species
that arrests our attention. Thus the mocking-bird's feats
of imitation are as familiar as an oft-told tale. Mr. L. M.
Loomis told Mr. F. M. Chapman of one in South Carolina

Imitation. \ 75

which during ten minutes' singing imitated the notes of
no less than thirty-two different species of birds found in
the same locality. Mr. Chapman adds that this was a
phenomenal performance, and one he had never heard
approached, for, in his experience, many mocking-birds
have no notes but their own, and good mockers are
exceptional.* It would be interesting to gain further
information of the conditions under which good mockers
are developed. Is the sequence of imitative strains always
similar in the same individual? Or does he recombine
them in new order ? There would seem to be here a field
for careful experiment and observation.

Our common English jay has the reputation of being
a consummate imitator, sometimes of strange sounds.
Montagu says that the low song of one individual was
interspersed with sounds imitative of the bleating of a
lamb, the mewing of a cat, the note of the kite or buzzard,
the hooting of an owl, and the neighing of a horse t
Bewick describes how a jay imitated the sound of a saw
so well as to cause much surprise, the day being Sunday.
And a correspondent in the Magazine of Natural Histori;
— he may have been of Irish extraction! — says that one
imitated the goldfinch's song " most inimitably " (!), and
also the neighing of a horse.f

One more example among wild birds must suffice. Mr.
Warde Fowler, in his " Summer Studies of Birds and
Books," J gives a quotation from the diary in which he noted
the performance in Switzerland of a marsh warbler. " I
am now writing," he says, " in a cool spot between the
allotments and the Aar, and listening to the marsh-warbler,

' "Birds of Eastern North America," p. 378.

t These cases are taken from Yarrell, " British Birds," 2nd edit. vol. ii.
p. 122.

t Pages 80, 81.

176 Habit and Instinct.

•whose song is as wonderful as ever. Sometimes a grating
outburst like that of a sedge-warbler ; sometimes a long-
drawn sweet note like a nightingale's. Then I have within
the last few minutes certainly heard the chaffinch imitated,
and even the nuthatch's metallic note. But a low pleasing
soliloquy also goes on at intervals. Ah ! there is the great
tit ; now the white wagtail, and I am beginning to get
bewildered. This bird creeps about a good deal in the
bushes, but now and then appears on a topmost shoot,
and sits there singing with his bill wide open, and a
red-yellow ' gape ' showing very plainly. Now and then he
flies into a tree over my head. Ah ! there is the call of the
redstart, and surely this is the skylark's song ; and there
is the chaffinch again, if ever I heard a chaffinch." *

Mere mention of the specially taught imitations of the
parrot, magpie, raven, jackdaw, starling, and other birds
must suffice. In all these birds there would seem to be an
innate proclivity to copy the sounds they constantly hear,
though it varies a good deal in different individuals. A
short description of the teaching of bullfinches will serve
to illustrate the most favourable conditions for imitation
in this case.

"In Germany," t says Bechstein, "those young bull-
finches that are to be taught to sing particular tunes must
be taken from the nest when the feathers of the tail begin
to grow, and must be fed only on rape seed soaked in water,
and mixed with white bread. Although they do not warble
before they can feed themselves, it is not necessary to wait
for this to begin their instruction, for it will succeed better,
if we may say so, when infused with their food, since
experience proves that they learn those airs more quickly,

* Mr. 0. A. Witohell has given a great deal of evidence on the subject of
Imitation among wild birds in chap ix. of his " Evolution of Bird Song,"
p. 159.

t Quoted in Yarrell's " British Birds," 2nd edit. vol. i. pp. 577, 578.

Imitation. 177

and remember them better, which they have been taught
just after eating. . . . Nine months of regular and con-
tinued instruction are necessary before the bird acquires
what amateurs call firmness ; for if the instruction cease
before this is obtained, they would destroy the air by
suppressing or displacing the different parts, and they often
forget it entirely at their first moulting. In general it is a
good plan to separate them from the other birds even after
they are perfect, because, owing to their great quickness in
learning, they would spoil the air entirely by introducing
wrong passages ; they must be helped to continue the song
when they stop, and the lesson must always be repeated
while they are moulting, otherwise they will become mere
chatterers. Different degrees of capacity are shown here,
as well as in other animals. One young bullfinch learns
with ease and quickness, another with difficulty and
slowly : the former will repeat, without hesitation, several
parts of a song ; the latter will hardly be able to repeat one
part, after nine months' uninterrupted teaching. But it has
been remarked that those birds which learn with most
difficulty remember the songs which they have once well
learned better and longer, and rarely forget them, even when
moulting. . . . Many birds, when young, will learn some
strains of airs whistled or played to them regularly every
day; but it is only those whose memory is capable of
retaining them that will abandon their natm-al song, and
adopt fluently and repeat without hesitation the air that
has been taught them. Thus a young goldfinch learns, it
is true, some part of the melody played to a bullfinch, but
it will never be able to render it as perfectly as this bird." *
We have now given at sufficient length some evidence
of imitation in the song or other utterances of birds.

* For imitation in birds and also in mammals, see Komanes' " Mental
Eyolution in Animals," pp. 222, 223.

N

lyS Habit and Instinct.

How far does it extend ? Mr. C. A. Witchell, who has
paid much attention to the subject, is unhesitatingly of
opinion that though the call-notes, alarm notes, and other
such utterances are instinctive, yet the song itself is
traditional and the result of imitation. With regard to
the former point, I have no doubt whatever, from my own
observations, that the notes of young chicks, guinea-fowl,
peewits, partridges, pheasants, and moorhens are instinc-
tively definite; as are probably those of the young fly-
catcher and young jay, though in these cases the birds
were brought to me when a few days old. Nor can there
be any question that the call-note and the warning note
of the hen are also truly instinctive, though deferred. Mr.
H. J. Charbonnier, a careful observer, tells me that a
young magpie, which was brought to him as a nestling a
fortnight old, always chattered and croaked in true magpie
language, and was never heard to imitate other birds.
Another magpie, however, picked up the note of the
sparrow, and generally talked " sparrow," though it would
sometimes introduce a few lower notes of its own proper
tongue.

With regard to the latter point, there is undoubtedly a
good deal of evidence in favour of the contention which
Mr. Witchell espouses. One of the oldest observations is
as follows. The Hon. Daines Barrington* placed three
young linnets with three different foster-parents, the skylark,
the woodlark, and the titlark or meadow-pipit, and each
adopted, through imitation, the song of its foster-parent.
Nor did they abandon this for their own true song when
they were placed among songsters of their own species.
Mr. Witchell f quotes from a letter of Mr. W. A. P. Hughes,
who informed him that " a young bird (finch) reared by

* na. Trans., 1773, p. 264.

t " Evolution of Bird Song," pp. 172, 173.

Imitation. 1 79

hand, and not allowed to hear another hixd, never learns
a perfect song, but sings a series of disconnected notes,
•without any similitude to the parents' song. Young bull-
finches or greenfinches bred from the egg under canaries
learned their foster-parents' songs, and had none of the
harsh notes of their actual parents ; while young green-
finches taken from the nest when fledged, and then reared
by hand, always had some of their respective parents'
notes, although learning another song under a tutor. A
goldfinch-canary mule with a pure goldfinch song, when
two years old, learned the song of a linnet, and sang both
songs alternately and mixed. The time when the young
bird really picks up the song is in the nest, and before it
can feed itself. I have seen the featherless little birds
singing; that is, I have seen their throats going, and
heard their squeaky note, as though they were practising."
Mr. Hudson says* "that young oven-birds (Furnarius),
when only partially fledged, are constantly heard apparently
practising their duets in the intervals when the parents
are absent. On the hypothesis of tradition, it is just because
the young bird has predominant opportunities of hearing
its parents' notes that it sings the parent song. On the
other hand. Dr. A. G. Butler,t though he obtained evidence
of imitation in abundance, was led, from many observations,
to conclude that the tendency to imitate the song proper
to the species is stronger than the tendency to imitate
ahen song, and that where foreign notes were caught up,
they were introduced into and added by the bird to its
own strains. I was assured many years ago by a bird-
fancier in London, that he had reared young nestlings,
such as thrushes and linnets, amid the strains of many
caged birds singing with varied power, and that the

* " Naturalist in La Plata," p. 257.
t Zoologist, 1892, p. 30.

i8o Habit and Instinct.

thrushes always, and the linnets for the most part, sang
true, imitating the song of their own kind. Couch, in his
" Illustrations of Instinct," * says that he knew a gold-
finch, which had never heard the song of its own species,
nevertheless singing this song, though tentatively and
imperfectly. And speaking of the Dartford warbler, Colonel
Montagu says t that young males brought up from the
nest "begin to sing with the appearance of their first
mature feathers, and continue in song all the month of
October, sometimes with scarcely an intermission for
several hours together. The notes are entirely native,
consisting of considerable variety, delivered in a hurried
manner, and in a much lower tone than I have ever heard
the old birds in their natural haunts."

It is clear that further evidence based on observation
under test conditions is needed. But if we may not yet
unreservedly accept the view that the song of birds is
wholly a matter of imitation, with little or no congenital
tendency to sing true to type, yet it is an established fact
that imitation is an important factor.

If the question be now asked, — Of what service can it
he to the individual or the race to possess such an innate
tendency to imitate song, and, as Mr. Witchell contends, to
incorporate alien strains ? — the answer does not appear
to be altogether adequate or complete. According to
Mr. Wallace, song is primarily for purposes of recognition.
According to Darwin it is a means to sexual selection.
Since most song-birds pair, we may perhaps surmise that
the slight variety reached through the incorporation of
alien strains is a means of recognition not only specific,
but also individual, in its character. The hen bird, on
this view, not only recognizes her mate as one of her

* P. 13, quoted in Eomanes' " Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 222.
t Quoted in Yarrell's " British Birds," vol. i. p. 344.

Imitation. i8r

own species, but as her own special mate. And if we
admit sexual selection — a matter to be more fully discussed
in a future chapter — we may perhaps suppose that such
modifications of song evoke in different degrees the
emotional state that accompanies the act of pairing.
For those who believe that the hen birds select those who
most strongly stir the sexual emotion, we have here the
diverse modifications of song which may thus have differ-
ential effects. Such may be the advantages of imitation in
the particular field of bird-song.

But should not the question be made broader and more
general ? Should we not ask, What is the organic value of
the imitative tendency as evinced in many ways in the life
of birds or other creatures ? I cannot but think that in
a number of cases it would make all the difference between
survival and destruction. Mr. Tegetmeier states * " that if
pigeons are reared exclusively with small grain, as wheat
or barley, they will starve before eating beans. But when
they are thus starving, if a bean-eating pigeon is put
among them, they follow its example, and thereafter adopt
the habit. So fowls sometimes refuse to eat maize, but on
seeing others eat it, they do the same, and become ex-
cessively fond of it." Is it not clear that such imitation
as Mr. Tegetmeier here describes might be a means of
saving those who acted on it from starvation and death ?
Young water-fowl that, seeing their parents dive, did the
same, would stand a far better chance of survival than
those who stayed at the surface. One can well understand
how natural selection would foster the imitative tendency,
and working on congenital variations might eventually
render the imitative behaviour a truly instinctive activity.

It has certainly in many cases produced a predisposi-
tion to imitate the actions of their own kind rather than

* Quoted in Mr. A. E. Wallace's " Darwinism," p. 75.

1 82 Habit and Instinct.

those of another species. When chicks and ducklings are
brought up together, they keep to some extent separate,
and there is little imitation on the part of either of the
habits of the other species. Spalding noted that chicks
showed no signs of imitating the peculiar habits of young
turkeys in the matter of catching flies. It would seem,
indeed, that imitation serves to initiate or to emphasize
those activities to the performance of which there is already
a congenital bias. Thus a blackbird which had been in cap-
tivity for two years in a large aviary, and had never been
mated or troubled with family cares, seeing some recently
introduced young thrushes fed by their parents through
the bars, began himself to feed them in a similar manner.*
Here an activity to which there is a congenital bias was
called into play through the suggestive touch of imitation.

If, then, the young have a tendency to imitate the actions
of their parents ; if, too, among the members of gregarious
species, there is much imitation ; — it is clear that we have
here a conservative factor in animal life of no slight
importance. Just as imitation is of great value in
bringing the human child to the level of the adults who
form the family and social environment, so too does the
less fully conscious imitation of the lower animals serve to
bring the young bird or other creature into line with the
members of its own species.

I have several times observed that, in broods of chicks
brought up under experimental conditions by themselves,
and without opportunities of imitating older birds, there
are one or two more active, vigorous, intelligent, and
mischievous birds. They are the leaders of the brood ;
the others are their imitators. Their presence raises the
general level of intelligent activity. Eemove them, and
the others show a less active, less inquisitive, less

• Nature, vol. xlviiL p. 369. Letter Bigned "B. Boscher.''

Imitation. 183

adventurous life, if one may so put it. They seem to lack
initiative. From which one may infer that imitation
affords to some extent a means of levelling up the less
intelligent to the standard of the more intelligent; and
of supplying a stimulus to the development of habits which
would otherwise be lacking.

Under normal conditions, however, the conservative
tendency of imitation, bringing the newly born members
of the animal community into line with the average
behaviour of the species is probably its most important
oface. Mr. W. H. Hudson, in his "Naturalist in La
Plata," speaks of fear in birds as being "the result of
experience and tradition."* And I have, in another
work,t adopted this term. " I am inclined to regard
imitation and tradition," I there said, " especially in
animals which live in flocks, packs, or herds, as of very
great importance. By tradition I mean this : that the
animal is born into a group of animals which perform a
number of activities in certain ways, and that through the
imitative tendency it falls into these ways, which are thus
handed on or carried down through tradition." We should
distinguish this process by which habits are handed on
from generation to generation, as clearly and sharply as
possible from transmission through heredity. Hence I
regard Prof. Mark Baldwin's subsequently proposed term
" social heredity " J as unfortunate. It is, as Prof. Eitchie
has well pointed out in discussing human civilization,
just because the effects produced are independent of
heredity, that they demand special attention. Since,
therefore. Prof. Baldwin can advance no claim to priority
in drawing attention to the facts either for men or animals,

* Page 93.

t " Introduction to Comparative Psychology,'' pp. 170, 210.

X " Mental Development in the Child and the Eace," chap. xii.

184 Habit and Instinct.

and since his term is in itself unsatisfactory, there seems
no valid reason for adopting it.

Mr. Hudson's term " tradition " is quite in keeping
with both etymology and popular usage, and serves to
emphasize the fact that the phenomena are not due to
heredity. By tradition in this sense, then, the habits of
a given species may be handed on from generation to
generation; and though inherited in the sense in which
we speak of the inheritance of property, and it is thus
that Mr. Eitchie uses the phrase "social inheritance,"
they do not necessarily become hereditary in the biological
sense of the term. When the mongrel pup, whose
development Dr. Wesley Mills watched and describes,
was introduced to the society of other dogs, its progress
was, he tells us, extraordinarily rapid. It was subject
to the influence of canine tradition, and reacted at once
to this influence. The young bird or mammal, especially
in the case of gregarious species, is born into a com-
munity where certain behaviour is constantly exhibited
before its eyes. Through imitation it falls in with the
traditional habits, and itself serves as one of the
models for those that come after. There can be no
question that this tradition is of great importance in
animal life. And it is clear that, if this be so, it is
necessary, in any study of habit and instinct, to be on our
guard, that we may distinguish clearly between heredity
and tradition. What we are apt to regard as hereditary
instincts may in some cases be shown to be traditional
habits. And often we are unable to say, in the present
condition of our knowledge, whether the performance of
certain activities is due to heredity or to tradition ; whether
they are instinctive or due to imitation. Here, as else-
where in this field of study, there is need of further
observation under experimental conditions. The young

Imitation. 185

must be brought up apart from their parents or other
members of their kind. If they still exhibit the activities
in question, such as the love-antics of many birds in the
pairing season, there is probably an instinctive basis, and
■\ve may fairly conclude that the performance is handed on
in all its definiteness through hereditary transmission, t-
If they fail to exhibit the activities, other conditions being
as far as possible normal, the probabilities are that the "^
performance is traditional and due to imitation.

But though we must thus carefully distinguish between
what is congenital and instinctive on the one hand, and
what is acquired through imitation and handed on by
tradition on the other hand, we must not forget that, in
animal life, as it presents itself to our observation and
interpretation,- the two factors often combine to form what
we have termed instinct-habits. Instinctive procedure is
modified and moulded under the guiding touch of acquired
experience. And there are probably many activities, such
as the flight, and perhaps the song, of birds, which are
founded on an instinctive basis, which are quickened
through imitation, and which reach completion by much
practice and that constant repetition under the guidance
of individual experience which leads onwards to perfected
habit.

1 86 Habit and Instinct.

CHAPTER IX.

THE EMOTIONS IN THEIR RELATION TO INSTINCT.

In attempting to deal with the relation of emotion to habit
and instinct, we must devote our attention chiefly to the
objective aspect : to the outward manifestations and the
organic conditions of emotional states. The inner or
subjective aspect must always be largely conjectural, in-
volving as it does a difficult and admittedly hazardous
application of the adage, " Put yourself in his place."
We see an animal habitually act in a more or less definite
way under certain given circumstances, and we interpret
the facts as arising out of, or accompanied by, what is
termed an emotion. My fox-terrier, for example, whenever
he meets a particular black poodle, at once begins to dance
round him and bark — he is usually a remarkably silent
dog — while his coat above the backbone bristles up. One
interprets this as the expression of an emotional state.
But on trying to determine the exact nature of the state,
we find it by no means easy so far to put ourselves into
the fox-terrier's place as to enable us even to guess, with
anything approaching accuracy, what his emotional feel-
ings are like. The poodle, I may say, takes very little
notice of Tony's demonstration, and even the fox-terrier
himself does not appear to mean serious business. Quite
different, at any rate, is his demeanour when there is a
probability, or even the bare possibility, of a fight. He

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 187

moves slowly, with head held a little low ; his back is yet
more thoroughly roughened ; his attention is absolutely
fixed on his antagonist, whose every movement he watches
with the keenness with which a fencer watches his adver-
sary; while all his muscles are ready for prompt and
immediate action. If the emotional state in both cases is
anger, it is anger with a difference. I do not attempt to
define the difference beyond saying that there is an element
of practical business in the one case which seems to be
absent in the other ; and this stUl leaves the matter toler-
ably indefinite.

If we may judge from our own experience, there are
presumably, in addition to these actions and attitudes,
to the bracing up of the muscles and general readiness
and alertness, all of which constitute a group of motor
effects, another and not unimportant group of visceral
effects. These seem to be specially characteristic of the
class of emotions with which we are dealing. The cold
sweat, the dry mouth, the catch of the breath, the grip of
the heart, the abdominal sinking, the blood-tingle or blood-
stagnation, — these and their like, in varied modes and
degrees, characterize the emotions of fear, dread, anger,
and so forth, when they rise to any pitch of intensity, and
contribute largely to their sharpness and piquancy. In
so far as muscles are brought into play in connection with
the effects of this type, they are for the most part the
involuntary muscles. It will be convenient, therefore,
though perhaps not strictly accurate, to distinguish this
group of visceral effects, which may be regarded as part of
the private and individual business of the body, from the
other group of motor effects through which the organism
has to deal with that which evokes the emotion.

Now, remembering that we have here under considera-
tion only what Prof. W. James terms the coarser emotions.

1 88 Habit and Instinct.

the lower emotions of animal life, and are not at present
concerned with the more subtle emotions, the higher
emotions and sentiments, intellectual, moral, aesthetic, and
so forth — remembering this, I say, let us see how the facts
may be interpreted.

The view that has been until recently almost universally
accepted may be put briefly thus : When Tony sees the
butcher's cur, he at once experiences an emotion, and the
result of the emotion is that he acts in certain definite
ways, and that his heart, his respiration, his salivary
glands, and so forth, are more or less affected. The emotion,
on this view, produces these effects ; it is the middle term
of a series of events. From the physiological point of view,
this middle term is a commotion of some kind in the cortex
of the brain ; it results from the stimuli which give rise to
the sight of the cur ; it produces a number of nerve-
currents running down the appropriate nerves so as to
cause on the one hand certain motor effects, and on the
other hand certain visceral effects. The commotion in
the brain is what the dog feels as an emotion; and it
precedes any expression of the emotion in the activities
of his body.

Hints more or less definite of a different interpretation
may be found in the literature of the emotions prior to
1884. In that year Prof. "William James published a paper
in Mind* in which he boldly contended, and backed up his
contention with well-directed arguments, that the motor
and visceral effects are not generated by the emotion, but
are themselves its source and origin. The series of events,
on Prof. James's view, may be put briefly as follows (subject
to certain modifications to be noticed presently) : The sight
of the butcher's cur gives rise to a commotion in the lower

* Mind, 1884, vol. ix. p. 188. Prof. Lange, of Copenhagen, published
independently in the same year a similar theory of the emotions.

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 189

centres of Tony's brain, and the effects of this commotion
are distributed by outgoing nerves to muscles, glands, and
so forth, giving rise to motor effects and visceral effects ;
from the muscles and glands there are then transmitted
to the brain impulses which set up a second commotion in
the cortical region, and it is this second commotion that
gives rise in Tony's consciousness to the emotional state.
Such in crude outline is Prof. James's contention. We
may express it in a word by saying that the emotion is
generated by a back-stroke from the motor organs and
viscera concerned in the so-called " expression." It may
be well, however, to quote Prof. James's own words.

" Our natural way of thinking about these coarser
emotions," he says, " is that the mental perception of
some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion,
and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily
expression. My theory, on the contrary, is that the bodily
changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact,
and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the
emotion. Common sense says, we lose our fortune, are
sorry, and weep ; we meet a bear, are frightened, and run ;
we are insulted by a rival, are angry, and strike. The
hypothesis here to be defended says that this order of
sequence is incorrect ; that the one mental state is not
immediately induced by the other ; that the bodily mani-
festations must first be interposed between ; and that the
more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we
cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble,
and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because we are
sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be. Without
the bodily states following on the perception, the latter
would be purely cognitive in form, pale, colourless, desti-
tute of emotional warmth. We might then see the bear
and judge it best to run, receive the insult and deem it

190 Habit and Instinct.

right to strike, but we should not actually feel afraid or
angry."

No doubt Prof. James has here stated his case with
almost paradoxical emphasis, so as to bring out the anti-
thesis between his own view and that which is commonly
held. As a slyly humorous critic observed at a scientific
meeting when Prof. James's view was under discussion,
" One might as well say that a man was ill because he
took the doctor's medicine instead of taking the stuff
because he was ill." And, indeed, there is one important
qualification which should be introduced,* and which serves
to make the conception somewhat less repugnant to common
sense. Tony has had some practical experience of the
ways and behaviour of the butcher's cur and other dogs of
that type. Let us grant that the primary genesis of the
emotion they evoke was by backstroke ; let us grant that
it was due to a secondary brain-commotion produced by
motor and visceral action ; let us grant, in a word, that
Prof. James's theory holds good for the first experience of
the emotion in question. What, however, about the second
and all subsequent experiences ? Association will have
stepped in and exercised its modifying influence. We
have seen that a chick which seizes a juicy worm gains
thereby a bit of experience in the light of which worms
become the more alluring, since the sight of them at once
calls up through association a re-presentation of this juici-
ness, a sort of anticipatory savour soon to be reinforced by
the actual taste of the worm. In the case of an emotion,
on the backstroke hypothesis, the same kind of effect will
be produced by association. After the first experience
through which the secondary brain-commotion had its

* In the Psychological Beview for September, 1894 — in whicli references
to some of the leading criticisms of his theory are given — Prof. James him-
self insists on the effects of association (see p. 518).

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 191

primary genesis, the sight of the cur on all subsequent
occasions will at once call up a re-presentation of the
emotional state, a sort of anticipatory foretaste of that
■which may soon be reinforced by a repetition of the actual
motor and visceral commotion. No doubt the anticipatory
and re-presentative stage of the emotion will be faint and
colourless as compared with the presentative effects of the
reinforcing backstroke, just as the anticipatory taste which
precedes the first mouthful of a ripe peach is faint as com-
pared with the taste of the fruit in the mouth : but it must
not be neglected ; it serves to distinguish the second, and
all subsequent emotional experiences of like kind, from the
first, in which alone we have the unmodified facts of primary
genesis. Thus our analysis brings us down once more to
the distinction between what is congenital and what is
acquired through experience, and in this way the study
of emotional states is seen to be in close touch with our
special subject, habit and instinct.

"In speaking of the instincts," says Prof. James in the
opening paragraph of his chapter on the emotions,* " it has
been impossible to keep them separate from the emotional
excitements which go with them. Objects of rage, love, fear,
etc., not only prompt a man to outward deeds, but provoke
characteristic alterations in his attitude and visage, and
affect his breathing, circulation, and other organic functions
in specific ways. When the outward deeds are inhibited,
these latter emotional expressions still remain, and we read
the anger in the face, though the blow may not be struck,
and the fear betrays itself in voice and colour, though one
may suppress all other signs. Instinctive reactions and
emotional expressions thus shade imperceptibly into each
other. Every object that excites an instinct excites an
emotion as well. Emotions, however, fall short of instincts,
* " Principles of Psychology," vol. ii. p. 442.

192 Habit and Instinct.

in that the emotional reaction usually terminates in the
subject's own body, whilst the instinctive reaction is apt
to go further and enter into practical relations with the
exciting object."

Although I cannot endorse the whole of Prof. James's
treatment, I quote this passage as indicating the close
alliance that exists between emotion and instinct. In
it the visceral elements are duly emphasized. Mr. H.
Eutgers Marshall lays the main stress, it would seem, on
the motor elements ; and in his treatment, the close con-
nection between instinct and emotion is carried well-nigh
to the point of identification. "Instinct," he says,* "is,
strictly speaking, a term to be applied to tendencies
observed objectively in ourselves and others, and not to
the mental states which are co-ordinate with these
tendencies. The compound word instinct-feelings 1 shall
use to indicate the mental states that correspond to
instinctive activities. Emotions, then, may not im-
probably be found to be complex co-ordinated instinct-
feelings. ... It seems proper to define emotions as
relatively fixed psychoses (or mental states), corresponding
to fixed co-ordination of instinctive activities which arise
on the appearance of definite objects." Again, and more
recently, Mr. Marshall says,t " I have suggested that we
use the term ' instinct-feelings ' to indicate the conscious
coincidents of the animal activities we call instinctive ;
and I have endeavoured to show that when these instinct
actions are relatively fixed and forceful, then their co-
incident ' instinct-feelings ' gain names, and form the class
of psychic states known as the emotions." Here, then, the
emotion is regarded as the subjective aspect of that which,
in its objective aspect, is an instinctive activity.

* "Pain, Pleasure, and Esthetics," pp. 63-65.
t Nature, toI. lii. p. 130.

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 193

Without citing further authorities, let us now note how
the emotional theory under consideration stands. It must
be regarded as a theory of primary genesis ; this is
essential. All effects due to association through experience
must be resolutely excluded. Not that, in practical ex-
perience, the part played by association is unimportant.
It is, so far as adult experience is concerned, profoundly
important. But it is without bearing on the question of
origin, and that is the question under consideration. As
a matter of primary genesis, then, the theory before us
affirms that an emotion, such as that of fear, when, for
example, a chick which has been left undisturbed for forty-
eight hours shrinks from your hand if you be rough, is due
not directly, but indirectly, to the sight of the advancing
fingers. It does not fear and then shrink; it shrinks
instinctively, and then for the first time experiences the
emotion of fear. The emotion, thus indirectly produced
at sight of the hand, was held by Prof. James in his
earlier presentation to be due to the joint effects of both
motor and visceral reaction, but in his later writings he
assigns to visceral action the chief part. " Visceral
factors," he says,* " seem to be the most essential ones of
all." We shall have presently to decide, as far as possible,
between the relative claims of the visceral and the motor
factors. For the present we may leave the question open,
and inquire how far the theory of indirect origin is in
accord with the conclusions we have already reached.

It has been shown that soon after birth a chick will
peck at small objects which catch its eye ; that a young
duck or moorhen will swim directly it is placed in water ;
that such activities as scratching, preening the down, sand-
dusting, bathing, scratching the ground, are distinctly and
unmistakably congenital. These activities and their like
* Fsychological Beview, September, 1894, p. 512 ; see also p. 529.

194 Habit and Instinct.

have all the appearance of being organic and automatic
responses to the requisite stimuli under appropriate condi-
tions, external and internal ; and the general conclusion
we have reached is that, so far as they are concerned,
what is unquestionably inherited is motor co-ordination.
On the other hand, there seems to be no inherited know-
ledge of what is good to eat, and what is not ; of what is
harmful, like a bee, and what is harmless, like a moth ;
of a natural enemy, such as a cat or hawk, and a harmless
creature, such as a sheep or goose. All this experience is
a matter of individually acquired association. Let us put
the matter from the physiological and organic point of
view. All instinctive activity involves the due ordering
and co-ordination of outgoing nerve impulses, starting from
the central nervous system, probably the lower brain-
centres. This is inherited. The growth of experience
involves the bringing into relation, probably in the higher
brain-centres, of the effects of incoming impulses ; those,
for example, from the eye, and from the organs of taste.
This correlation of sensory data is seemingly not inherited ;
association-links have to be forged by each individual
through acquisition. Now, apart from all the more special
arguments in favour of motor impressions being due to
incoming impulses (and not to a consciousness of outgoing
impulses from the brain), there is this general consideration
to which due weight should be given. These impressions
are indubitably correlated with impressions of sight, taste,
touch, hearing, and so forth, and take their place in the
development of experience, alongside those of the special
senses. And it will certainly be a gain to physiological
interpretation if motor impressions (that is, the elements
in consciousness due to movements of our own limbs and
bodies) be proved by the joint labours of physiologists
and psychologists to be of like nature to the impressions

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 195

of the special senses -with -which they enter into such
intimate association. The data of experience should
surely be co-ordinate data ; and such they are on the
theory that the motor elements in consciousness are due
to incoming impulses. But the value of the emotions
is in affording data for the elaboration of experience.
Hence the presumption is in favour of their being, in
primary genesis, due to incoming impulses from visceral
actions, as well as motor activities.

To put the matter briefly, instinctive activities appear
to be due to automatic co-ordinations of outgoing impulses,
while acquired experience seems to be due to the correla-
tion of incoming data. Acquired experience is thus, so
far as motor elements are concerned, due to the effects
of back-stroke. But the emotions take their place in the
development of acquired experience ; hence it may be fairly
inferred that the visceral contributions of the emotional
states are also by back-stroke. If this be so, and not
otherwise, we may say that all the data of sense-experience
are of peripheral origin, some due to incoming impulses
from the special senses, some to incoming impulses from
the motor organs, and some to incoming impulses from
the viscera and involuntary muscles. And with this con-
clusion my observations and inferences on habit and
instinct are in full accord.

Let us now return for a short space to the emotional
reactions of the fox-terrier. On Professor James's view, as
I interpret it, the emotional state, whatever may be its
exact nature, is the subjective accompaniment of the whole
complex group of activities, plus the whole complex group
of visceral actions, plus representative elements of like
nature ; in a word, of the whole bodily condition of the
dog at the time, together with all that this bodily con-
dition suggests through association. What is in the focus

196 Habit and Instinct.

of Tony's consciousness is the black poodle in the one
case, and that low-bred butcher's cur in the other. That
which we call the emotion fills in, I take it, the background
of his consciousness, and is generated by a multitude of
activity-feelings due to innumerable physiological impulses
raining in upon his sensorium from I know not how many
muscles, muscle-sheaths, tendons, and articular surfaces,
together with visceral impulses raining in from I know not
how many glands, involuntary muscles, and organs of the
body. Thus, omitting further reference to the re-presenta-
tive elements of like nature to the presentative elements, I
interpret Professor James's theory.

Now what is the relation of all this to habit and
instinct? Tony's demeanour towards these two dogs is,
without question, habitual. Whenever he meets them he
goes through the same actions, and behaves in a similar
way. But the behaviour towards these particular dogs is,
I suppose, the result of experience. What the precise
experience was which led the black poodle to call forth one
set of activities, and the butcher's cur another, one need
not pretend to know. It can scarcely be supposed that
Tony came into the world with a congenital tendency to
react to poodles and curs of those special types in those
special ways, though cases of so-called hereditary anti-
pathy, such as that of Dr. Huggins's dog Kepler * to butchers

* The facts of this case are briefly as follows. Dr. Huggins posseased an
English mastiff, Kepler, which was brought to him when it was six weeks
old, from the stable in which it was born. The first time Dr. Huggins took
the dog out he started back in alarm at the first butcher's shop he had ever
seen ; and throughout his life he manifested the strongest and strangest
antipathy to butchers and all that pertained to them. On inquiry, Dr.
Huggins ascertained that in the father, grandfather, and two half-brothers
of Kepler's the same curious antipathy was innate. Of these, Paris, a half-
brother, on one occasion, at Hastings, sprang at a gentleman who came into a
hotel where his master was staying. The owner caught the dog, and apolo-
gized, saying that he had never known him to behave thus before, except

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 197

(however it be interpreted), suggest that the stimulus to
reaction is sometimes already defined in hereditary
transmission. As we have seen in other cases of habits
of congenital origin, while the response is congenitally
definite, that which evokes the response is to a large
extent determined by individual experience. This, how-
ever, does not detract from the congenital nature of the
responsive activity itself. And, surely, all must have
observed a hundred times that dogs have a tendency to
behave in just these ways. No one with any experience
of dogs can have failed to observe both these types of
reaction. They are characteristic of canine nature. They
are reactive tendencies, which it needs only the touch of
experience to particularize, and to direct on suitable objects.

What, then, is inherited in such cases ? Must not the
reply be — a bodily organization, with congenital powers
of response in certain ways, under certain conditions ?
And will not this apply, not only to the co-ordinated out-
going impulses which give rise to motor activity, but to
the outgoing impulses which take effect in visceral action ?
You may safely assert that your dog will react in this or
that fashion to other dogs in virtue of the innate tendencies
of his nature ; but you cannot say what dog will call forth
this demeanour or that ; or, if you can do so, it is on
different grounds : it is the result of your knowledge of his
individual character, or past experience.

It will be evident from this brief discussion of
Tony's emotions that there is an element of complexity
and difficulty introduced through the combination of what
is congenital and what is acquired. And this is perhaps
still more the case with the emotional reactions of adult

to a butcher. The man at once said that this was his business. It may be
urged however, that the so-called hereditary antipathy would probably be
more correctly described as a congenital reaction to certain olfactory stimuli.

198 Habit and Instinct.

human beings, in whom a far wider range of experience
and all sorts of intellectual and sesthetic factors are intro-
duced by their extended knowledge and thought. It is
therefore clearly of importance to eliminate, as far as
possible, the element of acquired experience, and to study
such responses as appear to have a pleasurable or an
emotional accompaniment in their instinctive purity. This
I have endeavoured to do in the observations on young
birds to which we must now return. Let us take pleasur-
able accompaniments first.

The young moorhen I had in Yorkshire when he was
set free from his basket in the morning and taken to the
little beck, executed a pretty and characteristic dance,
stretching up his head, flapping his skinny wings, and
leaping up and down with springy action. There can be
little question that this morning dance, this engaging
discharge of pent-up energy, was accompanied by a
pleasurable state which, on Professor James's view, took
its origin in primary genesis from complex physiological
impulses carried inwards to the sensorium from all parts
of the body directly or indirectly participating in the
activity. Having performed his dance, if the day was
warm, and especially if the sun shone brightly, he would
wade into the running water and take his bath. He
ducked his head under, threw water over his shoulders,
fluttered his feathers, waved his arm-like wings, and
vigorously wagged his black tail. One could not resist
the conclusion that he obviously enjoyed his dip ; the
whole set of actions (which, by the way, are instinctive
in the narrower sense, and were performed in all their
perfection for the first time on the morning of the forty-
second day of life) seem to generate a pleasurable state
to which it would be hard for us, not being moorhens, to
give a name. He would then stand in the sun, and with

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 199

a contented cheeping note, preen his feathers, wringing the
water from them, shaking himself with obvious pleasure,
now rubbing his head across his breast and sides; now
stretching out his neck and bending his head to get at the
parts close under the throat. AH these actions were, it
would seem, suffused with pleasurable enjoyment. Then
he would walk about or wade in the stream, picking up
odds and ends and testing them in his bill, all the while
nodding his head and flicking his tail in a way that itself
is indicative of pleasure. When, before his companion died
from the effects of a long journey, the two were wandering
about my small garden, they would occasionally approach
each other bending forwards, and standing low with bent
legs and heads thrown back, would open their red beaks,
swear in harsh and angry tones, and hold the nearly naked
wings high up over the back in a peculiar and highly
characteristic way. An emotional state was expressed in
the most unmistakable manner.

Let us assume that all these activities are instinctive in
the broader sense, if not in the narrower ; and they appear
for the most part to be instinctive, even in the narrower
acceptation of the term. They are thus congenital in their
nature. And let us fix our attention on the very first
performance of one of the complex activities, — say the
instinctive activities concerned in taking a bath which
seem to be called forth by running water. Granting this
to be the requisite stimulus, let us try and interpret the
performance, assuming, for the purposes of discussion, that
the pleasurable state is the subjective aspect of the motor
activities ; the visceral effects taking only a subordinate
share in the calling forth of pleasurable feelings.

It will be necessary first to say somewhat — as little as
is consistent with clearness— concerning the nature of
pleasure and its antithesis pain. First of all let us exclude

200 Habit and Instinct.

from our present consideration that form of pain which
accompanies some organic lesion. A cut, a prick, a sprain,
a toothache, a tearing of the tissues, an inflammatory
process — any one of these, or their like, requires, it may be
urged, a consideration quite independent of that which
deals with the pleasure or discomfort that accompanies
the normal performance of certain activities. Leaving
pain of this kind on one side, as possibly requiring a
different explanation, I accept the interpretation of those
who regard pleasure and its antithesis as qualities, rather
than separate elements, of consciousness. To put the
matter picturesquely, in the absence of pleasure and its
antithesis, there would be in consciousness a picture in
neutral tints — one which would neither attract nor repel.
Pleasure and its opposite give the picture colour, and make
it either attractive or repellent. Pleasures and pains on
this view are, as Mr. Marshall puts it, qualities either of
which, under the proper conditions, may belong to any
element in consciousness.

Now for the bearing of this on the view that an emotion
is predominantly or solely due to motor elements supplied
by the performance of such an instinctive activity as the
moorhen's early morning dance. It may be suggested
that the motor elements provide the neutral-tint picture,
while the distinctively emotional character of the states of
consciousness is due to the colouring of the picture in tones
of pleasure and pain. On this view the primary basis of
an emotional state is afforded by the pleasurable or painful
tone which suffuses the whole background of consciousness
during the performance of certain instinctive or habitual
activities, and accompanies the multitudinous motor
elements, thus crowding in upon consciousness.

From the standpoint of introspection the pleasurable
or painful accompaniment of activity-feelings is apparently

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 201

something clearly distinguishable from an emotional state.
If I read aright the testimony of my own consciousness
I often experience pleasurable or painful activity-feelings
without emotion, and sometimes have a strong emotion
in which there seems to be no recognizable contribution,
presentative or re-presentative, from the activity-feelings.

It would seem then, if there be any truth in the con-
siderations just hinted at rather than developed, that what
is specially characteristic of emotion, as such, does not
take its origin in the motor elements; and it becomes
probable that it is the visceral elements which afford the
differentiae of emotion. If so, it is not the instinct-feeling
in its motor aspect — what we may term the activity-feeling
— that is concerned in the primary genesis of an emotion,
but rather the concurrent and associated set of visceral
actions. Let us see, therefore, whether observations on
the active and emotional life of young birds throw any
light upon this problem. Take the case of a young
frightened moorhen. On land he runs away, and perhaps
crouches in the rushes ; in the water he dives, and comes
up quietly under the bank and there stays still. The
activities involved in running and diving are very different ;
must not the activity-feelings be very different too ? And
yet we must surely suppose them to have a common
emotional element. Again, when a moorhen catches sight
of a worm and runs hard to secure it, the activity-feelings
must, as such, one would suppose, be very similar to those
experienced when the moorhen runs vigorously away from
a goose. And yet in the one case he is frightened, and in
the other case he is not. Here similar activity-feelings
are associated with wholly different emotional states.

Frightened chicks scatter and crouch ; but many birds
seem to show more markedly than the chick a crouching
response and a running-away response. As I have

2 02 Habit and Instinct.

noticed on Inch Michrie, in the Forth near Edinburgh,
young fledgehng terns crouch as you approach, and will
even let you stoop and pick them up. But if once dis-
turbed out of their crouching attitude, they scuttle off
through the long grass tussocks. So, too, with young pee-
wits. Mr. A. S. Eve, of Marlborough College, tells me
how, walking across the downs, a brown mass caught his
eye. At first it seemed a piece of dung, even as he stooped
over it ; but slight motion, as of breathing, made him
regard it as a toad, and he picked it up. Instantly two
long legs kicked violently, while a stretched neck and open
beak gave rise to loud squealing ! The concealment of
head and legs, and the colouring of the young bird
completely deceived him; and the sudden transition to
motion and noise nearly made him drop the bird from his
hand. The protective nature of the instinctive activity is
here well seen. But what we have to note is that there
must have been in the little pee-wit's consciousness a
rapid transition from the activity-feelings of crouching to
those of running away. And there seems to be a continuity
of emotional state that is not dependent on any similarity
of instinctive activity.

A similar diversity of response, as exemplified in rails,
is thus graphically described by Canon Atkinson.* "A
gentlemen's dog catches a land-rail and brings it to his
master, unhurt of course, as is the well-trained dog's way,
but to all appearance perfectly dead. The dog lays the
bird down at his master's feet, and he turns it over with
his toe. It simply moves as it is moved, all its limbs limp.
Continuing to regard it, however, the man sees an eye
opened, and he takes it up. The ' artful dodger ' is quite
dead again in a moment, head hanging and dangling,
limbs loose, and no sign of life anywhere. It is put

* " Forty Years in a Moorland Parish," p. 335.

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 203

in its captor's pocket, and not liking the confinement
begins to struggle. When taken out it is just as lifeless
as before; but being put down on the ground and left
undisturbed — the gentleman having stepped to one side,
but continuing to watch — it lifts its head in a minute or
so, and seeing all apparently serene, it starts up on a
sudden and ' cuts its lucky ' with singular speed.

" In the case of the water-rail which came under my
own observation, it was picked up on a snowy day by the
most intimate of the friends of my youth and early manhood.
He assumed that it was dazed with cold, and perhaps what
we Yorkshire folks call ' hungered ' as well. So he brought
it home with him, and laid it on a footstool in front of the
dining-room fire. Five minutes passed — ten were gone —
and still the lifeless bird lay as it was put down, dead to all
seeming ; only not stiff, as it ought to have been if dead of
cold as well as hunger. A few minutes later, my friend,
who was very still, but yet with an eye to the bird, saw it —
not lift its head, like the land-rail, and take a view, but —
start off in a moment with no previous intimation of its
purpose, and begin to career about the room with incredible
rapidity. It never attempted to fly. Any other captive
bird in its position would have made for the window at
once, and beaten itself half to pieces against the glass.
Not so the rail. With it, in its helter-skelter and most
erratic course, it was anywhere rather than the window or
the fire. Bound the room, across the room, under the
sofa, under the table, from corner to corner, and from side
to side, steering itself perfectly, notwithstanding legs of
chairs, legs of tables, the sofa-feet, footstools, or what not,
on and on it careered; and it was not without some
patience and many attempts that it was eventually
secured."

Now here again, the activity-feelings associated with

204 Habit and Instinct.

" shamming dead," must be as different as can well be
imagined from those associated with scuttling off at full
j speed. And yet one would suppose that there is much
community in the emotion experienced ; just as there is
in the case of a schoolboy who first hides from the bully
whose approach he fears, and then runs off as fast as his
legs can carry him. Speaking from personal recollection
of the latter case, I am disposed to refer this community
of emotional tone to a painful affection of the heart and
breathing, a dryness of the mouth, and a terrible sinking
in the pit of the stomach with all sorts of unpleasantly,
creepy feelings in the skin and tissues generally. And I
expect the land-rail feels uncommonly queer in his gizzard,
both when he " shams dead " and when he scuttles away.
But of course, not being a land-rail, I cannot affect to speak
with any certainty as to his emotions.

One more case in point may be given. The Duke of
Argyll once disturbed, on a Scotch loch, a dun-diver or
female of the red-breasted merganser (Mergus serratiis),
with her brood of ducklings, and gave chase in a boat.
But the little birds, not more than a fortnight old, eluded
their pursuers by swimming and diving. "At last* one of
the brood made for the shore ... we pursued it as quickly
as we could, but when the little bird gained the shore, our
boat was still about twenty yards off. Long drought had
left a broad margin of small flat stones and mud between
the water and the usual bank. I saw the little bird run up
a couple of yards from the water, and then suddenly dis-
appear. Knowing what was likely to be enacted, I kept
my eye fixed on the spot, and when the boat was run upon
the beach, I proceeded to find and pick up the chick. But
on reaching the place of disappearance, no signs of the
young merganser was to be seen. The clqsest scrutiny,
* Contemporary Review, July, 1874.

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 205

■with the certain knowledge that it was there, failed, to
enable me to detect it. Proceeding cautiously forwards, I
soon became convinced that I had already overshot the
mark ; and on turning round, it was only to see the bird
rise like an apparition from the stones, and dashing past
the stranded boat regain the lake — where, having recovered
its wind, it instantly dived and disappeared."

Now, here there are no less than four different activities,
swimming, diving, crouching, running, and yet, accom.-
panying them all, as we can scarcely doubt, a common
emotional state. To which, in an older bird, will be added
a fifth, escape by flight. Again I venture to suggest that
the little duckling had all the while a terrible sinking in its
little gizzard, and that in such cases similarity of visceral
elements may give community of emotional character to
conscious backgrounds of diverse nature so far as activity-
feelings by themselves are concerned. The fact that the
same activity-feelings may accompany very different
emotional states, when a bird runs, flies, or swims with
eagerness towards food or a mate, and when he uses
the same motor-activities in escaping from a dangerous
enemy; and the fact that the same or closely allied
emotional states may be accompanied by very different
activities, when a bird in fear runs, swims, dives, flies,
utters its alarm note, or crouches in silence ; these two
facts, taken in conjunction, lead me to go even farther than
Prof. James, and to suggest that the visceral back-stroke
is, genetically, not only by far the most essential feature
in the emotional state, but that it is what differentiates
the emotional state, as such, from the pleasure or pain
which may accompany the performance of bodily activities.

One may well believe, however, that these visceral
elements have, in the course of evolution, become closely
associated with the performance of definite instinctive

2o6 Habit and Instinct.

activities so that they arise whenever these activities are
evoked. Nay, more ; so close is the association that the
same stimulus evokes not only the instinctive response hut
also the visceral reaction which is the primary genetic
basis of the emotion as such. This is obviously in line
with our whole interpretation of the phenomena. Our
interpretation of instinct is that a stimulus gives rise to a
co-ordinated group of outgoing nerve-currents to the motor
organs concerned in the congenital response ; that this is
purely organic ; but that the automatic performance of the
activity gives origin to a group of ingoing currents which
evoke activity-feelings and afford primary data to con-
sciousness. Our interpretation of emotion in its primary
genesis is that a stimulus gives rise to a co-ordinated
group of outgoing nerve-currents to the viscera, heart,
lungs, digestive organs, skin, and so forth ; that this, too,
is purely organic ; but that the automatic reaction of these
visceral organs gives origin to a group of ingoing currents
which evoke emotional states and afford the primary
emotional data to consciousness. Our present point is
that the same stimulus may give rise at the same time
both to the co-ordinated motor group and to the co-
ordinated visceral group ; both to instinctive reaction and
to the visceral reaction essential to emotion. The two
are in fact in such cases inseparably connected in origin,
though they are distinguishable both physiologically and
in their effects in consciousness. The result of their
common origin is that instinctive data and emotional
data are simultaneously presented to consciousness, and
that their association in consciousness is of the closest
possible nature. With the growth of experience this
constant association is yet further strengthened, and the
motor and visceral effects are yet further consolidated, so
that each tends to supplement and reinforce the other.

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 207

And the value of the emotions in the evolution process is
tolerably obvious. The prolonged visceral back-stroke in
fear or anger, for example, leads to continuous exertion
in flight or fight ; a continuous exertion that is all the
more pronounced if visceral and motor groups are closely
linked by the bonds of association. Even the general
collapse of extreme dread or terror may be seen to have its
protective value in the case of birds or other animals that,
like the rails above described, are said to sham dead — in
which, that is to say, the collapse has been organized
through natural selection into an instinctive response of
stillness and limpness.*

In fine the general conclusions that we reach as to the

relation of emotion to instinct are somewhat as follows.

Instinctive activities are primarily automatic responses of

the organism to certain external stimuli under certain

internal conditions; the performance of these activities

affords to consciousness by back-stroke certain motor data

; which are correlated with the data provided by the special

\ senses. But there are other automatic responses of the

' organism, or effects in the organism, which are more or

i less closely bound up with some at least of the instinctive

, activities. These are visceral effects. They, too, like the

/ co-ordinated activities, are due to outgoing impulses from

i the lower brain centres. They, too, afford to consciousness

, certain data, which are correlated with the other data of

I experience ; and these data, visceral in origin, are, if not

the sole, at any rate the distinguishing constituents of

what we term the coarser emotions (for under this term

exceedingly complex states of consciousness are included,

comprising many diverse data sensory and motor as well

* Dr. Wesley Mills has discussed the conditions of the so-called death-
feigning response in the "Trans. Eoy. Soo. Canada," Sect, iv., 1887, p. 181,
et seqq.

2o8 Habit and Instinct.

as visceral) ; these visceral data, I submit, are what give
to the states of consciousness their distinctive emotional
character. What therefore is congenital in emotion is
of like nature with that which is congenital in the
activities termed instinctive, namely, an organized group
of outgoing impulses. What we have termed " activity-
feelings " are the conscious effects of the back-stroke from
the motor-activities, more or less tinged no doubt with
pleasure or pain. What I regard as distinctively
emotional is the conscious effect of the back-stroke from
the visceral actions, more or less tinged again with
pleasure or pain. This back-stroke, whether from motor-
activity or visceral action, is a matter of primary genesis.
In subsequent experience, memory through association,
affords re-presentative echoes of primary presentations,
and these, together with modifications introduced by
individual acquisition, serve to render extraordinarily
complex the emotional states of adult animals, and still
more the emotional states of adult human beings, in
whom conceptual thought, with all that it involves and
brings with it, has been developed.

It must not be supposed, then, that, in tracing the
genetic connection that exists between instinct-feelings
(motor in origin) and emotional back-stroke (visceral in
origin), I am contending that what is commonly termed
an emotional state is just this and nothing more. That
would be absurd. The whole state of consciousness to
which the term emotion may be conveniently applied,
because it contains the emotional factor, is by no means
so simple as this. What we commonly describe as an
emotion is, indeed, a highly complex state of consciousness
involving a great number of diverse elements; elements
due to the special senses, sight, hearing, and so forth,
through which we are aware of the presence of the object

The Emotions in their Relation to Instinct. 209

exciting the emotion; elements due to motor-sensations
and impressions concerned in the active response, gesture,
and expression ; elements due to visceral action derived
from glands, heart, lungs, digestive organs, and so forth ;
and a number of elements of a re-presentative kind called
up by association and due to previous experience. For the
practical observer and interpreter of human or animal life,
the emotion is the net result of the experience which
includes all these diverse elements. The psychologist has
a special purpose in view. He analyses the complex bit of
experience, being desirous of ascertaining just where in the
midst of this complex whole the characteristically emotional
quality has its seat, and just how it had its origin in
primary genesis. And he reaches the conclusion, if our
discussion be adequate, that the characteristic quality of
emotion as congenital is to be found in the visceral factor,
and endeavours to explain its mode of origin in the
genetic development of experience.

2IO Habit and Instinct.

CHAPTER X.

SOME HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF THE PAIRING SEASON.

If, in accordance with the conclusion reached in the last
chapter, the characteristic and differentiating quality of
such emotions as fear and anger is to be regarded as due,
in primary genesis, to visceral changes affecting the brain
through afferent nerves ; the expression of the emotions in
characteristic actions and attitudes must be held to be
more or less closely associated with the emotions which
they indicate. And this association may well be so close
and intimate as to lead to the coalescence of the motor
and visceral elements into an apparently uniform and
homogeneous state of consciousness. An analogy from
the phenomena of vision will make this clearer. When
we look out across a stretch of country and see a
distant object, such as a church spire, the impression
of the object, as directly seen at that distance, seems
to be homogeneous and simple. But, setting aside any
act of judgment by which the matter may be complicated,
analysis shows that, in addition to visual sensations due
to the stimulation of the retina, there are also motor
sensations due to the movements and relative positions
of the two eyes and to accommodation within the eye-
balls. And it is these motor sensations which give to
vision its distance element. But so closely do the
retinal and motor elements coalesce in visual impressions,
owing to their constant and uniform association, that their

Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 211

diversity of origin is not recognizable without careful and
patient analysis. So, too, in those emotional states which
have a constant and uniform motor expression in action or
attitude, the visceral and motor sensations coalesce to give
rise to an apparently homogeneous state of consciousness.
And the contributions to consciousness due to " expression "
can only be dissociated from the emotion itself by the
application of psychological analysis.

From the point of view of heredity, we may say that
in these cases there is such congenital organization of
structure in the central nervous system, that co-ordinated
outgoing or efferent impulses are distributed both to
viscera and to the organs concerned in expression. This
distribution of nervous impulses is part of the congenital
automatism. On the other hand, at the moment of
primary experience, opportunities are afforded for the
correlation of the afferent or incoming impulses from
the diverse viscera and organs which have thus been
called into activity. And this correlation is a matter
of individual acquisition.

We must now proceed to notice that though the
emotion itself, as such, is, so to speak, a private and
individual matter, having an import that is wholly
subjective, its expression is not thus restricted. It is an
indication to others of the emotional state of the organism.
When the cobra raises its head and expands its hood,
this is an advertisement of its deadly powers, and of its
emotional state being such that it is ready to call these
powers into play. That this kind of activity is congenital
and instinctive is shown by the fact that young snakes
(Vivora de la Cruz), taken before birth from their just-
killed mother, threatened to strike, and made the burring
noise with the tail characteristic of its kind.*

* Mr. W. Larden in Nature, vol. xlii. p. 115.

2 12 Habit and Instinct.

There can be no question as to the advantage that
must accrue to the organism from a close association
between an emotional state which, whatever else it may
imply, means business, and such action and attitude as
may indicate this fact to a possible enemy. The dog
that will chase a fleeing cat will change his demeanour,
and not unfrequently leave her alone, if she turns and
threatens to scratch his eyes. At the same time it does
not by any means follow that the emotional state at the
back of a given mode of expression is necessarily at all
times the same. A snake may well threaten to strike
in fear as well as in anger. The stag that lowers his
antlers to do battle with a rival may be tingling with
sexual excitement ; while the stag at bay that turns and
lowers his antlers to the advancing hounds is driven
thereto by an emotional state akin to despair. So long as
the " expression " indicates an emotional condition which
shows that the animal means business, is thoroughly in
earnest, and is ready to put forth its powers to the utmost
— that is enough from the biological point of view. And it
matters not a jot whether the emotional condition be one
of general irritability or excitement, one of anger or fear,
or sometimes one and sometimes another. Hence we may
fairly conclude that the same " expression " may be asso-
ciated with different emotional states, and may be more
stereotyped and uniform than the accompaniment in
consciousness.

The action and attitude, then, to which we apply the
term emotional expression is, biologically, of suggestive
value. It has been developed and organized as an
expression suggestive to others. Like the warning colours
of certain insects and other animals, it is an indication of
certain qualities, and of a preparedness to make them felt.
Their suggestive value depends largely on association in

Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season.

those for whose guidance they are used. And among
animals of the same kind, or animals of about equal
strength, they are apt to call forth answering expressions
of like nature. The young cockerel or the young moorhen
that begins to show fight, immediately throws his com-
panion into a corresponding attitude. When animals live
in flocks or herds, the sudden flight of any one individual
startles all the others into a like procedure. I have else-
where confessed * that as a boy I sometimes visited a
farmyard for the vicious purpose of shooting little pigs
with a catapult. The shot, taking effect upon some
luckless pigling, was followed by a squeak and a rush, in
which not only my particular quarry, but the whole litter
participated. Each little pig experienced certain suggested
feehngs of alarm or fright, and at the same time seeing his
brothers running, imitated their action. Thus the sight of
another pig scuttling off on the one hand, and a feeling
of fright on the other hand, would become linked by
association ; and in this way participation in common
actions would beget a community in emotional experience,
and would lay the foundations of suggestive influence.

The sounds and cries of animals are expressive of
emotional states, and have a distinctly and often definitely
suggestive value. Allusion has already been made to the
notes of young birds ; to their emotional accompaniments,
so far as we can interpret the matter ; to their suggestive
value, at least in some cases; and to their congenital
nature. No one can have watched with attention —
attention of ear as well as eye— the behaviour of a hen
with her brood of chicks, without noticing the different
effects of the call note and the warning cry.

Let us take, as a starting-point for somewhat more
detailed consideration, the song of birds. The fact that
* "Introduction to Comparative Psychology," p. 321.

214 Habit and Instinct.

this is heard for the roost part in the pairing season
indicates its association with the mating instinct and
the emotional condition appropriate to the season of
courtship. In this season life is at high tide; there is
an unusual expenditure of energy; and some of this
energy finds vent in the joyous stream of song. If this
be not an expression of emotion, we must give up all
attempts at subjective — or, as Clifford termed it, ejective —
interpretation of observable activities. But if, as we have
been led to infer, expression is for external reference, and
has suggestive value, the conclusion is irresistible that
the male bird sings for his mate, and that the biological
value of song is to call forth an answering emotion on his
part.

We here open up the question of sexual selection,
which is associated with the revered name of Charles
Darwin; and it may be well to state his views on this
subject in his own words. " Most male birds," he says
in his summary,* " are highly pugnacious during the
breeding season, and some possess weapons adapted for
fighting with their rivals. But the most pugnacious and
the best-armed males rarely or never depend for success
solely on their power to drive away or kill their rivals,
but have special means for charming the female. With
some it is the power of song or of giving forth strange
cries, or instrumental music, and the males in conse-
quence differ from the females in their vocal organs, or in
the structure of certain feathers. From the curiously
diversified means for producing various sounds, we gain a
high idea of the importance of this means of courtship.
Many birds endeavour to charm the females by love-dances
or antics, performed on the ground or in the air, and

* " Descent of Man," vol. ii. part ii. chap. xvi. pp. 250-256. 2Qd
edit., 1888.

Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 2 1 5

sometimes at prepared places. But ornaments of many-
kinds, the most brilliant tints, combs and wattles,
beautiful plumes, elongated feathers, top-knots, and so
forth, are by far the commonest means. In some
cases mere novelty appears to have acted as a charm.
The ornaments of the males must be . highly important
to them, for they have been acquired in not a few
cases at the cost of increased danger from enemies,
and even at some loss of power in fighting with their
rivals. The males of very many species do not assume
their ornamental dress until they arrive at maturity,
or they assume it only during the breeding season, or
the tints then become more vivid. Certain ornamental
appendages become enlarged, turgid, and brightly coloured
during the act of courtship. The males display their
charms with elaborate care, and to the best effect ; and
this is done in the presence of the females. The court-
ship is sometimes a prolonged affair, and many males
and females congregate at an appointed place. To
suppose that the females do not appreciate the beauty
of the males, is to admit that their splendid decorations,
all their pomp and display, are useless ; and this is
incredible. . . .

" If it be admitted that the females prefer, or are
unconsciously excited by, the more beautiful males, then
the males would slowly but surely be rendered more and
more attractive through sexual selection."

Such are the essential features of the theory of sexual
selection. Like the theory of natural selection, with
which it has obvious points of relation, but, as we shall
see, important points of difference, it attempts to account
for the selection of given variations in colour, plumage,
and vocal or other activity, and does not profess to give
any account of the mode of origin of these variations. It

2i6 Habit and Instinci.

contends that, given the variations, sexual selection will
guide them to special developments.

Those, of -whom Mr. Alfred Kussell Wallace is chief,
who are not prepared to admit sexual selection by prefer-
ential mating as a factor in organic evolution, assert that
there is no sufficient evidence of choice on the part of the
female bird. Mr. Wallace attributes the origin of plumes,
brilliance, and specialized activities to exuberant vitality :
he regards their suppression in the hen * as due to natural
selection through the elimination of conspicuous hens
during the important period of incubation ; and he
develops a theory suggested by Mr. Alfred Tylor,t that
the diversified coloration follows the chief lines of
structure, and changes at points, such as the joints,
where function changes. " Why, in allied species, the
development of accessory plumes has taken different
forms," he admits,:!: "we are unable to say, except that
it may be due to individual variability, which has served
as the starting-point for so much of what seems to us
strange in form or fantastic in colour, both in the
animal and vegetable world."

So far as coloration and special adornments are con-
cerned, it would seem that, on Mr. Wallace's view, they
are of utilitarian value for the end of recognition.
" Each ornament," he says, " is a recognition mark, and
therefore essential to both the first production and
subsequent well-being of every species." But recognition
marks are, if we grant their utilitarian value, of essential
importance in connection with mating. The sight of
such ornaments would therefore become associated with

" Generally in the hen. When the female Is brightly coloured and the
male dull in hue, he is said to undertake the duties of incubation,
t ".Coloration in Animals and Plants."
X " Darwinism," p. 293.

Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 217

the mating impulse and the emotional states which
accompany sexual union. May we not, therefore, fairly
suppose that adornment is of suggestive value, and itself
tends to call forth the sexual emotions ? And, if so,
may we not further suppose that deficiency of such
adornment would evoke less strongly the sexual impulse,
and would, therefore, place the male in which such
ornament was lacking at a disadvantage in securing a
mate?

Let us grant that the song of birds is primarily the
outcome of exuberant activity, and also that it is probably
a means of recognition. The recognition is presumably
not only specific, but individual, for the bird probably not
only recognizes the song as that of one of her own species,
but recognizes the individual notes of her own mate. If,
then, song is an expression of emotional condition, and if
it calls forth an answering emotion in the hen, it would
seem to be, to say the least of it, not improbable that the
bird which in this way excites the most emotion is more
likely to be accepted as a mate than others which excite
less emotion and call forth in a less degree the sexual
instinct.

The question has been unduly complicated and placed
in a false light through the introduction of the unnecessary
supposition that the hen bird must possess a standard
or ideal of aesthetic value, and that she selects that
singer which comes nearest to her conception of what
a songster should be. One might as well suppose that
a chick selected those worms which most nearly approached
the ideal of succulence that it had conceived. The chick
selects the worm that excites the strongest impulse to
pick it up and eat it. So, too, the hen selects that mate
which by his song or otherwise excites in greatest degree
the mating impulse ; and there is no more need to suppose

2i8 Habit and Instinct.

the existence of an aesthetic standard in this case than
there is to hypothecate a gustatory ideal in the case
of the chick that eats a juicy worm. Stripped of all its
unnecessary aesthetic surplusage, the hypothesis of sexual
selection suggests that the accepted mate is the one that
most strongly evokes the pairing instinct.

That the sexual impulse, and certain specialized
activities which are associated with it, is instinctive,
and truly congenital though deferred, stands in no need
of demonstration. It affords, however, a good illustration
of that co-operation between internal organic factors and
an external exciting cause which is characteristic probably
of all, and certainly of the most highly developed, instincts.
We have seen that, in other matters, congenital instinctive
tendency affords an unspecialized basis on which are
founded habits in the formation of which individual choice
has likewise played its part. It is difficult to accept the
view that individual choice has played no part where the
sexual instincts are concerned. But supposing that it
has played its part — and this is essential to the con-
tention of those who accept sexual selection — the effects
will be wrought into the congenital tissue of the race if,
and only if, there are certain individuals which, through
failure to elicit the pairing response, die unmated. Is
preferential mating, supposing it to occur, carried to such
a degree that some individuals fail to secure a mate?
That is the question. If so, sexual selection is a factor
in race-progress ; if not, though it may occur in nature,
it is inoperative as a means of evolutionary development.
The whole question, in itself a difficult one, is further
complicated by the fact that the males which are pos-
sessed of the most exuberant vitality, and are therefore
by hypothesis rendered the most acceptable through
emotional suggestion, are likely to compete with other

Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 219

males of less exuberant vitality by direct combat. Such
competition, by which the weakest are excluded from
mating through no choice on the part of the female, falls
under the head of natural selection, and not of sexual
selection, if by that term we understand preferential
mating.

This serves to bring out the difference, before adverted
to, between natural selection through elimination and
conscious selection through choice. The two processes
begin at different ends of the scale of efficiency. Natural
selection begins by eliminating the weakest, and so works
up the scale from its lower end until none but the fittest
survive; there is no conscious choice in the matter.
Sexual selection by preferential mating begins by selecting
the most successful in stimulating the pairing instinct,
and so works down the scale until none but the hopelessly
unattractive remain unmated. The process is determined
by conscious choice. It is in and through such choice
that consciousness has been a factor in evolution. The
relations of the two processes will, however, be more fully
considered in a later chapter.

It forms no part of my present purpose to discuss in
detail the theory of sexual eelection. Only in so far as
the conceptions which it involves bear upon problems
of habit and instinct does the theory concern us here.
The song of birds is an instinctive or an habitual activity,
which appears to be the expression of an emotional state
coincident in time, in the majority of song-birds, with the
season of courtship. Emotional expression is, in other
cases, of suggestive value. It is, therefore, not improbable
that song arouses in the hen an answering emotional state ;
and it is said that hen-canaries mate with the best singer.
If the number of male birds is in excess of that necessary
to satisfy the pairing requirements of the hens (and this

2 20 Habit and Instinct.

-will apply both to polygamous and monogamous species),
some must fail to find a mate. But whether the odd
males are weeded out through natural selection (being, if
we accept the somewhat extravagant suggestion of M.
Stolzmann,* overweighted with, or rendered conspicuous
by, adornment for that very purpose), or whether they
are rejected through failure to elicit the appropriate emo-
tional response, we do not know.

Perhaps the most definite direct evidence of the
exercise of choice on the part of the female is that which
Darwin cites from Audubon.f This observer, who spent a
lifetime among the birds of the United States, " does not
doubt that the female deliberately chooses her mate.
Thus, speaking of a woodpecker, he says that the hen
is followed by half a dozen gay suitors, who continue
performing strange antics, ' until a marked preference is
shown for one.' The female of the red-winged starling
(Agelaiiis phoeniceus) is likewise pursued by several males,
'until, becoming fatigued, she alights, receives their
addresses, and soon makes a choice.' He describes also
how several male nightjars repeatedly plunge through the
air with astonishing rapidity, suddenly turning, and thus
making a singular noise ; ' but no sooner has the female
made her choice, than the other males are driven away.'

* Proc. Zool. Soc, 1885, p. 43,1. I say "somewhat extravagant," because
it would appear that natural selection by weeding out the more adorned and
leaving only the less adorned to breed would, in the absence of preferential
mating, have left us little or no adornment to discuss. Again, we must ask
M. Stolzmann this question : By what process of elimination under natural
selection have the advantageous adornments been produced ? Upholders of
sexual selection have not failed to realize the disadvantageousness of
secondary sexual characters, but have assumed that the disadvantages are
outweighed by the superior acceptability, as mates, of their possessors.

t "Besoent of Man,'' vol. ii. part ii. chap. xiv. pp. 128-129, 2nd edit.,
1888. The citations from Audubon, " Ornithological Biography," vol. i. pp.
191, 349 ; vol. ii. pp. 42, 275.

Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 221

With one of the vultures {Gatliartes aura) of the United
States, parties of eight, ten, or more males and females
assemble on fallen logs, ' exhibiting the strongest desire to
please mutually,' and, after many caresses, each male
leads off his partner on the wing." These cases appear
to have been carefully observed. Still, there is unquestion-
ably need of more direct evidence.

Mr. William Brewster, of Cambridge, Massachusetts,
has communicated, and kindly allows me to quote, the
following observations, which bear upon the point we
are considering : —

"The case of apparent sexual selection which I men-
tioned to you the other evening came to my notice in
the spring of 1877, when I was collecting birds at St.
Mary's, Georgia. Finding a pair of summer tanagers
{Piranga rubra) in an isolated grove of pines, I shot the
male. Visiting the place a day or two afterwards, I found
that the female had another mate, which I also killed.
This was repeated, until, in about a week, I had secured in
all either four or five males— I cannot now remember
which. These males, when arranged in the order in which
they had been killed, formed a graded series, of which
the first was an unusually richly coloured bird, the last an
exceptionally dull one, the others representing various
intermediate shades or stages of coloration. I was con-
fident then— and I fully believe now— that all these males
were successively mated to one and the same female ; but
my only evidence of this was that I never saw more than
one female in this immediate locaHty, and that on the
different occasions she looked and acted like the same

bird."

" I have written," adds Mr. Brewster, " to Mr. Maynard,
inquiring about a similar experience which I think he
once had with some red-winged blackbirds."

22 2 Habit and Instinct.

Mr. Maynard's reply was as follows : " About the date
you say {i.e. 1868 or 1869) I shot three male redwings
in one meadow (at Newtonville, Mass.), all over one nest.
The first was in high plumage, the second less so, the third
quite young, and I left with the female a young bird of the
previous year, judging by the absence of red on the wing."
We have taken the song of birds as an example of
activities which are associated with a state of emotional
exaltation. There are, however, as has incidentally
appeared, other forms of activity, such as so-called love-
antics, aerial evolutions, dances, and many modes of active
display, often correlated with the possession of special
external adornments, of which one or two typical cases
may be given, since they further open up the question
of the nature and origin of habit and instinct.

" How many evenings," writes Mr. F. Chapman, in his
" Birds of Eastern North America," * " have I tempted the
malaria germs of Jersey lowlands to watch the woodcock
{Philohela minor) perform his strange sky-dance ! He
begins on the ground, with a formal periodic peent,
jieent, an incongruous preparation for the wild rush that
follows. It is repeated several times before he springs
from the ground, and on whistling wings sweeps out on
the first loop of a spiral which may take him three hundred
feet from the ground. Faster and faster he goes, louder
and shriller sounds his wing-song ; then, after a moment's
pause, with darting headlong flight, he pitches in zigzags
to the earth, uttering, as he falls, a clear twittering
•whistle. He generally returns to near the place from
which he arose, and the peewit is at once resumed as a
preliminary to another round in the sky."

Mr. Ernest E. Thomson describes t how the American

* p. 153.

t Quoted by F. M. Chapman, « Birds of Eastern North America," p. 198.

Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 223

harrier or marsh hawk {Glrcus hudsonius) endeavours to
win the admiration of the hen bird by a number of extra-
ordinary aerial evolutions. Sometimes he soars to a great
height, then falls straight downwards nearly to the ground,
turning several somersaults during the descent, and utter-
ing at the same time a reiterated screeching."

Let us now txirn to the dance. In an article on " The
Lives and Loves of North American Birds," * in which
Mr. John Worth notices and interprets Major Charles
Bendire's "Life-histories of North American Birdsj" there
is a graphic description of the dance as it is performed
by prairie chickens, or sharp-tailed grouse. The birds
in companies of from six to twenty individuals assemble
on some hillock or knoll, fifty to a hundred feet across,
the "floor" being worn and beaten smooth by years of
tramping. After remaining for a while inactive, " one of
the cocks," we are told, "lowers his head, spreads out his
wings nearly horizontally, and his tail perpendicularly,
distends his air-sacs and erects his feathers, then rushes
across the floor, taking the shortest of steps, but stamping
his feet so hard and so rapidly, that the sound is like that
of the kettle-drum ; and at the same time he utters a kind
of bubbling crow, which seems to rise from his air-sacs,
beats the air with his wings, and vibrates his tail so that
he produces a loud rustling noise, and thus becomes a
really astonishing spectacle. Soon after he commences
all the cocks join in, rattling, stamping, drumming,
crowing, and dancing furiously; louder and louder the
noise, faster and faster the dance becomes, until at last
they madly whirl about, leaping over each other in their
excitement."

Our second example shall be taken from Mr. W. H.
Hudson's delightful chapter on "Music and Dancing in

* Nineteenth Century, April, 1893, vol. xxxiii. p. 594.

2 24 Habit and Instinct.

Nature." * " The finest of the Platan rails," he says, " is
the ypecaha, a beautiful active bird about the size of a
fowl. A number of the rails have their assembling-place
on a small area of smooth, level ground just above the
water, and hemmed in by dense rush beds. First one bird
among the rushes emits a powerful cry, thrice repeated ;
and this is a note of invitation, quickly responded to by
other birds from all sides as they hurriedly repair to the
usual place. In a few moments they appear to the
number of a dozen or twenty, bursting from the rushes
and running into the open space, and instantly beginning
the performance. This is a tremendous screaming concert.
The screams they utter have a certain resemblance to the
human voice, exerted to its utmost pitch and expressive of
extreme terror, frenzy, and despair. A long piercing
shriek, astonishing for its vehemence and power, is suc-
ceeded by a lower note, as if in the first the creature
had well-nigh exhausted itself; this double scream is
repeated several times, and followed by other sounds,
resembling, as they rise and fall, half-smothered cries of
pain and moans of anguish. Suddenly the unearthly
shrieks are renewed in all their power. While screaming
the birds rush from side to side, as if possessed with mad-
ness, the wings spread and vibrating, the long beak wide open
and raised vertically. This exhibition lasts three or four
minutes, after which the assembly peacefully breaks up."

Mr. Hudson also describes a somewhat similar perform-
ance of the wattled, wing-spurred, and long-toed jacana,
a performance which seems specially designed to bring out
the concealed beauty of the silky, greenish-golden wing-
quills ; and he has an inimitable paragraph on the strange
visits and dances of the spur-winged plovers. Here the
male bird leaving his mate pays a call on a neighbouring

' " Naturalist in La Plata," p. 266.

Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 225

couple, wlio receive him graciously, tread with him a
measured dance accompanied by resonant drumming
notes, and then bow him out, with their beaks bent to
the ground. He returns to his mate, with whom he will
himself receive a visitor later on.

This keen and sympathetic observer of animal life is
not prepared to accept, and even rejects with some scorn,
the idea that the activities he so well describes have any
connection with preferential mating. " What relation," he
asks, " that we can see or imagine, to the passion of love
and the business of courtship have these dancing and
vocal performances in nine cases out of ten ? " One may
not unreasonably suppose, however, that the state of
emotional exaltation shown by such exuberant activity
bears some relation to the pairing impulse, which seems in
many cases to reach its maximum intensity at the same
time of year. But whether this relation, supposing it to
exist, be such as to lead to preferential mating, is un-
doubtedly a question which is open to discussion, and
stands in need of further evidence from direct observation,
which is by no means easy to obtain. Let us, for the
purposes of discussion, rule out preferential mating as in-
operative, and ask how the nature and origin of the activities
in question can be otherwise explained. " The explana-
tion I have to offer," says Mr. Hudson, " lies very much
on the surface, and is very simple indeed, and, like that
of Dr. Wallace with regard to colour and ornaments, covers
the whole of the facts. We see that the inferior animals,
when the conditions of life are favourable, are subject to
periodical fits of gladness, affecting them powerfully and
standing out in vivid contrast to their ordinary temper,
. . , Birds are more subject to this universal joyous
instinct than mammals, and there are times when some
species are constantly overflowing with it. . . . If all

Q

2 26 Habit and Instinct.

men, at some exceedingly remote period of their history,
had, agreed to express the common glad impulse, which they
now express in such an infinite variety of ways or do not
express at all, by dancing a minuet, and minuet-dancing
had at last come to he instinctive, and taken to spontaneously
by children at an early period, man's case would be like
that of the inferior animals." *

Now, in this explanation there are in effect three distinct
propositions : (1) The origin of the activities is to be
found in periodic joyousness and emotional exaltation.
(2) The particular nature of the expression is determined
by common agreement. (3) The instinctive element of the
performance is due to inheritance by direct transmission
without elimination or selection.

To the first of these propositions no exception need be
taken. Even those who may hesitate to accept the view
of Mr. Wallace and Prof. Geddes, that plumes and other
structm-al adornments are due to a surplus of growth-
power combined with that expenditure of protoplasmic
energy, and consequent development of waste products,
which characterizes the male as compared with the more
conservative and tissue-saving female, — even those who
hesitate to accept these views as applied to extravagance
of structural adornment, may be willing to accept fulness
and richness of vitality as a suf&cient cause for fulness and
richness of motor activity as expressed in aerial evolution,
dance, and song. Granting, therefore, that the first of the
three propositions may be accepted, at least provisionally,
as affording an explanation of the origin of varied and
multiform activities, the next question that arises is, What
has guided these activities into certain definite channels
of dance or display or screaming concert? One hardly knows
whether to take quite seriously Mr. Hudson's suggestion —

" " The Naturalist in La Plata," pp. 279-282. Tlie italics are mine.

Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 227

placed in our second proposition — that the definiteness is
due to an agreement so to express the overflowing joyous-
ness begotten of vitality in full flood. But, if we do not
take the suggestion seriously, how is the definiteness to be
accounted for ? In the case of plumes and symmetrical
markings, no matter how splendid or how delicate, we can,
perhaps, in our ignorance, fall back on " laws of growth "
and a tendency to symmetrical synthesis. But the jacana
dance, or the performances of the prairie hen, can hardly
be attributed to any such inherent " laws " or " tendencies."
To what, then, can the definiteness be due ?

Presumably, the most true and modest, if not the most
satisfactory and comfortable, answer to this question is
that we do not know. But there can be no harm in a little
guessing, so long as our guesses are not regarded as
more than suggestive. It is possible that imitation, and
what Mr. Hudson has himself so well described under
the head of tradition, may be regarded as a means, if not
of developing, at least of maintaining, the definiteness of
performance. The young birds are born into a society in
which certain habits of dance, song, or other modes of
activity, are already organized. By that sub-conscious and
half-aware imitation which seems to be a trait of animal
life (a sort of extended sheep-through-the-gap-ishness), they
fall into the habits of their elders, as their elders did before
them when they too were young and plastic. Their ways
are moulded to those of the community in the heart of
which they are reared. They have neither the wit nor
the will to modify the family traditions by new-fangled
innovations. And if they had, and proceeded to exercise
their originality, they would, by so doing, place themselves
outside the social life, and would probably die unmated.
Moreover, it is not improbable that a certain amount of
natural selection through elimination would accompany

2 28 Habit and Instinct.

the traditional process. Any individual which, through
lack of vigour or other more positive defect, was excluded
from, or exhausted by, the dance or other performance,
would so far drop out of the social life and run less chance
of taking his share in the special business of pairing,
not in virtue of any preferential mating, but just because,
while others were stimulated by the performance to sexual
activity, the weaklings were exhausted and excluded from
the full life of the community. Song-birds matched against
each other have been known to sing till they dropped
exhausted to death. The extravagant and prolonged
antics and dances may well be a means of eliminating the
weakly and leaving the strongest and toughest dancers in
full sexual vigour to perpetuate, not only their strength and
toughness, but also any congenital tendency they may
possess towards the specialized performance of the definite
activity. The period of dancing and display is also a
period of pugnacity, and those whose vital power is lowered
by the strain of the one will be those who are worsted in
the combats arising out of the other. So that out of the
traditional dance there may arise a process of natural
selection, whereby the most vigorous males, those with the
greatest amount of reserve power for the development of
plumage and for effective mating, and with the greatest
congenital tendency to follow the traditions of the com-
munity, would survive to transmit their vigour as dis-
played in certain definite ways.

And if we may admit, on the part of the females,
whether they participate in the dance or not, a heightening
of the sexual emotion at the period of predominant activity,
we may further suppose that there is at least this much
of preferential mating as well — that the hens accept most
readily the attentions of those through whose antics this
heightened sexual impulse has been aroused.

Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 229

Observation, and that of a peculiarly difficult and
delicate nature, can alone decide whether there is such
elimination and such selection as is here suggested.

I am not sure that I have represented Mr. Hudson's
views correctly in saying that, as stated in the third
proposition, the instinctive element of the performance is
due to inheritance by direct transmission without elimina-
tion or selection. The essential question, however, is
this : Are we sure that the performances are instinctive ?
May not such essentially social procedures be handed on
by tradition without becoming ingrained in the congenital
nature ? We shall have occasion to see in the last chapter
that in human progress a greatly developed form of
tradition takes the place of heredity, and that evolution
is in large degree transferred from the organism to his
environment. May not tradition, in bird life and in the
animal world, suffice for the handing on of some habitual
activities? This is another question which ignorance
prevents our answering with any certainty. No doubt we
have been wont to assume that these habitual activities
are instinctive and congenitally definite. But of decisive
and conclusive proof, there is in many cases little enough.

In the case of bird-song there is some evidence, though
not so much as could be wished. We have already dis-
cussed it in the chapter on Imitation, and there saw that,
according to some observers, the singing of birds is, unlike
their call-notes and sounds of alarm, wholly traditional
and entirely due to imitation. This view could not, how-
ever, be unreservedly accepted without more conclusive
evidence. There may be congenital elements forming an
instinctive basis, requiring perhaps under normal con-
ditions the appropriate auditory stimulus provided by the
song of their own species, in the absence of which there
may be failure to sing at all, or imitation of alien strains

Habit and Instinct.

Further observations under varied test conditions are
needed to decide the question one way or the other.

"With regard to the truly instinctive nature of the
activities of the dance, of antics, of strange performances,
and of aerial evolutions there is not much evidence. We
cannot say with any certainty whether they have been
wrought into the congenital tissue of bird life, or are ac-
quired habits transmitted through the influence of tradition,
like so many of the social customs of mankind. Might it
not be possible to bring up broods of prairie hens under
conditions which should exclude the conservative influence
of tradition ? If they went through all the antics of the
dance under such circumstances, this would be definite
evidence of the truly instinctive nature of the performance.

It is now time to summarize. There are certain
activities observable among birds during the pairing
season. These are certainly habitual, and in some cases
instinctive. Whether they are instinctive in all cases
we do not yet know. They may be kept definite through
the influence of tradition. Even under tradition they
may, if they chance to be correlated with exceptional
vigour, be rendered instinctive through natural selection
by the elimination of those who fail in vigour. They
may also be rendered instinctive through sexual selection
by preferential mating if it can be shown conclusively
that choice is exercised, and that some are thereby excluded
from mating. They may, again, be rendered instinctive
through the hereditary transmission of acquired activity,
in which case the definiteness of the performance must
presumably be due to some form of intelligent selection.
If they be regarded as expressions of sexual emotion,
such expression may probably have suggestive value, and
serve to evoke an answering emotion. In this case the

Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 231

act of pairing would be correlated with the expression
of sexual emotion through certain specialized activities ;
and those individuals which were not expressive, together
with those which were insensible to the suggestive influence
of expression, would be less ready to mate and to transmit
the specialized modes of expression. In all these matters
further and fuller evidence from direct observation is to
be desired.

232 Habit and Instinct.

CHAPTEE XI.

NEST-BUILDING, INCUBATION, AND MIGRATION.

The activities which were considered in the last chapter
are characteristic of a period of high vitality, and one of
emotional expressiveness and susceptibility. Whether we
accept or reject sexual selection by preferential mating
as a factor in the evolution of these specialized activities,
it is a matter of observable fact that these activities are
coincident in time with the pairing impulse. And it is
probable that any selection, which may have been instru-
mental in their development, has been in some way associ-
ated with the mating instinct. If struggle or competition
has occurred, it has centred round the processes essential
to the propagation of the race; and the specialized activities
of song, dance, or aerial evolutions may be regarded as
expressions of the emotional state which accompanies
and characterizes the pairing season, and may be held to
possess, at least in some cases, a suggestive value.

There are, however, other activities characteristic of
the same period in which the element of suggestion cannot
be regarded as of much importance. Nest-building, the
instinct of incubation, the maternal offices — these do not
depend in any appreciable degree upon a suggestive
element. Their direct biological value is, perhaps, more
apparent than that of song or dance or strange antics,
since they are more obviously of utility. To a considera-
tion of some of the activities of this type we will now turn.

Is nest-building an instinctive activity, or is it a habit

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 233

rendered definite through intelligent imitation? Is the
habit transmitted through organic inheritance, or handed
on through the influence of tradition ? Mr. Wallace has
advocated the latter view — at least, so far as specific
definiteness is concerned. On his view, if I rightly interpret
it, a bird may inherit an indefinite tendency to exercise
its energies in building ; but how it builds depends upon
the tradition of its species. Exclude imitation, and they
no longer built a typical nest. Thus chaffinches taken to
New Zealand, and turned loose there, built nests which
bore " some resemblance to those of the hang-birds
(Icteridce), with the exception that the cavity is at the top.
Clearly these New Zealand chaffinches," says Mr. Dixon,*
to whom we owe the observation, "were at a loss for a
design when fabricating their nest. They had no standard
to work by, no nests of their own kind to copy, no older
birds to give them any instruction, and the result is the
abnormal structure."

Mr. Wallace quotes this under the heading of " varia-
tions of the habits of animals." It would be well to
restrict the term " variations " to departures of congenital
origin, and to apply the term " modifications " t to those
departures which are individually acquired. According to
those, who are unable to accept the inheritance of ac-
quired characters, of whom Mr. Wallace is one, the two
modes of departure from the activities normal to the
species are of very different value. Modifications, since
they are acquired, are not on this view inherited, and can
play no part in the development of instinct ; while varia-
tions are those departures which by natural selection can
be rendered definite and stereotyped as instincts. This,

* Nature, vol. xxxi. p. 553. Quoted in " Darwinism," p. 76.
t Prof. Mark Baldwin adopts this usage in his paper on "A New Factor
in Evolution," in the American Naturalist for July, 1896.

2 34 Habit and Instinct.

of course, is not intended as a criticism of Mr. Wallace's
views concerning nest-building, since he does not regard
the habit as founded on a definitely instinctive basis. It
is a suggestion towards increased exactness in our technical
nomenclature which may be found generally useful.

No doubt nest-building is subject both to variation of
congenital origin and to modification through experience.
Mr. Blackwall, in the first volume of the Zoological Journal,
says, "It is evident that birds of the same species possess
the constructive powers in very different degrees of perfec-
tion, for, though the style of the architecture is usually
adhered to, the nests of some individuals are finished in
a manner greatly superior to those of others ; " and he
quotes a case in which a yellow bunting failed to build at
all, depositing its eggs on the bare ground, in which situa-
tion she sat upon them till they were hatched.* Such
differences are probably due to variation. On the other
hand, modification may often occur. Bolton, in the preface
to his "Harmonia Euralis," says, "I observed a pair of
goldfinches beginning to make their nest in my garden on
May 10, 1792; they had formed the groundwork with
moss, grass, etc., as usual, but on my scattering small
parcels of wool in different parts of the garden, they in
a great measure left off the use of their own stuff, and
employed the wool. Afterwards I gave them cotton, on
which they rejected the wool, and proceeded with the
cotton ; the third day I supplied them with fine down,
on which they forsook both the others, and finished their
work with the last article. The nest, when completed,
was somewhat larger than is usually made by this bird,
but retained the pretty roundness of figure and neatness
of workmanship which is proper to the goldfinch." t Very

* See Yarrell, " British Birds," vol. i. p. 491.
t Ibid., vol. i. p. 541.

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 235

frequently birds, as Mr. Headley says, in his interesting
book on "The Structure and Life of Birds,"* "adapt
themselves to ne'w situations. The swallow and the
house-martin have availed themselves of barns and houses.
The palm-swift in Jamaica, till 1854, always built in
palms. But in Spanish Town, when two cocoanut-palms
were blown down, they drove out the swallows from
the piazza of the House of Assembly and built between
the angles formed by the beams and joists. In America
the tailor-bird now uses thread and worsted for its nest,
instead of wool and horsehair, and wool and horsehair
may originally have been substitutes for vegetable fibres
and grasses. In Calcutta an unconventional crow once
made its nest of soda-water bottle wires, which it picked
up in a back yard. In districts liable to floods, moorhens
often build in trees. In New Zealand the paradise
ducks, which usually build on the ground near rivers,
have been known, where disturbed, to build on the tops
of high trees, and to bring down their young on their
backs to the water." But all this, as Mr. Headley points
out, does not show that birds have not a nest-building
instinct of congenital definiteness. It only shows that, as
we have had occasion to note in many other cases, their
instinct is modifiable by intelligence and experience. ,
The habit may well be built upon an instinctive basis, and
receive its final touches through individual experience.

Mr. Jenner Weir, writing to Darwin in 1868, says t = )
" The more I reflect on Mr. Wallace's theory, that birds
learn to make their nests because they have themselves
been reared in one.J the less inclined do I feel to agree

* Pages 331, 335.

t Quoted in Eomanes' '' Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 226.
% This was Mr. Wallace's earlier view; his later view introduces
tradition in a broader sense.

2x6 Habit and Instinct.

■with him. ... It is usual with canary fanciers to take out
the nest constructed by the parent birds, and to place a
felt nest in its place, and when the young are hatched and
old enough to be handled, to place a second clean nest,
also of felt, in the box, removing the other. This is done
to prevent acari. But I never knew that canaries so reared
failed to make a nest when the breeding time arrived. I
have, on the other hand, marvelled to see how like a wild
bird's the nests are constructed. It is customary to supply
them with a small set of materials, such as moss and hair.
They use the moss for the foundation, and line with the
finer materials, just as a wild goldfinch would do, although,
making it in a box, the hair alone would be sufficient for
the purpose. I feel convinced nest-building is a true
instinct."

This view of Mr. Jenner Weir's is based, it will be seen,
on personal observation which is well to the point. Here
is another piece of direct evidence. Mr. John S. Budgett,
a careful observer, placed in 1890 a greenfinch's egg under
a canary, and this in due course was hatched, the young
bird proving to be a hen. In the following autumn he
bought a caged bird, a cock, probably of the same year,
and in the succeeding spring turned them out into an
aviary with furse and box bushes in it. Materials of
suitable kind were supplied — twigs, roots, dried grass,
moss, feathers, sheep's-wool, and horsehair. The hen
soon began to build her nest, while the cock did not
seem to take the slightest interest in her proceedings. Mr.
Budgett never saw him with a twig in his mouth. In
a few days she had finished her nest, and Mr. Budgett
having sought and found several wild greenfinches' nests,
made careful comparisons. Taking them as a whole, he
says, the aviary nest was like the wild ones in every
particular, made of wool, roots and moss, lined with

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 237

horsehair. A second nest which the aviary greenfinch
built was also perfectly typical.

In the same year Mr. Budgett reared from a few weeks
old a young hen bullfinch, and kept it in a cage till the
next spring, when he bought a cock, probably an old bird,
and turned them together into the aviary. The hen soon
began to build, and finished her nest in about four days ;
but she used neither roots nor twigs, of which there was a
plentiful supply. The nest was composed of nothing but
dried grass, with a little wool and hair. She laid therein
five eggs, two of which hatched, but the little birds soon
died. She then began another nest, this time a typical
bullfinch's nest of fine twigs and roots lined with horse-
hair. Here five eggs were again laid, all of which were
hatched, and three reared. She also built a third nest,
which was perfectly typical of her species.

Further evidence of this kind is much to be desired.
But this, as far as it goes, appears to be decisive. Some
birds build their nests true to type, without opportunities
or with but the slenderest opportunities of imitation or
instruction. It appears to me that the evidence before us
justifies the conclusion that nest-building in definite ways
is an instinctive activity ; * but that it is modifiable by
individual experience. Whether the modifications are
inherited we do not know. It may be well to note how
largely the performance of this activity is due to internal
impulse, the external stimulus, being perhaps afforded by
the sight of the requisite materials.

It is also advisable to draw attention to the complexity
and delicacy of the activities involved in nest-building.
There is necessarily a good deal of careful selection of the
appropriate materials ; and these materials are used in

* The nest-building of the eticklebaoks, both three-spined and ten-
spined, is without doubt truly instinctive.

238 Habit and Instinci.

special and often very elaborate ways. One has only to
examine such a common nest as that of the chafiSnch to
be profoundly impressed with the skill and, if one may so
put it, the delicacy of touch of which it affords such un-
mistakable evidence. The nests of the golden-crested
wren, the blue-tit, the sand-martin, the reed-warbler,
which is made so deep that the eggs do not roll out
though the supporting reeds be waved by the wind almost
to the surface of the water — each so different and yet each
in its way so admirable — tell the same tale ; as do such
foreign nests as those of the Baltimore oriole, a pensile
structure of grasses, bark, and various plant-fibres, firmly
and beautifully interwoven, or those of the tailor-bird,
daintily stitched with fibre, or hair, or bits of thread. If
further and fuller investigation and inquiry establish the
truly instinctive nature of nest-building, we must not
fail to realize the delicate complexity of the congenital
activities concerned. And then we must ask the question : —
Can all the niceties of the congenital process be attributed
to natural selection ? If not. Can it be regarded as evidence
of the inheritance of acquired habit ? I find it somewhat
difficult to picture to myself the eliminative steps by which
the definiteness of nest-building in any given species be-
came congenital under natural selection. But I find it
almost equally difficult to make clear to myself how the
uniformity of type could result from the inheritance of
intelligently acquired habit. Intelligence is so individual
a faculty, enabling the organism to adjust his life to his
own special surroundings, that it is difficult to see how, out
of the somewhat divergent individualism to which in-
telligence tends, there could come that stereotyped uni-
formity which the nests of any given species present-
Imitation would no doubt tend to uniformity, but here,
again, it is difficult to see why a bird should imitate the

Nest-building, Inaibation, and Migration. 239

nests of its own species, and not the equally good, or per-
haps, better nests of an allied species. The subject is full of
difficulties whichever way it be regarded. And if we ask
by what steps the Baltimore oriole has come to build
his hanging nest in just that particular fashion, we can
only reply, evasively, that with all our advances in biologi-
cal knowledge a child can still ask questions which its
elders find it hard to answer.

The laying of eggs in the nest when it is built is un-
doubtedly a habit of congenital origin ; and problems of
interest and some difficulty arise out of a study of the
colour and markings of these eggs. These problems are
not directly connected with habit and instinct, and they do
not therefore call for consideration here. But the strange
and abnormal habits of the cuckoo demand some notice.

The cuckoo {Guculus canorus) is in several respects an
anomalous bird. "He is a ' vagrom man,' as Dogberry
would say : a vulgarian, a disreputable parasite. Yet he
is in some ways an interesting creature, and the world
has," Mr. Cornish,* reminds us, "always a fondness
for interesting scamps." In the matter of food, he
will eat hairy caterpillars which are rejected by most
birds. There appears to be a great preponderance of
males, the proportion being variously estimated at from
twenty, to five to one. Mating is indiscriminate; and
polyandry prevails. The hen bird lays a largish number
of eggs, some say at relatively long intervals of several
days. According to the careful observations of Dr. Eey,
however, the hen cuckoo lays an egg every other day, from
the middle of May till the middle of July, and, at times,
lays one every day for short periods. They are remarkably
small for the size of the bkd, and are somewhat variable
both in this respect and in that of coloration. They are

* " Wild England of To-day," p. 108.

240 Habit and Instinct.

not laid in a nest constructed by the cuckoo herself, but are
dropped in alien nests, being carried thither in the bill.
Sometimes an egg is turned out at the same time, but
whether purposely or by accident, it is hard to say.
Although there are instances on record of cuckoos feeding
their young — or in any case feeding young birds of their
own kind — and even of incubating eggs in an alien nest,*
yet, in the vast majority of cases, the foster-parents on
whom the egg is foisted hatch out and bring up the naked,
blind, broadshouldered, hollow-backed, changeling which
heaves out of the nest, rather perhaps from sheer size and
awkward random activity than of set purpose — the nest-
lings that of right belong there. Henry Jenner describes
in the " Transactions of the Eoyal Society for 1788," how
two cuckoos were hatched out in a hedge-sparrow's nest,
together with one hedge-sparrow — an egg remaining un-
hatched. In a few hours a contest began between the
two cuckoos, one of which at last succeeded in ejecting
the other, together with the young hedge-sparrow, and
the unhatched egg. Long doubted, but occasionally re-
described from observation, this summary ejection has
recently been not only watched but sketched from life by
Mrs. Hugh Blackburn.t The young outlaw, having thus
rid himself of his rivals, grows apace, and is fed, through
what would seem to be a strange modification of maternal
instinct, by the foster-parents with indefatigable zeal.
Miss Hayward describes and figures % a little whitethroat
feeding a young cuckoo of four or five times her own size.
Finally, contrary to what is held by many ornithologists

* See Morris' " British Birds," vol. ii. (1852), pp. 56 and 59.

t "Birds from Moldart and Elsewliere."

% " Bird Notes." Cf. tKe figure of the long-tailed cuckoo of New Zealand
and its host, the grey warbler, in Buller's " Manual of the Birds of New
Zealand," p. 39.

Nest-building, Inmbation, and Migration. 241

to be the usual rule, the old birds are the first to migrate,
leaving their young to follow as best they may.

The hosts selected — if indeed the word is appropriate
— by the cuckoo are numerous, and of different sizes, from
that little scrap of a fellow, the blue tit, on the one hand,
to the magpie, the jay, and the lesser grebe on the other
hand. No less than forty-three several hosts are recorded
for England alone, and if continental records be included,
the list includes eighty-seven species belonging to eleven
different families — the warblers and finches being the most
abundant,* and the hedge-sparrow, one of the first birds
to build a nest easily discovered either by boy or cuckoo,
among the commonest of all. It is said by some ornith-
ologists that the egg is dropped by the parent bird in nests
where its colour will assimilate with that of the eggs proper
to the nest ; and it has been suggested by some that this
may be due to intelligent selection on the part of the
cuckoo, and by others that cuckoos act instinctively ; that
is to say, there is said to be an instinctive tendency in
cuckoos which lay eggs of a given type to drop them into
appropriate nests. This is the view taken by Dr. Eey,
of Leipzig, who contends that cuckoos instinctively deposit
their eggs, the colour of which for any particular bird is,
he believes, constant, in the nests of the species by which
they were reared. Each species of host thus rears a
particular kind of cuckoo. He says that the eggs deposited
among the variable eggs of the red-backed shrike are
themselves variable ; while those deposited in the nest of
the wren, among her uniform eggs, have great uniformity
of colour. On the other hand. Dr. J. A. Norton, of Bristol,
who has paid much attention to the matter, which is one
of direct observation, and who has kindly furnished me
with some interesting notes on the whole question of cuckoo
* See Mr. Edward Bidwell, Norf. and Nor. Nat. Hist. Soc, vol. iii. p. 536.

R

242 Habit and Instinct.

habit, informs me that though he has observed good cases
of matching — for example, a bluish egg in a hedge-
sparrow's nest, and a reddish one in that of a spotted
flycatcher— yet such cases are in his experience exceptional.
To my question: "Is colour assimilation the rule?" he
replies, " Emphatically, no."

It is clear, then, that different observers are not agreed
as to the facts. It is possible that the habit in England
is different from that on the Continent; but further ob-
servations are needed to establish any such difference. In
any case Dr. Norton regards it as probable that the cuckoo,
having laid an egg on the ground, carries it in her bill,
and drops it into the first nest that she comes across.
There is little or no intelligence displayed in the whole
business. Dr. Norton informs me of a case in which the
cuckoo had deposited her egg in an old disused nest, and
of others in which the eggs had been dropped into nests
in holes from which the young cuckoo was too large to
escape. It would seem very doubtful whether intelligence
has played any decisive part in the establishment of
the cuckoo instinct. We must remember that there are
three associated facts or groups of facts. First, the re-
latively small size of the eggs, about one-third that of the
eggs of the American cuckoo ; secondly, the deposition of
these eggs in alien nests ; and thirdly, the ejection of other
nestlings by the young changeling whose broad shoulders
and hollow back seem specially adapted to this purpose.
Now, the first and third of these — the small size of the
eggs, and the ejection of other nestlings — cannot be re-
garded as due to intelligence, but may fairly be attributed
to natural selection. The parent bird would be unable to
carry large eggs in her bill, and these would be left on the
ground, and would remain unhatched, thus giving rise to
a steady process of elimination of large eggs. And the

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 243

young cuckoo who did not eject his foster brothers would
run no little risk of elimination by starvation, especially
when the foster parents were small and unable to bring
supplies of food to satisfy his capacious appetite as well as
the needs of their own offspring — though here, indeed, it
might fairly be contended that his larger size and greedy
voracity would itself doom the others to starvation. The
eliminative steps in the establishment of the central habit
of depositing the eggs in an alien nest are not so easy to
explain even conjecturally. Darwin's account of the process
needs modification in any case. He suggested that the
habit began by the occasional laying of eggs in alien nests.
But it would seem that the cuckoo lays her egg on the
ground and then carries it to a nest in her bill. For such
a habit the occasional laying of an egg in an alien nest
would be no preparation. It would seem more probable
that it began by laying eggs on the ground when the hen
was forced to deposit them unprepared. And the habit of
polyandrous intercourse, correlated with the preponderant
number of males, may have been in some way associated
with the gradual loss of the instinct of nidification. Guess
as we may, however, it must be confessed that, if the
instinct be due to natural selection, little is known of the
stages of development. But, on the other hand, it is not
less difficult to see how the strange instinct of the cuckoo
could have arisen as the result of intelligently acquired
habit, in a bird of somewhat remarkably low intelligence.
The theory of individual acquisition, transmitted from
parent to offspring, even if unaccompanied by the bio-
logical difficulties involved in any form of such trans-
mission, seems to involve not merely the intelUgent
utihzation of the results of experience, but the exercise of
truly rational powers of what appears to us a peculiarly
depraved order.

244 Habit and Instinct.

Although the American cuckoo, a bird closely allied to
our European species, does not appear to be parasitic
in its habits ; there is a group of birds belonging to a
quite different family, that of the Icteridce, which have
similar habits. These are the cowbirds, concerning which
Major Charles Bendire has collected all the available infor-
mation in the "Eeport of the United States National
Museum for 1893."* From his account the following
resume of the facts is derived.

Like our cuckoo, the cowbirds are polyandrous, the
males generally outnumbering the females in the pro-
portion of about three to one. The common cowbird of
North America (Moluthrus ater) lays from eight to twelve
eggs in a season, probably at intervals of several days.
There is a large amount of variation in the size and
markings of the eggs ; but how far they assimilate with
those among which they are laid we are not told. Major
Bendire gives a list of no less than eighty-nine species in
the nests of which the eggs of this cowbird have been
found, sometimes four or five in one nest. It is not
unusual to find some of the eggs of the species imposed
upon thrown out of the nest to make room for those of the
parasite, nor to find minute punctures in the shells of
some of the remaining eggs. This is possibly done on
purpose by the cowbird with her beak to prevent the eggs
from hatching; but Major Bendire is inclined to attribute
this puncturing to the sharp claws of the parent bird while
sitting on the nest and depositing her own egg; for the
parasitical bird seems to lay in the nest and not to carry
the egg there in her bill. Hatching is usually accomplished
in from ten to eleven days, generally in advance of those of
the foster parent, and the growth of the young interloper
is remarkably rapid. At the end of a few days the rightful
* Pages 587-624.

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 245

offspring are either smothered or crowded out of the nest
by their stronger foster brother ; or, failing this, starved,
when he absorbs the entire attention of the foster
parents. It is ludicrous, says Major Bendire, to see a fat,
fully fledged young cowbird following a pair of chipping
sparrows, or some small warbler, clamouring incessantly
for food and uttering its begging call of seerr-seerr most
persistently, only keeping quiet while its gaping bill is
filled with some suitable morsel ; and stranger still to note
how devoted the diminutive nurses are to their foster child.

A smaller species or variety {Moluthrus ater, var.
ohscurus) has similar habits ; as has also the bronzed or
red-eyed cowbird of Mexico and central America (Gallothrus
rdbustus).

The observations of Mr. W. H. Hudson on the
Argentine cowbirds {Moluthrus honariensis), show that
they frequently waste their eggs by dropping them on the
ground, and occasionally lay in old forsaken nests. They
also destroy many of the eggs in the nests they visit by
pecking holes in the shells, parasitical eggs and others
being indiscriminately treated in this way. The harder
shell of their own eggs gives them, however, a better
chance of being preserved ; for, although this cowbird
never distinguishes its own eggs, of which it destroys a
great many, from those among which it is laid, yet a larger
proportion of them escape. The hard shell may therefore
fairly be regarded as a result of the process of natural
selection. Furthermore, the short period of incubation, —
about eleven days as compared with the fourteen to sixteen
of the small birds on which it is parasitic, — gives it an
advantage which may also be ascribed to natural selection.
After a few days, as in the case of its North American
congeners, the foster child is found to be the sole survivor
of the nestlings ; and, as is commonly found in the eggs of

246 Habit and Instinct.

parasitical species, there is an extraordinary diversity in
the colour, form, and disposition of markings. The
embryos and young birds show a remarkable vitality.
Mr. Hudson found three eggs which had been built in
by the superposition of a new nest on the older one in
which they were laid. Their shells were encrusted with
dirt and glued together with broken egg-matter spilt over
them. Nevertheless one contained a living embryo ready
to be hatched, very lively and hungry when he took
it in his hand. The young quits the nest as soon as
it is able, trying to follow the old bird, and placing itself
in the most conspicuous place — such as the summit of a
stalk or weed — there demands food with frequent and
importunate cries. Thus, one nurse, a little flycatcher,
as the only means of standing above its foster-child, had
acquired the habit of perching on the back of its charge
to feed it.

Of the other cowbirds of the Argentine, one, the bay-
wing (Molothrus hadius), either builds its own nest, a neat
and well-built structure, in the fork of a branch, or seizes
that of a Lenatero {Anumbius acuticaudatus), and in it,
or on it, constructs its own. Several females often lay
in the same nest ; but whether the birds pair or practice
the promiscuous intercourse common to the genus, Mr.
Hudson was unable to discover.

Very curious are the habits of the other Argentine
species, the screaming cowbird {Moluthrus rufoaxillaris).
For long they eluded even Mr. Hudson's acute powers of
observation. But eventually he was fortunate enough to
ascertain that it is parasitic on its cousin, the bay wing.
Both the eggs and young of the two species are so similar
as to be indistinguishable. The baywing brings up both
its own and its cousin's brood, and it is only after some
weeks that the difference between the young of the two

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 247

species becomes manifest. It is -wonderful, says Mr.
Hudson, that the screaming cowbird should lay only in the
nests of the baywing; but the most mysterious thing is
that the common Argentine species indiscriminately para-
sitical on a host of species, never, to his knowledge, drops
an egg in the nest of the baywing unless it be forsaken.

It is clear that, though the interesting parasitic habits
of the cowbirds throw side lights upon the parasitism
of the European cuckoo, and though some of their features
may fairly be ascribed to natural selection, yet they leave
the origin of parasitism itself unsolved. We have to fall
back on conjecture. Mr. Hudson is inclined to believe
that the Argentine cowbird lost the nest-making habit by
acquiring that semi-parasitical habit, common to so many
South American birds, of breeding in the large covered
nests of the oven birds (Dendrocolajotidie), and he adduces
evidence that this piratical habit does tend to eradicate the
nest-making instinct. He further suggests that a diminu-
tion in the number of birds that build domed nests would
involve the cowbird in a struggle for nests in which it
would probably be defeated ; and supposes that the origin
of the parasitical instinct may have been in the occasional
habit common to so many species, of two or more females
laying together, as with the baywings. The young of
those birds that most often abandoned their eggs to the
care of another would inherit a weakened natural instinct ;
the whole race would, by intercrossing, degenerate, and
could only be saved from final extinction by some indi-
viduals occasionally dropping their eggs in the nests of
other species.

Little need be said concerning the instinct of incubation
in its normal development. It is partly based on physio-
logical grounds ; and may fairly be claimed by upholders
of natural selection as explicable on their principles.

248 Habit and Instinct.

Passing on, therefore, to the instincts associated with
the consummation and natural result of the maternal act,
the hatching out of the young, what seems most
remarkable is that under the new conditions the bird
becomes in many respects a new being. Compare the hen
with her first newly hatched brood with what she was some
three weeks before. Her maternity tinges all her behaviour ;
she is not what she was, or rather she is that and vastly
more besides. Untaught, she is a mother to the backbone ;
and she has developed a new language in which to commu-
nicate with her chicks — that is, if the word "language"
be used somewhat loosely for a set of definite sounds of
emotionally suggestive value. The facts are so familiar,
and the explanation on natural selection principles so
adequate, that it is unnecessary to dwell on them. It will
be better to select a specialized instinct of this period for
more careful consideration.

It is well known that the peewit lapwing or plover will
apparently simulate the actions of a wounded bird, with the
object, as it would seem, of drawing intruders away from her
nest and eggs or young. The Canadian ruffed grouse, and
the wiUow ptarmigan, tumble along, seemingly well-nigh
helpless, and lead off dog or man. Dr. W. L. Ealph,*
writing of the American ground dove, a pretty little pigeon
of the Southern States, says : " When one is driven from a
nest containing eggs it will drop to the ground as if shot,
and will then flutter around as if wounded, to try to draw
the person disturbing it away from the nest, but, whether it
succeeds or not, it will soon fly off. When a nest contains
young, however, the bird will become almost frantic, until
it appears to be nearly exhausted." Here it is the female
bird that exhibits such careful tactics. But sometimes the
male shows a like solicitude. "In 1883," says Mr. C. A.

* Nineteenth Century, April, 1893, p. 598.

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 249

Allen, " I met with a brood of young plumed partridges in
Oregon. The male, who had charge of them, performed
the usual tactics of feigning lameness, and tried his very
best to draw my attention from the young, and, seeing I
paid no attention to him, showed a great deal of distress.
The young scattered promptly in all directions, and the
majority were most effectually hidden in an instant."*

One more example may be given. It is from Mr. C. J.
Cornish's pleasant book, "Wild England of To-day."

"Moving towards the lake [in Richmond Park], we
flushed," he says,t " a pair of wild drakes from a shallow
ditch, and almost at the same moment a lame duck
shuffled distressfully from the same spot, and moved off
slowly, with apparent difficulty, in a direction parallel to
the lake. The counterfeit was so remarkable that, had we
not caught a glimpse of a small black object dashing into
the marsh which lay a few feet from the drain, on the
opposite side from the course taken by the duck, no sus-
picion as to the reality of her disablement would have
occurred. Meanwhile, the old bird invited pursuit, lying
down, as if unable to move further ; and, resolved to see
the end of so finished and courageous a piece of acting,
we accepted the invitation and gave chase. For twenty
yards or more the bird shuffled and stumbled through the
rhododendron bushes, until she made for the lake side,
where the ground was more open. Then, running fast,
with her head up and discarding all pretence of lameness,
for another twenty yards, she took wing and flew slowly
just before us, at about three feet from the ground, until
she reached the limit of the enclosure, when, uttering a
derisive quack, she rose quickly above the trees and flew
out over the lake. Anxious to see the sequel to this

* Nineteenth Century, April, 1893, p. 596,
t Op. cit., pp. 1X6, 117.

250 Habit and Instinct.

beautiful instance of maternal affection, we hurried back
to the little marsh -where the ducklings were probably
hidden, and, sheltered under a rhododendron bush, awaited
the return of the wild duck to her brood. In a few minutes
she reappeared, flying swiftly in circles among the trees,
and, after satisfying herself that the danger was past, she
alighted among some wild currant bushes about thirty
yards from the marsh. There she stood for a moment,
still and listening, with head erect, and, seeing nothing to
alarm her, ran bustling down to the drain. After realizing
that no harm had overtaken her brood on the spot where
they had been surprised, she climbed the bank and tripped
lightly into the marsh, when, in answer to her low quack,
we soon heard the piping voices of the ducklings, which
till then had remained motionless and invisible in the few
yards of grass and rushes near. In a few seconds the
whole family were united, and we had the pleasure of
seeing the old bird swim past at the head of an active fleet
of eleven black and yellow ducklings, making for the centre
of the marsh."

Such tactics, be it noted, are not restricted to one or
two species. They are common, no doubt with diversities
of detail, to such different birds as grouse, pigeons, lap-
wings, rails, avocets, pipits, ducks, buntings, and warblers.
How are we to account for them ?

The first question to ask is, whether the habit is truly
congenital and instinctive. We may readily admit that
the probabilities are decidedly in favour of its instinctive
nature ; but of this there is, so far as I am aware, no
definite and conclusive proof. And it is particularly un-
fortunate that we are here left at the mercy of probability.
For if the habit be truly congenital and instinctive, it forms
a very pretty subject for transmissionists and natural
selectionists to quarrel over. If ever there was a habit,

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 251

the transmissionist may exclaim, which bears the marks of
its intelligent, and therefore acquired origin, this of feign-
ing wounded is assuredly one of them ! What habit, the
natural selectionist may ask, is more obviously useful to
the species ? Is not this just the kind of activity which
natural selection, if it be a factor at all, must fix upon
and perpetuate through the elimination of short-comers ?
Those who adopted this habit would certainly thereby
enable their offspring to escape destruction by enemies ;
and these would survive to perpetuate the habit.

Let us look at the natural selection view first, and
consider the relation which on this hypothesis the habit
in question bears to intelligence. For the selectionist
intelligence, in its practical application, is an absoliitely
and distinctively individual factor. This is well brought
out in Prof. Weismann's essay on the musical faculty.
Briefly put, the case is this : natural selection may increase
in a series of generations the innate store of intelligent
faculty ; but the application of that faculty remains a
matter of individual experience. It matters not whether,
as the result of such individual experience, the faculty is
applied in precisely the same way for a hundred genera-
tions ; it matters not that the individuals so applying their
faculty are the sole survivors among a host of failures ; it
matters not how much elimination there is of those who
have less intelligence or of those who apply it differently ;
the application of the faculty in this particular way cannot
on selectionist principles be rendered hereditary and in-
stinctive. In the matter of human faculty Prof. Weismann
and his followers have not failed to insist on these facts,
if facts they be. They say that, no matter how assiduously
a man has from boyhood devoted his intellectual powers
to the study of mathematics, he can hand on to his son no
inherited increment of faculty. If the son, after all, does

252 Habit and Instinct.

display exceptional ability, it is due, they say, to a con-
genital tendency quite independent of individual acquisi-
tion. What is he but another chip of the same old
mathematical block ?

Now, let us not attempt to hide or slur over the con-
clusion which is the inevitable outcome of these contentions,
supposing them well founded. Under no circumstances, if
natural selection be all-sufficient, can an intelligent act
become hereditary and instinctive. Intelligence and instinct
are antithetical ; the former can never pass into the latter
or take any direct share in its evolution. If, then, natural
selection have any effect in rendering instinctive such a
habit as we are now considering, it must be working on a
congenital tendency, independent of, but proceeding towards
the same end as, intelligence. The simulation of the
actions of a wounded bird, if it be due to the play of
intelligence, cannot, on selectionist principles, become in-
stinctive. And if such apparent simulation be really an
instinctive activity, and be due to natural selection, it is
on congenital variations, not on intelligent modifications
of active response, that natural selection has been operative ;
while the fact that congenital variation on the one hand,
and intelligent choice on the other, coincide in direction
and tend to the same result, is seemingly fortuitous — is a
coincidence and nothing more. But if it can justly be
so regarded, it is scarcely a matter for surprise that the
transmissionist finds this doctrine of coincidence somewhat
hard of acceptance as compared with the hypothesis, which
he himself adopts, of vital and genetic connection between
the one and the other, the acquired intelligence of one
generation becoming, or at least tending to become, the
inherited instinct of the next.

The coincidence, if it may be so called, loses much of
its force, however, when we consider that intelligent

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 253

acquisition by the individual, on the one hand, and the
natural selection of congenital variations, on the other
hand, are both working, in their different spheres, towards
the same end — that of adaptation. This is their common
goal ; but they endeavour to reach it by different routes.
Well, then, suppose they do reach the goal, the one by
intelligent adaptation, the other by organic adaptation,
is this to be wondered at ? Is it a coincidence in any
proper sense of the term ? Surely not. If two men start
for the same place, the one by sea and the other by land,
we should not regard it as a coincidence if both got there.
If acquired adaptation and congenital adaptation reach
the same end by different methods, this is due to the fact
that the result is adaptive, and is what nature in either
case is really all the while aiming at. Natural selection,
too, in any such cases, is permitting the survival of those
who, whether by the application of purely individual
intelligence, or by congenital variations of an adaptive
tendency, or both, are, as a matter of fact, adapted to their
environments ; and we need not be astonished if the
disentangling of the factors is a task of no little difficulty.

But there is one more point of view. Is the hypothesis
that the activity is founded on intelligence quite so satis-
factory as at first sight it appears ? It must be remembered
that the very appropriateness of many instinctive activities,
and their adaptation to the needs of the species, lead one
to suppose, at first, that they are based on intelligent,
nay, even on rational considerations. And yet closer and
more searching study shows this view to be untenable.
One might well suppose, for example, that the hen
undertook the labours of incubation because she knew
that the result would be a brood of chicks. But when
we come to inquire on what grounds she could possibly
reach such a conclusion, it is difficult to give a reply

2 54 Habit and Instinct.

which can even claim plausibility. To say that hens
have learnt to incubate because a careful study of their
neighbours' acts has led them to perceive that there
results a brood of chickens, is not only in itself ex-
travagant, but leaves the question of the primary origin
of the habit unanswered. We are bandied about from
neighbour to neighbour, and find at the end of the process
we are just where we began. Natural selection here steps
in, and tells us that we are on a false track. Intelligence
has taken no more part in the development of the habit of
incubation than it has in the habit of laying the eggs to
be incubated.

Now obviously the case is not quite the same with the
instinct, if such it be, of enticing intruders from the nest.
Those who cheerfully read into the bird's mind the fully
developed consciousness of civilized man will perhaps say
that the lapwing reasons thus : " If I pretend to be wounded
and flutter round, I shall draw upon myself the intruder's
attention and lead him to suppose that I shaU be easily
caught; and if I thus entice him away, my little ones
will be saved, and my end gained." Thus, it may be
said, might the bird argue. I have no hesitation in saying
that such a chain of reasoning on the part of lapwing
or duck is a sheer impossibility. Apart from the fact
that she has probably no experience of being wounded or
of the effects of wounds on others, the whole process is
essentially one of human ratiocination, and quite beyond
the capacity of the wisest of birds ; while there is further
supposed a histrionic power, and a realization of the
effect on others of her display, which many a human actor
might well covet.

But is not intelligence, it will be said, perhaps displayed
in a simpler and more believable form ? May not the bird,
without any exercise of abstract reasoning, have found by

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 255

experience that the trick is effectual ? All one can say is
that it would be experience perilously acquired. Granting
what I find it rather hard to grant, that the bird has the
wit to try the trick ; a little over-acting, a little too much
lameness of wing, and she is herself seized and killed ; a
little under-acting, and the trick fails, and the little ones
are killed. Does it not seem probable that such experience
would be dearly bought ; that failure would mean either
death to the parent or death to the offspring ? Is it not
clear that natural selection is thus introduced in any case ?
And may not the selectionist pertinently ask : Why, if
natural selection be thus introduced as a factor, halt
midway between two hypotheses ? Why not take the
further step — one by which all the difficulties attending
the mode of intelligent origination are avoided — of allowing
that natural selection exercises, throughout, its influence on
congenital variations and not on acquired modifications of
faculty ?

While admitting the logical cogency of this argument,
I cannot but think that, were the biological difficulties
attending the fact of transmission removed, such -an
instinct as is shown by the lapwing or wild duck would
be best explained by a co-operation in some way of in-
telligence and natural selection. I shall have a suggestion
to make on this head at a later stage of our inquiry,
according to which modification may be a factor in race-
progress without direct transmission. The result of the
foregoing discussion is, I take it, that though the instinct
in question does not afford so strong a case in favour of
the inheritance of acquired characters as at first sight it
would seem to do, yet its development, in complete in-
dependence of intelligent guidance by the natural selection
of fortuitous variations, puts no inconsiderable strain on
the theory of the all-sufficiency of natural selection. As

256 Habit and histmct.

matters stand, however, the question must be left open.
Like many other cases of instinct, this affords no decisive
evidence, and must be relegated to a suspense account.

We may now pass on to consider, or rather to touch
upon, what is the most difficult and perplexing of all the
problems which are suggested by bird-life — the migratory
habit — of which Professor Newton says that it is "perhaps
the greatest mystery which the whole animal kingdom
presents." *

What can one say that is the least fresh and helpful
concerning migration ? Little enough. I shall therefore
merely give a brief reminder of the facts, an indication of
the essential problems from our own special standpoint,
some allusion to the theories which have been suggested,
and a confession of ignorance.

The leading facts are sufficiently familiar. A number
of om- English birds, like the swallow, the cuckoo, and the
nightingale, after nesting with us in the summer, depart
southwards in the autumn, and return in the ensuing
spring. Others, like the redwing and the fieldfare, come to
us in the autumn and depart northwards in the spring to
nest and rear their young. Yet others, birds of passage
like the sanderling and phalarope, make England merely a
resting-place on their southward or northward journey.
Even the birds that are with us the year through, like the
redbreast and song thrush, receive accessions or suffer
diminution of numbers through migration. In the northern
hemisphere, whenever, as is commonly the case, the
alternate migrations are northward and southward, the
nesting-place is in the northern part of the area over which
the bird migrates. The distances traversed are great.
" The sanderling nests in Iceland or on the shores of the
Arctic Ocean, and in winter it has been seen as far south
* "Dictionary of Birds," p. 549.

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 257

as Cape Colony. The nestlings of the knot have been
found in Grinnell Land in latitude 82° 33' N., and the
bird is known to winter as far south as Australia and New
Zealand. The turnstone is a great traveller, nesting in
Greenland or on the coasts of Scandinavia, and wintering
in Australia, New Zealand, South America, or Africa. The
distances travelled amount sometimes to over 7000 miles.
. . . The American golden plovers breed in Arctic regions,
from Alaska to Greenland, above the limits of forest growth,
and when autumn comes they pass through Nova Scotia,
strike boldly out to sea, and, generally leaving the Ber-
mudas well to the west, sail on over the ocean till they
reach the West Indies. Even then, it is said, they will
sometimes pass the first islands they reach, and pass on to
more distant ones. From Nova Scotia to Hayti, the
nearest West India Island available, is 1700 miles." *
So universal is the migration impulse, that Professor
Newton is of opinion that " every bird of the northern
hemisphere is to a greater or less degree migratory in some
part or other of its range." t The outward and the home-
ward routes are not in all cases, perhaps not generally, the
same ; and yet there would seem to be little doubt that the
birds return to the particular spot from which they started
some six months before. In some species the birds fly in
enormous flocks ; in others the flight is less gregarious and
more scattered. Much has been written on the subject of
" migration routes," and it may be taken as proved that in
some species these are determined by the direction of
valleys, the trend of coast-lines, and so forth. But any
discussion of such routes is quite beyond our present
purpose. Often the birds fly at great heights ; they have

* " The structure and Life of Birde," by F. W. Headley, pp. 352 and
357, 358.

t "Dictionary of Birds," p. 552.

258 Habit and Instinct.

been seen crossing the image of the moon in astronomical
telescopes, under conditions from which it is inferred that
they were flying at an elevation of from one to three
miles. In dark and cloudy nights their cries may be
heard by any one who has ears to hear; and it is said
that in some species special cries are developed at this
time only.

Such are the elementary and familiar facts with regard
to migration. The essential problems are : — Is the habit
truly instinctive, even in its details ? How did it originate ?
What is the nature of the impulse prompting the bird to
migrate ? What are the conditions under which it is
called forth ? And how do the birds find their way ?

If not instinctive, the habit must be attributed to
tradition in the sense before defined. On this view the
migratory host is always led by older birds who have them-
selves been led by their predecessors, and so on ever since
the habit originated. This seems to be the hypothesis
adopted by Prof. Palmen, who ascribes the due per-
formance of the migration flight to experience. On this
view the congenital factor is a vague and indefinite innate
impulse recurrent at certain seasons. The course taken
is seemingly a matter of " follow my leader." But if, as
Temminck stated, and as Herr Gatke, with his fifty years'
practical experience in Heligoland, is convinced from a
vast mass of accumulated observations, the young birds
in a great number of species invariably -preceiie the old by
some weeks (the reverse being the case with cuckoos), the
hypothesis of tradition is, for these species, seemingly out
of court, and the mystery of migration deepens. "That
a chiffchaff, whose daily occupation for months has been
to pick grubs from the trees, and who has never left his
favourite wood, should suddenly, some evening, be seized
with an uncontrollable impulse to start for North Africa,

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 259

is surely," says Mr. Headley,* " a matter for wonder. Still
more astounding is it that the young birds, with defective
strength and no experience, should start on the great pil-
grimage alone, instead of waiting for the old birds to guide
them. And in spring, too, when you see the first swallow,
it is a startling thought that the small bird whom you see
practising his short swallow-flights, started perhaps only
some ten days before on his northward voyage from Natal."
As to suggestions with regard to the origin of the
instinct — the congenital tendency of a definite and deter-
minate nature— that of Mr. A. E. Wallace, quoted by
Professor Newton,t is as follows : " It appears to me
probable that here, as in so many other cases, ' survival of
the fittest ' will be found to have had a powerful influence.
Let us suppose that in any species of migratory bird, breed-
ing can, as a rule, be only safely accomplished in a given
area ; and further, that during a great part of the rest of the
year sufficient food cannot be obtained in that area. It wiU
follow that those birds which do not leave the breeding area
at the proper season will suffer, and ultimately become
extinct, which will also be the fate of those who do not
leave the feeding area at the proper time. Now if we
suppose that the two areas were (for some remote ancestor
of the existing species) coincident, but by geological and
climatic changes gradually diverged from each other, we
can easily understand how the habit of incipient and
partial migration at the proper seasons would at last
become hereditary, and so fixed as to be what we term an
instinct. It will probably be found that every gradation
still exists in many parts of the world, from a complete
coincidence to a complete separation of the breeding and
the subsistence areas ; and when the natural history of a

* " The structure and Life of Birds," p. 351.

t " Dictionary of Birds," p. 556, quoted from Nature, vol. x. p. 459.

2 6o Habit and Instinct.

sufficient number of species is thoroughly worked out, we
may find every link between species which never leave a
restricted area in which they breed and live the whole year
round, to those other cases in which the two areas are
absolutely separated."

Here the divergence of the subsistence area from the
breeding area may be regarded as an expression of the facts
which have to be in some way accounted for; while the
hypothesis of natural selection, as applied to the particular
case, takes the form of the barest corollary from the theory
in general. Those who migrated to and fro survived; those
who failed to do so were eliminated. Voila tout ! Unfortu-
nately it remains a corollary unverified and unverifiable.

Mr. Headley quotes * from Mr. Henry Seebohm the
cases of the Petchora pipit and the Arctic willow wren
which "both winter in the Malay Archipelago. They
have extended their breeding grounds from Siberia to
Eastern Europe. But though they have moved their
summer residence so far west, in winter they still return
to their old haunts in the Malay Archipelago, though
Africa is more accessible, and, we might imagine, equally
suitable." Here we see an extension of range going on
under our very eyes, and that in the breeding area which
is generally regarded as the more stable and fixed. I do
not know whether in these cases the young migrate in
advance of the older birds. But in any case it is difficult
to say whether this extended range is now instinctive, and,
if so, whether it is due to inheritance of the results of
acquired experience, or whether natural selection has been
the determining cause. In a word, the instinct of migra-
tion does not help in the least to solve the general problem
of the mode of origin of instincts.

The determining conditions of the impulse prompting
* "The Structure and Life of Birds," pp. 371, 372.

Nest-building, Incubation, and Migration. 261

to migration are presumably in part external and in
part internal. When we say that the external factor is
probably due to changes of climate and food supply, while
the internal factor is probably largely due to changes in
the reproductive system, we have said well nigh all that is
to be said — and that is little enough. In any case, the birds
are marvellously true to time, especially such sea birds as
the puffin, from which we may perhaps conclude that the
internal factor is the main determinant, since both climatic
changes and food supply are variable from year to year.

With regard to the question of direction, the sense
whose organ is the semicircular canals, which are well
developed in birds, has been invoked as a source of
guidance. But it must be remembered that this organ,
like others of the special senses, while it affords data to
experience, finds in that experience its raison d'etre. By
themselves, as their action is at present understood, they
could afford no foundation for the directed flight of the
swallow from England to Natal, if this be truly instinctive.
The semicircular canals might enable the bird to continue
over wide seas a line once adopted ; but unless there is in
addition some sense of orientation (some equivalent in the
bird's organization to the mariner's compass) it is difficult
to see how they could afford instinctive guidance.

The outcome of any consideration of the whole question
is a profound sense of ignorance. So great is that ignor-
ance, that it is difficult even to speculate. Were I pressed
to hazard a guess, I should be inclined to surmise that,
notwithstanding the observations of Herr Gatke, while the
migratory impulse is innate, and perhaps there is an
instinctive tendency to start in a given direction, yet the
element of traditional guidance may be effectual, in the
migration stream as a whole, in some way that we have
hitherto been unable to observe.

262 Habit and Instinct.

CHAPTEE XII.

THE EELATION OP ORGANIC TO MENTAL EVOLUTION.

Throughout our considerations of the phenomena of habit
and instinct, and of the relation of that which is congenital
to that which is acquired, we have had to deal with organic
activities which are associated with conscious states. It
has been assumed that organic evolution has carried with
it mental evolution. We have now to discuss the relation
of the one to the other. Problems of great difficulty
surround the subject, some of which must be resolutely
ignored. We will not, for example, attempt to inquire
what is the nature of the association between the organic
processes in brain or ganglion and the conscious processes
which are their concomitants ; nor touch on the vexed
question of dualism and monism. That consciousness does
accompany brain action, and that, at some stage of organic
evolution, this consciousness does become an effective
factor in the developmental process, will be assumed.

Two phasfes of organic development must be dis-
tinguished; first, that in which consciousness is either
absent or inoperative ; and secondly, that in which
consciousness is a co-operating factor. The first may
be termed the merely organic phase; the second, the
conscious-organic phase. The latter may again be sub-
divided into two phases ; first, that in which mental
evolution is subordinate to organic evolution ; and secondly,
that in which mental evolution is predominant.

The Relation of Organic to Mental Evolution. 26

o

It is probable that, throughout the vegetable kingdom,
evolution is in the merely organic phase. If there be
consciousness associated with the life of plants, there is no
evidence of its being a factor in the process of develop-
ment. It is not what we have before termed effective
consciousness. The lowest animals fall under the same
category ; but where the line is to be drawn in the animal
kingdom, between those in which consciousness, if present,
is inoperative, and those in which it is effective, who can
say with any certainty ? The first requisite is to find some
criterion which shall be available for the purpose of dis-
tinguishing the cases in which consciousness is operative
from those in which it is inoperative. Such a criterion is
the exercise of choice. But we must be careful, in our
application of the criterion, to grasp what is essential to
an act of choice. Invariable reaction in one way to one
kind of stimulus and in another way to another kind of
stimulus is regarded by M. Binet* as evidence of choice.
" If we hold to what observation directly teaches us," he
says, "the choice may be said to consist in the following
acts : When an animalcule perceives certain kinds of sub-
stances, and particularly those substances which serve it as
customary food, it invariably goes through the same move-
ment, which consists of an act of prehension; but when
the substance touched, seen, or collided with, as the case
may be, is of another kind, the micro-organi'sm does not go
through this act." I cannot agree that this is either satis-
factory or sufficient. Many inorganic substances, those
on the sensitive film of a photographic plate, for example,
do as much as this. If, in accordance with Pfeffer's
interesting observations, the spermatozoids of a fern are
attracted by malic acid and malates, crowding into a tube
which contains this substance, there is here no conclusive

* " The Psychic Life Micro-Organisme." Eng. Trans, pp. 62, 63.

264 Habit and Instinct.

evidence of choice. They are so constituted as invariably
to react in this way in presence of this material. There
may be here nothing more than merely organic response.
Or if, in accordance with a well-known observation of
Eomanes, a sea anemone in a turmoil of water and air-
bubbles reacts to the slight mechanical stimulus of a solid
body, there is even here no conclusive evidence of choice ;
one cannot even regard it as indicating the presence of
choice in its physiological aspect. A sensitive plate, again,
does as much as this. Amidst the turmoil of the larger
ethereal vibrations termed red light, and of the yet larger
waves of heat which break upon its surface, it remains
unaffected; but it reacts to the relatively slight stimulus
afforded by a minute ray of the smaller ethereal vibrations
we term violet light. Nor does his interpretation of this
observation accord with Eomanes' own criterion,* which is
in itself perfectly satisfactory and involves true choice.
" The criterion of mind which I propose," says Eomanes,t
" is as follows : Does the organism learn to make new
adjustments, or to modify old ones, in accordance with the
results of its own individual experience ? If it does so, the
fact cannot be merely due to reflex action, for it is im-
possible that heredity can have provided in advance for
innovations upon or alterations of its machinery during
the lifetime of the particular individual." I do not
quite understand the point of the last part of this
quotation. The power of choosing and of exercising
control so as to make the choice effectual, is surely
hereditary in the higher animals ; and, if so, surely
heredity does provide t in advance for innovations upon

* " Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 48.
t Op. cit., pp. 20, 21.

% Prof. Mark Baldwin lias criticized Eomanes' statement in very similar
terms in " Mental Development of the Child and the Eace," p. 220.

The Relation of Organic to Mental Evolution. 265

and alterations of its machinery during the lifetime of the
individual. How otherwise could an animal have any
power of individual acquisition ? But while heredity pro-
vides a power of individual acquisition, it does not provide
in advance for particular innovations or modifications. A
store of innate power, and definite susceptibilities to
pleasure and pain, are inherited; individual experience
utilizes this innate power to mould its instinctive and
other activities into new habits under the guidance of
pleasure and pain. And this absence of provision in
advance for particular modifications is probably what
Eomanes meant. Apart from this, he seems to have quite
clearly indicated a valid criterion of the effective presence
of consciousness — namelj', the observable, profiting by
experience. It is just because a chick, having tasted a
nasty grub, refuses to touch it or its like for the future,
that we may feel confident he exercises real choice in the
matter. Invariable response under similar conditions,
as in the case of the spermatozoids in the presence of
malic acid, is no evidence of choice ; but an alteration or
modification of response in the light of individual
experience does afford the criterion we seek. And this
criterion involves the exercise of control. Automatism, no
matter how complex or how nicely adaptive, may be un-
conscious ; but controlled action indicates conscious choice.
Whatever the physiological conditions of the process
may be, it seems clear that consciousness, as choosing and
controlling, stands in a sense outside that upon which it
exercises control through its power of choice. And, thus,
on passing from the merely organic to the conscious-
organic phase of evolution, we have to consider the develop-
ment of an imperium in imperio. In close touch and
intimate relation with the merely organic and automatic
system is a controlling system, the functional activity of

266 Habit and Instinct.

which is accompanied by consciousness. How the physical
processes and the conscious states are associated need not
concern us here. This is a philosophical problem which
lies beyond our present scope. The point on which we
have here to fix our attention is that the organic mechanism,
somehow associated with choice and control, is dependent
on, and yet, in some degree, independent of, the merely
organic system concerned in automatic response. Just as
the cerebral hemispheres are dependent on the nervous
system as a whole, and yet, as Prof. Michael Foster has
said, seem to stand apart from the rest of the brain,
playing down upon the lower brain centres and those of
the spinal cord through the pyramidal tract or its equiva-
lent ; so does conscious choice and control stand apart
from the involuntary and automatic activities; so is it
independent of them in the sense that its sphere is not
necessarily restricted to that of merely organic ends. It
is, of course, a limited independence. From the organism
the controlling system receives its support; and to the
organism it affords, in return, effective guidance in the
business of organic life; but these conditions being ful-
filled, it is for the rest free to develop on its own lines.
The body places itself under the control of the cerebral
hemispheres; so long as that control is exercised with
efficiency they may utilize their surplus energy in any way
consistent with the laws of their own development.

It was long, however, in the history of life on our earth,
ere consciousness succeeded in creating for itself a suitable
environment under which this surplus energy could run
into lines of effective development — not indeed, as is pro-
bable, until the human phase of development was reached.
Between the first beginnings of choice and control, and
this later phase when mental predominates over organic
development, lie the several stages of mental evolution in

The Relation of Organic to Mental Evolution. 267

animals. What may be the limiting conditions of this
portion of the ascending curve of evolution ; how control
had its early genesis ; how the mental evolution of animals
passed into the mental evolution distinctive of man, cannot
now be discussed* "We must devote our attention to the
relation which organic evolution bears to that mental
evolution which is its accompaniment throughout the
stages of animal development above indicated.

No one is likely to question the importance of conscious
adjustment to environment in the evolution of the higher
grades of animal life. It matters not whether the selec-
tionists are right in contending that those individuals who
vary in the direction of more adequate conscious develop-
ment are selected and transmit their innate powers, or the
transmissionists are right in contending that acquired
powers of conscious adjustment are transmitted from parent
to offspring; in either case conscious adjustment as a
factor in organic evolution is of the utmost importance.
The intelligent animal, the animal that can avoid danger,
can secure prey, can win or enforce himself upon a
mate ; that is quick to see and hear, quick to select, quick
to act; that hesitates not, blunders not, and does not
flinch ; this is the animal that survives and becomes the
parent of a good stock. But in the animal world this
conscious adjustment is wholly subservient to the needs of
animal life. At this stage of evolution, mind or conscious-
ness is an adjunct to organic development. Just in so far
as it ministers to the progress of animal development will
natural selection favour it, or will it in some way be
rendered an effective factor in organic evolution. In the
stress of the struggle for existence among animals con-
sciousness has enough to do in fulfilling this its primary

* I have attempted to discuss the latter point in my " Introduction to
Comparative Psychology."

2 68 Habit and Instinct.

function ; more than this, it has neither the energy nor
the opportunity for doing ; and any organism in which it
failed to do this would inevitably succumb and suffer the
stern fate of elimination.

Thus in the many and various inter-relations and
inter-dependencies of animals with reference to each
other, and to their inorganic environment, the mental
system of any individual must be of such a kind as to give
opportunities for choice and control by which the needs of
organic life may be met, and adjustments made in relation
to these needs. For this experience affords the data.
Experience brings the animal into more extended touch
with its surroundings than is possible in the merely
organic phase of life-progress. And if the expression of
emotions has suggestive value, experience also brings the
animal into wider touch with other animals. The horse
reacts to the varying moods of its companions ; the lonely
chick restored to its fellows no longer utters its querulous
note of complaint. All this has reference to the develop-
ment of the more or less complex mental system of any
animal; and so far we are regarding the mind of the
creature as a whole, just as we regard its body as a whole.
There is, however, another aspect of organic evolution
that must be clearly grasped and steadily borne in mind.
As there is a delicate and intricate inter-dependence of
organic forms, so that no individual is isolated, but must
adjust itself to a complex environment of other individuals
of its own kind, and of other species in varying degrees,
so too within the organism every constituent particle or
cell is in more or less close relationship with all the
others that are incorporated in the same bodily system.
Take, for example, a secreting cell in one of the glands,
the products of which minister to digestion. It plays
its part in the nourishment of the whole body. But

The Relation of Organic to Mental Evolution. 269

nerve-fibres convey to it the currents by which it is stimu-
lated to functional activity : the nutritive processes to
■which it contributes are necessary for its maintenance ;
respiratory processes are essential for its continued vitality
and for the elaboration of its special secretion ; for it the
heart beats and the blood circulates. All this is so familiar
and well recognized as to savour of the biological common-
place. It is a matter of common knowledge that the
individual cell is in nice adjustment to an environment
of the body of which it is a constituent unit, and that it
is only in virtue of this adjustment that its continued
existence is possible.

But when we come to the mental development that
is implied in and grows out of conscious adjustment, the
analogous facts, though equally important, are not so well
recognized. Just as there is an organization of the
material body into a unity of interdependent parts, so too
there is an organization of states of consciousness into a
body of experience. And just as the adjustment of the
parts to the whole in the material body is essential to the
continued existence of both, so too is the adjustment of the
parts to the whole in the body of experience essential to
that progressive unification without which mental develop-
ment would be impossible. Conscious adjustment involves
choice ; and this implies the selection of that which is
acceptable or pleasing, or in other words (and more gene-
rally), in harmonious adjustment to the conscious system;
and the rejection, so far as possible, of that which is dis-
tasteful, discordant, or incongruous. Just as every organ,
every tissue, every cell within the animal body, has to
make good its claim to continued existence at the bar of
the incorporated society of its biological peers; so does
every bit of experience stand its trial at the bar of con-
sciousness ; it has to make good its claim for repetition in

Habit and Instinct.

virtue of its being in harmonious accord with the mental
system of the animal possessed of the power of conscious
choice.

Attention must here again be drawn to the difference
in method between the process of natural selection through
elimination and the process of conscious choice. The
former is characteristic of organic evolution as such ; the
latter is the distinctive feature of mental evolution. Let
us take the former, natural selection, first. Given a
number of individuals, differing in fitness to meet the
conditions of their life, and subjected to the inevitable
struggle for existence. There results a process of elimina-
tion. The first to go are the most unfit ; then others
in the order of their unfitness ; until there results a
survival of the fittest ; and these alone contribute to the
continuation of the race by the ^propagation of their kind.
The elimination begins at the unfit end of the scale, and
works its way upwards progressively, until a fit remainder
survives. This is the natural selection of Darwin. It
is a method by which, under the struggle for existence,
there is an elimination of the unfit, with the consequent
survival of the fittest. Conscious choice, on the other
hand, the method of mental evolution as such, throughout
its whole range deals with the given material in a different
way. It works along the scale in the opposite direction.
The first to be chosen is that which evokes most strongly
and most harmoniously the selective consciousness in the
mental system of the chooser. The fittest in this sense is
the first to be selected, not the last to survive. Then the
next in order of fitness is chosen ; and so on, beginning at
the fittest end of the scale and working its way downwards.

Now suppose that in either case there are one hundred
variations ; and suppose that natural selection, working
up the scale, eliminates ninety-five, and leaves a survival

The Relation of Organic to Mental Evolution. 271

residue of five. Suppose, further, that conscious choice,
working down the scale, selects the five fit, neglecting the
residue of ninety-five unfit. And suppose yet further,
that the surviving five in the one case are similar in
character to the selected five in the other case. Then it is
clear that the ultimate products in the two cases are
practically similar. But this similarity of products does
not one whit alter the diverse nature of the processes hy
which the similar products are reached. And if in some
cases the products of human choice seem to be similar to
those which would, we think, be reached by progressive
elimination, this does not justify the assertion that they
are due, in any logical sense, to natural selection. A
failure to grasp the • distinction between the method of
natural selection and the method of conscious choice,
vitiates much that has been written on social evolution
in man ; * but of this I have nothing further to say at
present. What I desire to make clear is that, with the
advent of effective consciousness, not only a new factor,
but a new method of evolutionary progress is introduced.
If, for example, sexual selection by preferential mating
be a factor in evolution, its method is that of conscious
choice, and not of the progressive elimination of the
unfit, even if the products be similar to those which a
process of elimination would also give. And all conscious
acquisition, based as it is on intelligent choice, is reached
by a method different from that of natural selection.
Hence transmissionists are right in contending that if the
inheritance of acquired characters be accepted as an
estabhshed fact, this factor in evolution is different in its
essential nature, and in its method, from natural selection.
Granting that conscious choice is a factor in the

* It vitiates, for example, Mr. S. Alexander's otherwise very valuable
contributions to the problem of moral evolution.

272 Habit and Instinct.

evolution of the individual ; granting that its method is
that of a real selection in virtue of a felt congruity with
the mental nature of the individual that exercises its
power of choice ; we have next to note that the choice
primarily and in the first instance depends on innate
proclivities. In the growth of experience association plays
an important part. It serves to link together the data
given in experience. But the value of the data is inde-
pendent of association. In the utilization of experience,
choice and control come into operation. But the value
of the data for consciousness is rather the condition,
than the product, of choice. What shall be chosen and
what rejected depends upon the nature of the individual
consciousness. So far as the individual is concerned we
must just accept the fact that it likes some things and
dislikes others. As a matter of observation, it tends, on
the whole, to like what is good for it and dislike what is
bad for it. How these likes and dislikes have been
ingrained in the individual nature, so as to constitute
innate proclivities, is no doubt partially explained by the
obvious fact that the animal which is led by its likes and
dislikes to better organic adjustment to his normal sur-
roundings will survive to procreate his kind; while the
animal which is led thereby to maladjustment, will be
hurried to his own destruction.* The latter will perish,
and with him will go his fatal proclivities ; while the
survival of his more happily constituted neighbour will
lead to the survival of that neighbour's more favourable
likes and dislikes, which, by constant repetition of this
process, will become hereditary and innate.

The direction in which the likes and dislikes tend to
set in the course of mental evolution is thus determined

* It is probably to the oomparatiye absence of natural selection among
ciyilized races that the continuance of such types as the drunkard Is due.

The Relation of Organic to Mental Evohition. 273

by the necessities of organic existence. A rigorous pro-
cess of elimination, under natural selection, decides which
shall survive. It is just because experience is a guide
to practical life that it has been fostered and developed.
But experience is a mental product. Only in so far as
the events of practical life are symbolized in consciousness
can they be effective for guidance and control. And here
it is absolutely essential to grasp this truth; that
throughout its tvhole range, from the earliest glimmerings
of sentience to the highest products of human idealism, the
environment in mental development is itself of the psychical
order. If this truth be not grasped, all attempts at solving
the problems of mental evolution are inevitably foredoomed
to failure.

This is not likely to be gainsaid or misunderstood by
those who are acquainted with the teachings of psychology.
Others may be assured that there is nothing here that is
in the least opposed to a full and free acceptance of the
objective reality, as such, of the world in which the
animal is developed. Stress is indeed laid on the fact that
the world is objective to and for conscious experience. But
this is precisely the view of common sense, when it is not
spoilt by a little dose of ill-digested philosophy. If experi-
ence is itself a mental product, it is in terms of mental
products and in these alone that it must be explained.
Suppose, to illustrate the matter by a concrete example, a
young bird seizes a bee and proceeds to swallow it, but is
stung in the process ; he thus practically learns the nature
of a bit of the objective world in which he lives. But
every step of the process is taken in the field of his
conscious experience; and the whole drama of his life-
experience is a drama in and for consciousness. For
experience is, it must be repeated, a conscious process.
And every bit of experience, no matter how trivial, no

T

2 74 Habit and Instinct.

matter how elaborate and far-reaching, exists as such for
consciousness. It must be of the conscious order or it is
not experience at all. And it is out of conscious experience
that individual consciousness as a complete whole of
related elements is developed. The related elements
themselves therefore must be conscious elements, and can
be nothing else. And if this truth be not grasped, I
repeat, all attempts at solving the problems of mental
evolution are inevitably foredoomed to failure.

Within the individual organism, then, there is developed
during the progress of conscious organic evolution, an
organ, the cortex of the brain, whose function it is, from
the biological point of view, to subserve the purposes of
conscious adjustment and adaptation ; its functioning has
a mental aspect, and its development is somehow linked
and associated with the development of mind ; and, so far
as this mental development is concerned, every step and
stage of the evolutionary process lies within the mental
world of conscious experience. Thus, in the conscious
animal we have a mental system in association with an
organic system, an imperium mentale in imperio corporale.
Two points have now to be noticed ; first, that, so far as
the race is concerned, continuity of mental development is
conditioned by organic heredity; secondly, that in its
initial stages and for a prolonged period, mental develop-
ment is conditioned by organic development, of which it
is an adjunct, and to which it is subservient. Concern-
ing the first of these points, nothing further need now be
said; but to the second particular attention must be
directed.

The raison d'etre of consciousness in its earliest be-
ginnings is to enable the incipiently conscious organism
to extend its adjustment to the environment further than
is possible under merely organic conditions. Every step

The Relation of Organic to Mental Evolution. 275

in its early development was strictly limited within the
narrow lines of complete subservience to this end. Mind
was evolved in closest touch and most vital linkage with
organic development ; but only in so far as it ministered to
that organic development was it permitted to evolve at all.
Whatever may be the efficient causes which are at work
in organic evolution, they inexorably limit throughout
animal life, individual and racial, the range of mental
evolution. In so far as conscious adjustment aids in the
struggle for existence ; in so far as through it the animal
is better able to escape danger, to secure a more favour-
able habitat, to gain a mate and beget progeny ; the
animal possessed of intelligence will escape elimination,
transmit his power of conscious adjustment, and contribute
to the propagation of his race. Without fully subscribing
to the doctrine of the aU-sufficiency of natural selection, we
may yet say that natural selection will exercise a deter-
mining influence in deciding the course which conscious
adjustment must take.

We may thus regard the drama of conscious organic
evolution from two points of view; from that which has
reference primarily to organic progress, and from that
which has reference primarily to mental development.
Let us take the organic point of view first. Before the
introduction of consciousness as a factor in progress,
organic evolution is dependent entirely upon the directly
responsive adjustment of the plastic organism to the
environmental influences. If consciousness accompanies
this adjustment, it is merely as an adjunct without power
of guiding. It is like the passenger on a ship that is
aware of her evolutions, but is absolutely without control
over them. So far, therefore, there is adjustment which
is either unconscious or merely accompanied by conscious-
ness as an adjunct — we have no means of determining

276 Habit and Instmct.

which. But with the advent of effective consciousness
there is developed in association with the organism a
special organ, dependent on, but exercising control over,
the rest, by which it is enabled to profit by experience.
The happenings of the surrounding world are here symbol-
ized, the symbols are linked by association, and the special
organ exercises a guiding influence on the actions and
activities of the animal, restraining or stimulating, in
accordance with that conscious symbolism which we call
experience. The better the conscious symbolism, the
better will be the adjustment to the conditions of life.
And the more elfectually the organ, associated with this
symbolism, is in touch with the executive machinery of
the body, the more effectually will the animal profit by
its controlling administration. For practical purposes it
is developed ; and by the test of practical success in the
business of life it must stand or fall. Consciousness is no
longer merely a passenger in the ship of life. We may
rather liken it to the captain of a modern ironclad, who,
seated in the conning tower, directs all the movements
and all the actions of the ship under his command. He
alone is in possession of the requisite data for working the
vessel; he alone can control her every movement, make
her guns speak and disengage her torpedoes; how she
goes into and comes out of action is in his hands. As
captain, he exists for his command; his experience has
been developed for this end ; by his efficiency he stands
or falls, and so bound up is he in the life of his ship
that together they succeed or fail. So is the conscious
symbolism of the higher brain-centres bound up with the
life of the body in such intimate association that together
they succeed or fail. Thus we may regard the matter
from the point of view of organic evolution under the
guidance of consciousness.

The Relation of Organic to Mental Evolution. 277

Turning now to the point of view from which mental
evolution assumes the predominant place, the analogy of
the captain may be pressed a little further. The develop-
ment of that experience on which his efficient control of
the vessel depends lies wholly within the sphere of his
consciousness. It is, of course, throughout symbolic of
the occurrences in the outside world — or, to speak more
accurately, it is symbolic of those occurrences which are
also symbolized in our consciousness as external events.
The point is, however; that, no matter how close the touch
between the symbolism and that which it symbolizes, it is
as symbolism that it is developed. Symbol becomes
associated and correlated with symbol, and thus there
is evolved a symbolic system. And the laws of this
symbolism are the laws of mental evolution. In the
animal world it is under these laws that the effective
consciousness by which the activities are guided and
controlled reaches systematic development ; but it has to
stand its trial at the bar of practical success. In the
captain's mind there may be evolved a system of tactics of
admirable consistency, without an incongruous element in
the whole fabric. But will it work ? Will it stand the
test of an engagement ? If so, it will survive, and captain
and ship come out of action victorious and winners in the
war-struggle. If not, it will be eliminated ; captain and
ship will go to the bottom together. So, too, in the animal
there may be evolved a symbolic system of perfect self-
consistency. But will it avail in the struggle for existence ?
If so, the system and its possessor will survive to hand on
the good seed ; if not, animal and system suffer together
the stern fate of elimination.

The nature of the relation of organic to mental evolu-
tion is one that we should endeavour to realize with the
utmost clearness. In animal life the two are so closely

278 Habit and Instinct.

associated, the mental evolution is so completely sub-
servient to organic needs, that the biologist is somewhat
apt to forget that, no matter how close this association
may be, mental development has its own laws, and
requires distinctive if not independent treatment. On
this, however, it is needless now further to insist. We
may conclude this chapter by indicating concisely the rdle
of consciousness in organic evolution.

In what was termed the merely organic phase of
evolution, we may note, as the result of heredity, two
products : first, congenital definiteness of structure or
responsive activity, subject, indeed, to variation, but other-
wise relatively fixed and stereotyped ; and, secondly, that
innate plasticity which renders possible modifications of
structure or mode of growth; so that, in virtue of this
second product, the individual possesses the power of
adapting itself to the special conditions of its own par-
ticular environment. Such modification is, in this phase
of evolution, purely organic, and altogether independent of
consciousness, which, if present, affords no guidance in the
process ; as, for example, in the adaptive modifications of
plants.

The primary rdle of consciousness, as a factor in race-
progress, is to extend in a new way this individual
adaptability, so that by modifications of its modes of
responsive activity, as the outcome of conscious choice,
the organism may yet further accommodate itself to the
special conditions under which its life is passed. This it
does through the agency of a special organ of control
associated with the conscious symbolism of experience.
The guidance afforded by intelligence is an individual
matter, as is the experience on which it is based, and the
association which renders this experience possible ; and
the intelligent faculty in and through which behaviour can

The Relation of Organic to Mental Evolution. 2 79

be modified in adaptation to the special circumstances
symbolized in experience is in our terminology innate.
The special modes of response learnt through experience
are acquired, and this acquisition is therefore a purely
individual matter.

In the merely organic phase of evolution race-progress
is due, either (1) to natural selection through the elimina-
tion of unfavourable variations ; or (2) to the direct
inheritance or transmission of the results of modification
in certain adaptive directions ; or (3) to an inherent
tendency of variations to occur in such adaptive directions ;
or (4) to some combination of these factors.

In the conscious-organic phase of evolution, one or
more of these factors may be operative, either (1) in
augmenting the innate store of intelligent faculty, and thus
increasing the possibilities of individual adaptation to
varied conditions of life ; or (2) in stereotyping particular
adaptations ; or (3) in both these ways.

Omitting further reference to the supposed inherent
tendency of variations to occur in adaptive directions
irrespective of either natural selection or individual use,
it is clear that our conception of the role of consciousness
in organic evolution is largely dependent on the answer
which we give to the vexed question of the inheritance of
acquired characters. To the consideration of this question
we must next proceed.

28o Habit and Instinct.

CHAPTEE XIII.

AEB ACQUIRED HABITS INHERITED ?

Attention has already, more than once, been drawn to
the distinction between variations on the one hand and
modifications on the other. Variations take their origin
in the germinal substance from which the organism is
developed, and are unquestionably hereditary. Modifi-
cations are acquired in the course of individual life, being
impressed, not primarily, if at all, on the germinal sub-
stance, but on the bodily tissues which are developed from
the germ. And whether they are hereditary or not is the
question we have now to discuss in its relation to habit and
instinct. If they are hereditary, their effects must be in
some way transferred from the bodily tissues to the
germinal substance, so as to become a source of variation ;
modification in a given manner in one generation giving
rise to a variation of similar nature in the next generation.
Take a particular case. No one is likely to question
the fact that the maternal instinct of hens is subject to
variation. Some are good mothers, some bad; and it is
customary to select the good mothers to rear stock, a
procedure based on the belief — founded on practical ex-
perience — that such excellence is hereditary. It would be
interesting — if not very profitable — to experiment in the
opposite direction ; to set the bad mothers' eggs under good

Are Acquired Habits inherited f 281

brood-hens ; and thus to determine how far hereditary in-
fluence outweighed the effects of the individual experience
of a foster parent's care. We need more experimental
evidence of this kind ; in the mean time the occurrence
of variations in the maternal instincts and their hereditary-
nature may be taken as generally accepted.

But when hens bring up broods of species different
from their own there arise, not variations but modifica-
tions of this instinct. Eomanes quotes two cases. The
first* is from Jesse's "Gleanings." "A hen who had
reared three broods of ducks in three successive years,
became habituated to their taking to the water, and would
fly to a large stone in the middle of the pond, and quietly
and contentedly watch her brood as they swam about it.
The fourth year she hatched her own eggs, and finding
that her chickens did not take to the water as the
ducklings had done, she flew to the stone in the pond,
and called them to her with the utmost eagerness. This
recollection of the habits of her former charge is not
a little curious." The second example was furnished
by a correspondent, Mrs. L. Macfarlane, of Glasgow.
" In this case," he says, " a hen had also reared three
successive broods of ducklings in successive years, and
then hatched out a brood of nine chickens. The season
being late, she was confined for some weeks till the
chickens became strong enough to face the cold weather.
Then, in the words of my correspondent, 'the first day
she was let out she disappeared, and after a long search
my sister found her beside a little stream which her
successive broods of ducklings had been in the habit of
frequenting. She had got four of her chickens into the
stream, which was fortunately very shallow at the time.
The other five were all standing on its margin, and she

* " Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 215.

282 Habit and Instinct.

was endeavouring by all sorts of coaxing hen language,
and by pushing each chicken in turn with her bill, to
get them into the water also.' " The abnormal behaviour
of these hens may be contrasted with that of a hen
which after successive broods of chicks, hatches out a
brood of ducklings. When they, prompted by instinctive
impulse, take to the water, her fussy excitement knows
no bounds. Here is something contrary to all her
previous experience. What exactly passes through her
mind it is exceedingly difficult to surmise. The farmer's
wife naively says that the hen fears they will drown.
But what experience has the hen of drowning? To
adopt such an interpretation is to credit her with powers
of anticipating the results of experience, which it is hard
to conceive that she possesses. It is more probable that
her fussy behaviour is partly the result of her little ones
going where she has an instinctive aversion to following
them, and partly the result of a breach of normal associa-
tion due to previous experience with chicks. I am told
that a hen which has had broods of chicks is far more
fussy on such an occasion than a hen dealing with
her first brood, and therefore without individual ex-
perience. If this be so, it would seem to show that the
acquired association is as important as the instinctive
element.

Now, in the hen that brings up successive broods of
ducklings, there is, in our terminology, a modification
of instinctive behaviour. Is there any tendency for such
a modification to become hereditary? Would the hens,
hatched from her eggs, incubated and brought up by a
foster parent, show a variation of instinct in a direction
similar to the modification she had acquired? We do
not know. Transmissionists would probably say that the
modification acquired in the one lifetime would not be

Are Acquired Habits inherited? 28

o

sufficient to produce an observable variation; but that
where similar modifications are acquired in each of many
successive generations the cumulative effect becomes at
last observable in variation. Such cumulative effect is
obviously impossible in the case of the hen and her duck-
lings. And the case itself, it must be remembered, is only
adduced to illustrate the distinction between modification
and variation, and to make clear by a concrete example
the true nature of the question whether acquired modifica-
tions are hereditary. The transmissionist says that they
are hereditary, though perhaps in too slight degree to
be observable in the course of a single generation. Some
regard the evidence of such transmission as insufficient,
and others deny it altogether.

Let us note in passing the important role that, in any
case, and quite apart from hereditary transmission, in-
dividual habit has to play. We start with an instinctive
activity. But the instinctive activity is the congenital
endowment of an organism which has also a certain range
of intelligence ; with the power of profiting by experience ;
with capacities for conscious adjustment to its environ-
ment ; with the ability to acquire new modes of activity
by modifying the old congenital types. The instinctive
activity tends to meet the normal conditions of the par-
ticular species; and under such normal conditions in-
dividual habit endorses, through repetition, the instinctive
activities, and tends to strengthen and firmly establish,
as an individual possession, that which was congenitally
given. Under abnormal conditions, however, intelligence
tends to modify the congenital activity so as to enable
it to meet the new requirements ; and then habit, through
constant repetition, tends to establish this modified type
of activity as an individual possession. In either case,
whether its tendency be conservative or adaptive, whether

284 Habit and Instinct.

it confirms the old instinct, or confirms the new modifica-
tion, whether it sets its seal on specific uniformity or leads
to somewhat divergent individualism, — in either case the
role of intelligence in the establishment of habits is an
important one.

I must here again insist on the importance of ascer-
taining whether any habit has an instinctive foundation,
by observing the young when placed under such conditions
that imitation of the parents is impossible. There is a
curious habit of the motmot (Momotus), the use of which is
quite unknown. It tears off with its somewhat serrated
bill the barbs of the middle pair of tail feathers, in such
a way as to lay bare the shaft for an inch or so, and to
make the feathers racquet-shaped. Mr. G. U. Cherrie *
has shown that this procedure is probably instinctive ; for
it was performed by the young birds (Momotus lessoni)
which had been taken from the nest before the tail feathers
had grown. Mr. Chapman kindly showed me young
specimens in which these feathers, still immature, had not
been thus trimmed. There appeared to be a slight line
of weakness along the bases of the barbs where they
would in due time have been torn away. He suggested
the possibility that there was some slight obstruction here
to the drawing of the feathers through the bill. Perhaps
the line of weakness causes these barbs to catch in the
serrations of the bill. Such catching would no doubt draw
the bird's attention to the feathers in question, and lead
to a frequent repetition of the habit. In the adult motmot
the tail is kept in constant jerky motion as the bird utters
a cooing note, and the peculiar trimming of the central
feathers may have a sexual import. In any case, Mr.
Cherrie's observation as to the treating of the feathers in
this way, with little opportunity of imitation, is of interest ;

* The Auk, 9, p. 323.

Are Acquired Habits inherited? 285

though, if the trimming arise from some defect in the
feathers, all that is necessarily inherited is such congenital
deficiency.

It would seem, then, to revert to our main theme, that
so far as the activities and behaviour of animals are con-
cerned, evolution is tending to produce two things —
congenital uniformity and innate plasticity ; if we may use
this latter term for susceptibility to modification by the
intelligent utilization of experience. Both are due to
heredity ; hut whereas the one, congenital uniformity,
presents a certain amount of initial definiteness, the other,
innate plasticity, is in its nature initially indefinite ;
whereas the former, the initial definiteness, has its
origin in past uniformity of response ; the latter, sus-
ceptibility to modification, allows of future variety of
response ; and whereas the definiteness is specific and
racial, the plasticity allows of individualism. The two are
to a certain extent antagonistic, and to a certain extent
complementary. Evolution has to strike a balance between
them ; to hit the happy mean between a congenital uni-
formity which leaves no room for individual adaptation,
and an innate plasticity that is devoid of sufficient
stability.

To these two, however, a third must be added when
the whole life of an organism is taken into consideration.
Just as hereditary stability as it is seen in the uniform
performance of definitely instinctive activities is in contrast
with the individual plasticity shown in the phenomena of
adaptation to new circumstances, so too is the relative
plasticity of the young in contrast with the relative stability
of the old. We have to take into account acquired stability
due to habit as well as congenital stability due to heredity.
The three factors are, therefore, (1) congenital stability,
(2) youthful plasticity, and (3) acquired stability. Now,

286 Habit and Instinct.

regarding, as seems not unreasonable, youthful plasticity
as a mediating term between the two extremes of stability,
congenital and acquired, there are, as current biological
literature shows, two opposing views as to the relations
which stability, acquired and congenital, bear to each other.
According to the one view they are directly connected
through heredity. The acquired stability of one generation
becomes through inheritance the basis of the congenital
stability of the rest. The adaptation rendered possible by
youthful plasticity affords the basis of evolutionary progress,
while the inheritance of the acquired stability gives the
element of continuity in evolution. According to the
opposing view, on the other hand, the two types of stability,
congenital and acquired, are completely independent.
Individual adaptation through youthful plasticity and
habitual repetition, plays no part whatever in racial
progress, and contributes nothing to congenital stability.

Both sides may invoke the aid of natural selection,
but in very different degree. To the transmissionist it is
merely an accessory aid, of value in keeping up a general
standard of organic efficiency; to the selectionist it is
vital to the very existence of specialized types of organic
stability.

Let us translate this from the abstract into concrete
terms. It is the habit of the house martin to build beneath
the eaves. Forsaking its ancestral rocky haunts, it has
been led to accommodate itself to and utilize the houses
that man has built. This, we may fairly assume, was
originally due to individual plasticity, the adaptation to
new circumstances being the outcome of intelligence. But
it has long since ceased to be an individual matter. It
is characteristic of all house martins now ; hence the
name. That which was an acquired habit in certain house
martins of the past has become, it is argued, through

Are Acquired Habits inherited? 287

inheritance, a congenital instinct in the house martins of
to-day. Natural selection has no doubt been keeping up
the standard of organic efficiency and of average intelli-
gence, the weakly and foolish having been weeded out ; but
it has not been the efficient cause of the specialized instinct
of building beneath the eaves. Such would be the view of
those who accept the hereditary transmission of acquired
habits.

Those who hold the other view would, I take it, begin
by questioning, or at least demanding satisfactory proof of,
the fact that the habit of building in this special manner
and place is a truly congenital instinctive activity. They
would remind us that the adaptive intelligence which
enabled the house martins of the past to adopt this method
of nidification is still operative. They would further
urge that the nestlings are brought up under the eaves,
and that there is ample opportunity for the formation
of an association between nests and eaves. They would
contend that there is nothing in the nest itself that
cannot fairly be interpreted as the direct outcome of the
conditions under which each particular nest is built,
nothing, that is to say, for which any congenital variations
of instinctive activities is required. Any congenital
tendency (at present quite unproven) which there might be,
they would attribute entirely to natural selection. In the
open country, far from rocky fastnesses, those martins in
which there was a congenital tendency to build beneath
the eaves, would bring up their broods and transmit this
tendency ; those in which this tendency was absent would
either go elsewhere or fail to bring up broods at all.
This would be their second line of defence in case the
habit be shown to have a truly instinctive basis.

So far it has been my aim merely to bring out the
distinction between the rival theories of the manner in

288 Habit and Instinct.

which the evolution of truly congenital instinctive activities
has been effected ; not to decide between them. The first
is based on the hereditary transmission of acquired modifi-
cations of activity; the latter is based on congenital
variations in definiteness. Both factors may be accepted,
as they were, indeed, by Darwin and by Eomanes ; some
instincts being regarded as due to the first, others as due
to the second, and yet others as due to the combination of
the two, being, in fact, as Eomanes phrased it, of blended
origin. The tendency of modern biological thought in
Germany and in England, under the influence of Professor
Weismann's writings, has been towards the latter view —
that which denies the transmission of definiteness which is
acquired. And whatever may be the result of our discussion
of the matter, it cannot be denied that Professor Weis-
mann's contention has done great service in forcing us to
examine and test our facts with renewed and added care.

It is questionable whether there is much to be gained
by considering at any length what may appear to be the
general biological advantages of the one view or the other.
The transmissionist, on the one hand, claims that his con-
ception of organic nature has the advantage of relative
simplicity ; he contends that, so long as the conditions of
life remain uniform, the resulting uniformity of habits will
ensure as much congenital stability as can be of advan-
tage to the race ; while under changing conditions of
life the breaking up of this stability through the trans-
mitted effects of new habits is decidedly advantageous to
the species, and must contribute not a little to racial
progress. On the other hand, the non-transmissionist,
after a reminder that transmission is not only not proven,
but, if it exist, is difficult to explain on the basis of our
present knowledge of the relation of the germinal cells to
the other bodily tissues, argues that if the organic progress

Are Acquired Habits inherited? 289

of the race through natural selection is a slow process, it
is a very sure one. He contends that the organic stability
wrought into the race by natural selection is more per-
manently valuable, less at the mercy of merely temporary
changes of conditions, than that which is liable to frequent
modification through transmission. And he further con-
tends that in individual plasticity the organism possesses
all that is required to enable it to meet such temporary
changes of environment as are likely to occur. Thus both
sides claim for their own views certain general organic
advantages ; and both are quite clear that had they the
ordering of the organic world they would unhesitatingly
carry out their own principles for the advantage of the
organisms under their control !

Now all this is very interesting, and affords con-
siderable scope for ingenuity. But it does not touch the
question at issue; and this is — not which method is
apparently the most advantageous, not which method we
should have adopted, had the work of creation been en-
trusted to our care, but which has been adopted by nature.
For let us suppose that the transmissionist is successful in
showing that his method is for the greater advantage of the
race, and is that which best furthers organic progress; and
let us further suppose him to contend that even on the
natural selection principles of his opponents this advan-
tageous method would itself be established by the elimina-
tion of less advantageous methods. The non-transmissionist
will reply, first, that natural selection can only lead to the
survival of such variations as are within the range of
organic possibility, and the transmission of characters
acquired during individual life by, say, brain tissue to the
germinal cells, seems to be, as he contends, an organic im-
possibility ; and secondly, that the question is after all one
of fact. Has natural selection, as a matter of observation,

u

290 Habit and Instinct.

led to the establishment of the transmission of acquired
characters ? If so, produce unquestionable and unim-
peachable evidence of the fact.

This, however, is just what it is exceedingly difficult to
do. At first sight, for example, the nesting habit of the
house martin would appear to afford satisfactory evidence
of the conversion of an acquired habit into a congenital
instinct. But quite possibly it is the result of intelligent
adaptation through the influence of tradition. Our first
difficulty, then, is to prove conclusively that a given mode of
behaviour is truly congenital and instinctive, and not due
to the play of animal tradition. One or two further cases
which illustrate this difficulty may be given. Where
telegraph wires have been led across Scottish moors,
grouse have been killed in numbers by flying against them.
But after a season or two the destruction has ceased.
Have the young birds inherited the habit of so flying as
to avoid the wires ; or has the habit been handed down
by animal tradition ? The old birds are said to lead the
flocks ; and if they have either themselves been hurt
when they were young, or followed those who had so
learnt to avoid the wires, they would have acquired caution,
and thus lead their followers to be cautious. Hence a
habit of caution would be handed on by tradition. The
difficulty is represented in another form in the case of the
duck (Dendrocygna autumnalis), which is found in the well-
timbered region along the Eio Grande of Texas, at Lomita.
Since the river furnishes no sort of food, being cold and
muddy from the melting snows of the mountains whence it
flows, the duck adapts itself to circumstances and feeds
upon seeds and grain. It can alight on a stalk of growing
corn with the ease of a blackbird, and is quite at home
among the lofty trees where it makes its nest.* It would
* Nature, toI. xliv. p. 529.

Are Acquired Habits inherited? 291

be most interesting to know how far this complete modifi-
cation of duck habits is now congenital and how far it is
due to the individual plasticity which enables an organism
to adapt itself to its special environment. The habits
of the magpie in England have altered greatly. "It
is no longer the merry, saucy hanger-on of the homestead,
as it was to writers of former days, who were constantly
alluding to its disposition, but is become the suspicious
thief, shunning the gaze of men, and knowing that danger
may lurk in every bush." * How far are the sly and
thievish habits of the magpie in England now con-
genital ; how far are they acquired under the influence of
tradition ?

Our second difficulty is to find cases in which all effects
of selection are excluded. The habit from which a breed
of dogs has received the name of pointers is, it would seem,
truly congenital. Darwin states that he had himself "gone
out with a young dog for the first time, and his innate
tendency was shown in a ludicrous manner, for he pointed
fixedly not only at the scent of game, but at sheep and
large white stones ; and when he found a lark's nest, we
were actually compelled to carry him along." But there
has been selection all along the line of pointer ancestr3%
As Darwiu says,t " The young pointer often points without
any instruction, imitation, or experience. . . . The most
important distinction between pointing, t&c, and a true
instinct is that the former is less strictly inherited, and
varies greatly ia the degree of its inborn perfection." In
other words, there is much congenital variation, and
selection is still in progress. The congenital variations
will be claimed by the non-transmissionist as evidence

' " Dictionary of Birds," p. 721.

\ The quotation ia from the nncondensed MS. of the " Origin of Species,"
Eomanes' " Mental Evolution in Animals," pp. 236, 237.

292 Habit and Instinct.

in favour of his view; for were the acquired habit in-
herited in the degree claimed by the transmissionist, there
should not be so much variation. But in any case it is
obvious that such a habit as pointing cannot be adduced
in evidence of transmission as against the hypothesis of
selection, since selection is undoubtedly by no means
excluded.

In face of these alternative difficulties, that on the one
hand of proving the truly congenital nature of a habit
affirmed to be the result of transmission, and that on the
other hand of excluding the influence of all forms of
selection, it is by no means easy at present to decide, by
direct appeal to observed fact, between the rival hypotheses.
Perhaps one of the strongest cases, if trustworthy, in
favour of the occasional transmission of an acquired habit
is that of begging. Mr. Hurt describes in Nature * how a^
skye terrier was taught with difficulty to beg. " One of
his daughters, who has never seen her father, is in the
constant habit of sitting up, although she has never been
taught to do so, and has not seen others sit up." And Mr.
Lawson Tait informed Eomanes that " he had a cat which
was taught to beg for food like a terrier, so that she
developed the habit of assuming this posture — so very
unusual in a cat — whenever she desired to be fed. All
her kittens adopted the same habit under circumstances
which precluded the possibility of imitation, for they were
given away to friends very early in hfe, and greatly sur-
prised their new owners when, several weeks afterwards,
they began spontaneously to beg." " Very early in life "
is somewhat indefinite; and one may ask whether all
possibility of imitation was actually precluded. One
peculiarity about such cases is their sporadic and occa-
sional character. Of the thousands of individual dogs

* Aug. let, 1872 ; quoted in "Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 195.

Are Acquired Habits inherited'? 293

which are taught to beg, how few would seem to transmit
the acquired habit to their offspring ! Or, at any rate,
how few are the recorded instances of such transmission !
If the non-transmissionist has a difficulty in accounting
for them — has presumably to fall back upon the sug-
gestion that, if correctly observed and reported, they are
rare congenital variations — the transmiasionist is, it would
seem, confronted by an equal difficulty in accounting for
the non-transmission in the great majority of instances.
In any case they seem but a slender basis on which to
rest a far-reaching theory of organic development.

Eomanes, in support of the proposition that acquired
habits are inherited, gives, as an example, the fact that
in Norway the ponies are used without bridles, and are
trained to obey the voice. As a consequence, a race-
peculiarity has been established ; for Andrew Knight says,
"the horse-breakers complain, and certainly with very
good reason, that it is impossible to give them what is
called a mouth. They are, nevertheless, exceedingly docile,
and more than ordinarily obedient, when they understand
the commands of their masters." But here the selective
factor cannot be altogether excluded, though the trans-
missionist would no doubt contend that it must be quite
subordinate. Apart from this case and that of begging,
Eomanes can only adduce the hereditary wildness or
tameness of animals under changed conditions. But to
this class of examples I am not disposed to attach much
weight ; for in the first place selection undoubtedly plays
an important part ; and in the second place, as already
stated, my own observations show that even such shy
birds as the moorhen, wild duck, plover, and partridge,
when brought up by hand, are almost ridiculously tame.
It has before been mentioned that, while a young moorhen
was drinking, my fox terrier came up and lapped the

294 Habit and Instinct.

water, but received such a vigorous peck on his nose,
followed by a second which narrowly missed his eye, that
he beat a hasty retreat. I am not aware of any well-
substantiated evidence which has been published since
Eomanes wrote,* and am forced to conclude that though it
must not be summarily set aside, that which we at present
have is surprisingly small in amount, and peculiar in
distribution, if transmission be the predominant factor in
organic evolution. There is, however, a growing con-
viction that to solve some of its most pressing problems
biologists must pass from the observational to the experi-
mental stage. Perhaps experiment will show, more con-
clusively than has yet been shown, that transmission is
a fact, and will afford the means of estimating its strength
in the evolution of the world of living things.

There is, however, another, though less direct means
of approaching the problem. Let us fix our attention
on any two individuals of the same species : the one
survives and mates ; the other either dies or fails to mate.
Now, the former survives in virtue of the possession of
some excellence which the other does not possess. It is
this excellence, of whatever kind it may be, that deter-
mines the survival on the one hand, or elimination on
the other ; and it obviously must reach a certain amount
—termed by Eomanes "selection-value" — in order to
determine which individual will survive and which suc-
cumb. What the survival-value must be in any particular
case we do not know — it varies no doubt with the severity
of the struggle ; but to say, as some do, that an infini-
tesimal advantage suffices to differentiate the one from
the other, appears to be an assumption based rather on
logical than biological grounds.

Now, natural selectionists fall into two wings. Those

* The evidence adduced by Prof. Eimer fails to carry conviction.

Are Acquired Habits inherited^ 295

on the more extreme wing contend that every character
of each organism owes its existence directly to natural
selection, and that there is no character in any organism
which is not founded on utility. The influence of natural
selection is, they say, so penetrating and all-pervading,
that nothing useless, nothing without selection value, can
escape elimination. The utmost modification of this view
which they will accept, is that involved in the principle of
correlation. Every character is, they contend, either itself
of direct use, or definitely correlated with some other
character which is useful. Correlation, like Mesopotamia,
is a blessed word, and full of comfort and solace in the
midst of difficulties. Thus modified, the views of the more
extreme wing approach those of the other section of
natural selectionists, who hold that while steady and
continuous elimination has led to the survival of those
individuals which are best adapted to the conditions of
their environment, it is not necessary that all the
characters of these individuals should be of utility or
definitely correlated with useful characters. There may
thus be congenital traits which are not themselves useful,
but are merely incidental; characterizing to some degree
a group of organisms, but without direct bearing on the
struggle for existence, not themselves, that is to say, of
selection value. It is clear that if we extend the meaning
of the term "correlation" to the whole of that nexus by
which a number of congenital traits are hnked together
in the same organism, these are correlated with useful
characters. This seems, however, a little like begging the
question at issue. We may have a number of congenital
traits coexisting in the same organism; but if, when a
series of generations are carefully observed, these traits
are found to vary independently, they can scarcely be said
to be correlated, unless we use this term in a sense so

296 Habit and Instinct.

vague as to rob it of all valid biological significance. By
correlated variations should surely be meant those which
have been shown to occur in some direct or inverse ratio
to each other. When the correlation of any two variations
has thus been definitely established, a study of either of
them will enable us to infer the condition of the other.
This is how Darwin used the term : * and we should aim
rather at increased than at diminished exactness.

Bearing all this in mind, it is worth while to consider
how far truly instinctive activities may be fairly considered
to be (a) of direct utilitarian value ; QS) correlated in the
narrower sense with useful characters; or (c) merely
incidental, without traceable relationship to other useful
characters, though involved in the congenital nexus.

There can be little question that a large number of
instinctive activities in birds fall under the first class, and
are of direct and obvious utilitarian value. The in-
stinctive activities connected with pecking and feeding ; of
locomotion, whether of running, swimming, or flying ; the
sexual instincts and that of nidification, those associated
with incubation and the rearing of young ; aU these, and
they form perhaps the most remarkable and stable of
instinctive activities, are of decisive use, and are readily
explicable as the direct outcome of natural selection.
To the same class belong, it would appear, the protective
instincts of hiding, crouching, or shamming dead; the
aggressive activities such as the hissing of geese or
ostriches, and the scolding of young moorhens and other
birds; perhaps the scratching of the ground by fowls
and their allies ; the secondary sexual activities, dancing,
display, singing, together with those associated with recog-
nition marks, such as the flirting of the tail of moorhens,

* "Animals and Plants under Domestication," second edition, vol. ii,
p. 311.

Are Acquired Habits inherited? 297

and, as Mr. Warde Fowler suggests, of wagtails, and a
great number of peculiarities in behaviour, and perhaps
differentiae in the mode of flight among birds that flock
together. It will be seen how many instinctive activities
may not unreasonably be claimed by the non-trans-
missionist as directly due to natural selection.

Among instincts, there are few examples of the second
class which includes those due to definite correlation.
Perhaps we might place among them the development of
the cuckoo instinct, as definitely correlated with variations
in laying, possibly due to the effects of polyandry.

A small percentage of activities remains — or rather
perhaps they should be termed instinctive traits — which
are performed with congenital definiteness, but which do
not appear to fall very readily under either of these heads.
They must, therefore, either find their explanation in the
transmission of acquu'ed habit, or must be regarded as
incidental characters associated with the essential activities
of the organism in what has been termed the congenital
nexus. It may indeed be contended that the moorhen's
water-bath, or the chick's sand-bath, and the preening
of the feathers and down by young birds are of utilitarian
import, since they keep the organism in health, and serve
to remove parasites; though whether they can fairly be
regarded as of selection-value, deciding between survival
or elimination, is open to question. Let us for the
moment grant this much to the natural-selectionist.
There remains the fact that these operations are per-
formed with delicate but quite recognizable shades of
distinction by the young birds, in each of which the dis-
tinctive traits are congenitally true to those of their
kind. Chicks, ducklings, moorhens, all perform their
toilet in their own way. To one who carefully watches
from day to day the habits of young birds, there are

298 Habit and Instinct.

many minute characteristics, difficult to describe severally,
but none the less distinctive when taken together and
collectively, and serving to distinguish kind from kind.
One can hardly suppose that the special behaviour of
the pheasant, the characteristic demeanour of the duckling,
the high-stepping walk of the downy plover, the pretty
little ways of moorhen chicks, and the familiar traits of
domestic chickens, all of which are truly congenital in
their definiteness, have been of selection-value, and have
saved the ancestors of these several groups from elimina-
tion. Nor can it be said that they have any traceable
relation with other activities or characters of essential
utility to the species. "Whence, then, comes their definite-
ness ? How have they arisen ? Are they evidences of that
transmission of acquired habits for which one school of
biologists are in search ? On this view it is difficult to see
how they have come to be so definite. One can under-
stand how habits which are intelligently adaptive may
pass by transmission into definite instincts, even if one
feels bound to demand adequate proof of such trans-
mission. But these traits do not bear the marks of such
intelligent adaptation. Just as the delicate shades of
distinction in behaviour and demeanour do not appear
to be of selection value, or to have reached definiteness
through the elimination of all those that failed to behave
in just this way, so too do they seem too trivial to be
worthy of intelligent choice from among the numberless
possibilities of individual demeanour and behaviour. It
would seem more reasonable to suppose that they are
incidental characters, wrought into the congenital nexus,
and thus though not directly, still indirectly, due to
natural selection. Even so, however, their definiteness
is somewhat difficult to explain. If one says that a duck-
ling behaves just in this particular way because it is a

Are Acquired Habits inherited? 299

duckling, and that a moorhen has just these special traits
because it is a moorhen, one seems on natural-selection
principles to lay one's self open to the question: — But
■what about the constant and inherent tendency to variation
upon which Darwin laid such stress ? The transmissionist
finds a source of adaptive variations in the acquired and
transmitted modifications of individual life. But the non-
transmissionist has to be content with inherent germinal
variations, without which progress would be impossible.
By natural selection these germinal variations are guided
into definite lines. But in these incidental traits, the
variations being indefinite, and the guidance of elimina-
tion being ex hypothesi absent, whence comes their con-
tinued definiteness ?

Perhaps we may be permitted to ask the counter-
question. Whence comes any tendency to a definite de-
parture in any particular direction ? Since these variations
are ex liypothesi small in amount and indefinite in direction,
they will, through interbreeding, neutralize each other,
so that the stability is, so to speak, the net result of the
tendency to depart therefrom in all possible directions,
none of which is of selection value, and therefore no one
of which is emphasized and rendered a line of definite
departure. In a word, panmixia, or indiscriminate non-
selective mating, secures an average mean of relative
stability. It is best, however, honestly to confess that we
do not yet know everything about organic nature.

Furthermore, we have seen — to consider the matter
from a slightly different standpoint — that experience in
one of its aspects is apparently not inherited. Association
links have to be forged by the individual. At sight of the
conspicuously marked cinnabar caterpillar there is no
inherited suggestion of its nasty taste. That is the out-
come of individual experience. Objects of all kinds, if

Habit and Instinct.

they be of suitable size and at suitable distance, are
indifferently pecked at ; their value as food has to be
individually learnt. It may be, however, that the trans-
mission of association links is an organic impossibility,
and is not to be expected on any theory.

On the other hand, particular stimuli do unquestion-
ably give rise congenitally to particular and hereditary
responses. The transmissionist contends that this is due
to the repetition of the activity, in response to the given
stimulus, and the transmission of the acquired habit. The
natural-selectionist regards the congenital connection
between stimulus and response as the result of the gradual
elimination of those in whom this connection was not
adequately established. What is needed in order to dis-
tinguish between the rival hypotheses is some really crucial
case. If we could in some way exclude natural selection
in some instances, and allow it to act in others, we
should obtain such crucial cases. And if the habit were
equally transmitted, whether natural selection be present
or absent, that would present an exceedingly strong point
for the transmissionist.

The nearest approach to such a crucial case which my
own observations have afforded me, is that of the reaction
of young birds to water. As I have already stated, there
does not seem to be any instinctive reaction to the sight of
still water, even on the part of ducklings. But so soon as
the bill incidentally touches the water, the appropriate
drinking response is at once called forth. It may be said
that most young birds probably drink first by pecking at
dew-drops or rain-drops on the vegetation. Still, ducks,
chickens, and other birds have surely had much ex-
perience for many generations of drinking from the water
of pools and ponds. Now, why does not a chick or
duckling respond instinctively to the sight of something

Are Acquired Habits inherited? 301

so essential to its existence as water ? I have very little
doubt that under natural conditions the mother bird
teaches them to drink, her actions giving ample oppor-
tunity for imitation. But what does this imply? It
implies that the presence of the mother, as a source of
instruction and a model for imitation, shields her young
from the incidence of natural selection. To put the matter
figuratively, natural selection would fain get at the young
to exercise its eliminative influence, to remove those that
failed to respond instinctively, and to permit the smvival
of those in whom the appropriate response was congenital.
But the mother is there to teach them all; elimination
by natural selection is excluded. And we find that the habit
of drinking in response to the sight of water, though birds
have done so for untold generations, has not become
instinctive and congenital.

Now, there is an old adage that^hereas one man may
lead a horse to the water, a dozen cannot make him
drink. So with the hen and her chicks. Though the
mother can lead her young to peck at the water, she
cannot suggest the appropriate drinking response. She
cannot teach them those special movements of beak,
mouth, and gullet, which are essential for drinking. In
this matter she does not shield them from the incidence
of natural selection. Those which, on pecking the water,
failed to respond to the stimulus by the complex behaviour
involved in drinking, would die of thirst and be eliminated.
Those in which there was a congenital variation in the
direction of thus responding would survive, and their
congenital response would, in successive generations,
become more and more completely organized as an in-
stinctive response — or a congenital reflex, if that ex-
pression be preferred.

Thus it would seem that when natural selection is

302 Habit and Instinct.

excluded, the habit has not become congenitally linked
with a visual stimulus ; where natural selection is in
operation, the habit has become congenitally linked with
a touch or taste stimulus.

Allusion has already been made to the fact that the
young jungle pheasants of Assam, when left motherless,
die of starvation, if their attention be not attracted to
grains of food ; and the same is said to be true of incubated
ostriches. Here, too, the normal action of the mother
shields the young from the incidence of natural selection.
But young megapodes are not fostered by the parent ;
they are not shielded from the incidence of natural selection.
In these birds we might, on selectionist principles, expect
to find a more definitely congenital response to the sight
of certain appropriate kinds of food. " I have several
times," says Dr. D. C. Worcester, in a letter to me,
" observed young megapodes feeding quite by themselves
in the woods, and, upon shooting them, have found them
to agree perfectly in size and plumage with specimens
caught in the mounds where they are hatched. It is my
opinion that they have to shift for themselves from the
day of their birth, as I have never yet seen old birds any-
where near the young ones that I have come across." It
would be of great interest to ascertain whether these young
megapodes show an instinctive response to their appropriate
food that in other birds is absent or less marked. But
though the fact of their finding their own food without
guidance from the mother bird, may lead one to surmise
that this will be found to be the case, we must remember
that they may be guided, like hand-reared chicks, by the
results of experience after trying the various objects that
are presented to their choice.

It would seem then that, though the evidence is by no
means all that could be desired, what there is suggests that

Are Acquired Habits inherited? 303

if natural selection be excluded, instinctive definiteness of
response has not been developed. Are there any cases of
the converse kind, where that kind of influence on which
transmissionists rely is necessarily excluded? Among
birds to which our attention has been chiefly confined
I know of no such cases. But there is the oft-quoted
instance of the instincts of neuter hymenoptera. The
matter has been so fully discussed that only a few words
on the subject are here needful.

In the case of the hive-bee, of the eggs laid by the
queen-mother those which she does not fertilize from
the store of spermatozoa received from the male during
the nuptial flight, develop into drones. The others,
which she does so fertilize, are developed either into
fertile queen-mothers, or into the sexually imperfect
females known as neuters ; and which they develop into
is entirely dependent on the food they are supplied with
in the larval condition. Fed on a specially rich nutritious
pap they become fertile queens : otherwise, under ordinary
conditions of nutrition, they become infertile neuters.
This is one of those many cases, where the conditions of
early life determine which of two or more definite forms
an organism shall assume. And, in the bee, difi'erent
instincts and innate powers are correlated with the queen
and neuter types respectively.

Notwithstanding all the admirable work of many
careful observers, we are scarcely in a position to say
how much of the behaviour of the nurse or worker bee
is due to a congenital instinctive tendency, and how
much to the influence of tradition through imitation.
We may, however, accept provisionally the generally
received opinion that there are special instinctive endow-
ments in these infertile workers. But they are inherited
through parents, in neither of which are these special

304 Habit and Instinct.

instincts developed. If transmissionists contend that
these instincts were established as habits in ancestral
insects before the present divergence into queens and
neuters as established, they must admit that, in this
case, their doctrine that disuse influences the germ is
inapplicable. For disuse of these special instincts has
prevailed in the germ-bearing individuals for we know
not how many generations. And if they admit that
their doctrine of the effects of disuse is here inapplicable,
they so far weaken its claim for consideration in other
instances.

Leaving now the special case of the hymenopterous
insects, there is one general argument against the selec-
tionist interpretation which is not infrequently urged,
but which I do not regard as by any means fatal.
It is sometimes said by transmissionists that, if we
consider one of the more complex congenital activities,
such as the diving of the young moorhen when the puppy
frightened him, the accuracy and delicacy of the orderly
sequence of activities is such as to be beyond the scope of
mere natural selection. It is in the highest degree impro-
bable, they say, that natural selection could produce so
complex a mode of behaviour. I would meet such an
argument by directing attention to the cases of the Yucca
moth and the Sitaris given in the first chapter. Here
there are extraordinarily complex trains of activities. But
they are, and can be, performed only once in a lifetime.
And I fail to see how such instincts can possibly be
accounted for as the results of transmitted habit indi-
vidually acquired. There is no opportunity for that
repetition which is essential to acquired skill. We must,
presumably, regard every step of the long and complex
process as affording the appropriate stimulus for the per-
formance of the next succeeding step. At all events, if

Are Acquired Habits inherited? 305

natural selection have produced the instinctive behaviour
of the Yucca moth and the Sitaris, what becomes of the
inherent improbability of the moorhen's dive ?

If pressed to summarize my own opinion on this
vexed question, I should say, first, that there is but
httle satisfactory and convincing evidence in favour of
transmission, but that variation does seem in some cases
to have followed the lines of adaptive modification, so as
to suggest some sort of connection between them ; secondly,
that there are many instincts, relatively definite and
stable, which may fairly be regarded as directly due to
natural selection, though here again, if we could accept
the view that adaptive modification marked out the lines
in which congenital variation should run, our conception
of the process of their evolution would be so far simplified ;
thirdly, that there are some peculiar traits, also seemingly
definite and stable, which can only be attributed to the
indirect effects of natural selection on the supposition
that they form part of the congenital nexus, and that they
have no intrinsic tendency to variation in any particular
direction ; and fourthly, that, in the present state of our
knowledge, it is best to accept provisionally the view that
they are thus indirectly due to natural selection.

There can be no question, however, that when we con-
sider such instincts as those connected with nidification,
incubation, and maternity, together with those associated
with courtship, if indeed they be truly instinctive ; when
we see how individual effort runs in the same lines as
congenital co-ordination, as in the perfected flight of birds,
or the diving of water-fowl ; when we regard dispassionately
such a performance as that of the lapwing or duck that
decoys an intruder from her nest or young ; — we feel that
though the evidence for the transmission of acquired
habit is insufficient, yet some connection between variation

X

3o6 Habit and Instinct.

and modification is suggested by the facts. I propose in
the next chapter to approach the subject from a new
standpoint, and to sketch in outline an hypothesis
according to which acquired modification may pave the
way for congenital variation without any direct trans-
mission as such.

( 307 )

CHAPTEE XIV.

MODIFICATION AND VARIATION.

Up to a time still comparatively recent, the transmission
to offspring, in greater or less degree, of those modifica-
tions of habit or structure which the parents had acquired
in the course of their individual lifetime, was generally
accepted. Lamarck is regarded as the intellectual father
of these — the transmissionists. In his "Histoire Natu-
relle" he said, "the development of organs and their
power of action are continually determined by the use of
these organs." This is known as his third law. In the
fourth he insisted on the hereditary nature of the effects
of use ; " all that has been acquired, begun, or changed,"
he said, " in the structure of individuals during the course
of their life, is preserved in reproduction and transmitted
to the new individuals which spring from those which
have experienced the changes."

Darwin accepted such transmission as subordinate to
natural selection, and attempted to account for it by his
theory of pangenesis. According to that hypothesis all
the component cells of an organism throw off minute
gemmules, and these and their like, collecting in the
reproductive cells, are the parental germs from which all
the cells of the offspring of that organism are developed.
This theory, here given in briefest outline, came in for its
full share of criticism. The problems of heredity were
recognized as being of supreme biological importance and

3o8 Habit and Instinct.

were warmly discussed. Meanwhile, a different view of
the relation between the organism and its reproductive
cells came into prominence. With it the names of Francis
Galton in England and August Weismann in Germany are
inseparably connected. Of late years it has gained the
approval of many, though by no means all, of our fore-
most biologists. This view, again in briefest possible
outline, is as follows: the fertilized egg of any many-
celled organism gives origin to all the cells of which that
organism is composed. In some of these, the reproductive
cells, germinal substance is set aside for the future con-
tinuance of the race; the rest give rise to all the other
cells of the body, those which constitute or give rise to
muscle, nerve, bone, glands and so forth. Thus there is
a division into germ-substance and body-substance. Germ
gives origin to germ, plus body; but the body takes no
share, according to Prof. Weismann, in giving origin to —
though it ministers to, protects, and may influence — the
germinal substance of the reproductive cells.

The logical development of this theory led Prof. Weis-
mann to doubt the inheritance of characters acquired by
the bodily substance in the course of individual life, and to
examine anew the supposed evidence in its favour. If
brain-substance, for example, contributes nothing to the
reproductive cells, any modification it acquires during
individual life can only reach the germ through some in-
direct mode of influence. But does it ? does any modifi-
cation of the body-substance so affect the germ-substance
as to become hereditary? Prof. Weismann answers this
question by asserting that the evidence for the direct trans-
mission of acquired characters is wholly insufficient, and
by contending that, until satisfactory evidence is forth-
coming, transmission must not be accepted as a factor in
evolution.

Modification and Variation. 309

How then is progress possible if none of the modifica-
tions which the body suffers is transmitted from parent to
offspring ? To this question the reply must be that though
modification is, on this view, excluded from taking any
direct share in race-progress, yet there is still variation.
Modifications are those changes which are in some way
wrought in the body structure ; and variations, those
differences which are of germinal origin. That variation
of germinal origin is a fact in organic nature is admitted
on all hands ; and that some variations are adaptive is
also unquestioned. Transmissionists contend that modifi-
cation in a particular direction in one generation is,
through transmission of the change in some, at present
unexplained, way from the bodily tissues to the germinal
cells, a source of similar variation in the next generation.
Selectionists, on the other hand, exclude this source of
variation, contending that the supposed evidence in its
favour is insufficient or unsatisfactory. But their whole
theory depends on the occurrence of variations, of which
those that are in unfavourable directions are weeded out,
while those that are useful and adaptive remain. How
these variations originate in the germ need not here be dis-
cussed. Let us assume that variations of germinal origin
in a great number of directions do as a matter of fact occur.

This then is how the matter stands. All acknowledge
the existence of variations, and admit that their proximate
source is in the fertilized ovum. All admit that the
individual is through its innate plasticity in greater or
less degree capable of adaptive modification. Trans-
missionists contend that the effects of modification are
somehow transferred to the germinal substance, there to
give origin to variations. Selectionists deny this trans-
mission, and contend that adaptive variations are inde-
pendent of adaptive modifications.

Habit and Instinct.

Now, what is natural selection, at any rate, as under-
stood by Darwin ? It is a process whereby, in the struggle
for existence, individuals possessed of favourable and
adaptive variations survive and hand on their good seed,
while individuals possessed of unfavourable variations suc-
cumb, and are sooner or later eliminated, standing there-
fore a less chance of begetting offspring. But it is clear
that, to make the difference between survival and elimina-
tion, the favourableness of the variation must reach a
certain amount, varying with the keenness of the struggle.
And one of the difficulties which critics of natural selection
have felt is that the little more or the little less of varia-
tion must often be too small in amount to be of selection-
value, so as to determine survival. This difficulty is
admitted by Prof. Weismann as a real one. " The
Lamarckians were right," he says, "when they main-
tained that the factor for which hitherto the name of
natural selection had been exclusively reserved, viz.
personal selection \i.e. the selection of individuals], was
insufficient for the explanation of the phenomena." * And
again,t "something is still wanting to the selection of
Darwin and Wallace, which it is obligatory on us to
discover, if we possibly can."

The additional factor which Dr. Weismann suggests is
what he terms " germinal selection." This, briefly stated,
is as follows : There is a competition for nutriment among
those parts of the germ named determinants, from which
the several organs or groups of organs are developed.
In this competition the stronger determinants get the
best of it, and are further developed at the expense of
the weaker determinants, which are starved and tend to
dwindle and eventually disappear. The suggestion is

* " Germinal Selection." Monut, Jan., 1896, p. 290.
t Op. dt., p. 264.

Modification and Variation. 311

interesting, but one well-nigh impossible to test by obser-
vation. If accepted as a factor, it would serve to account
for the inordinate growth of certain structures, such as
the exuberance of some secondary sexual characters, and
for the existence of determinate variations, that is to say,
variations along special or particular lines of adaptation.

Such determinate variations are, however, explicable on
the theory of natural selection. Writing in 1892, I put
the matter thus.* " Take the case of an organism which
has in some way reached harmony with its environment.
Slight variations occur in many directions, but these are
bred out by intercrossing. It is as if a hundred pendulums
were swinging just a little in many directions, but were at
once damped down. Now, place such an organism in
changed conditions. The swing of one or two of the pen-
dulums is found advantageous ; the organisms in which
these two pendulums are swinging are selected : they mate
together, and in their offspring while these pendulums
are by congenital inheritance kept a-swinging, the other
ninety-eight pendulums are rapidly damped down as
before.

, : " Let us suppose, then, that the variation in tooth
structure, in a certain mechanically advantageous direc-
tion, be such a selected pendulum swing. That particular
pendulum, swinging in that particular direction, will be
the subject of selection. The other pendulums will still be
damped down as before, and in that particular pendulum
variations from the particular direction will be similarly
damped down. It will wobble a little, but its wobbling will
be as nothing compared with the swing that is fostered by
selection. In this case, then, selection will choose between
the little more complexity that is advantageous, and the
little less complexity that is disadvantageous. The little

* Natural Science, vol. i. April, 1892, pp. 100, 101.

312 Habit and Instinct.

less complexity will be eliminated, the little more com-
plexity will survive. The little less and the little more are,
however, in the same line of developmental swing. Hence,
the variations discoverable in fossil mammals in which
tooth-development along special lines is in progress, will,
on the hypothesis of selection, be plus and minus along a
given line; in other words, the variations will be deter-
minate, and in the direction of special adaptation."

Prof. Weismann adopts a similar position in his recent
paper on Germinal Selection. He says,* "By the selection
alone of the plus or minus variations of a character is the
constant modification of that character in the plus or
minus direction determined. . . . We may assert therefore,
in general terms, that a definitely directed progressive
variation of a given part is produced by continued selec-
tion in that definite direction. This is no hypothesis,
but a direct inference from the facts, and may also be
expressed as follows : By selection of the kind referred
to, the germ is progressively modified in a manner cor-
responding with the production of a definitely directed
progressive variation of the-part." , — '^

In his Eomanes Lecture, Prof. Weismann makes another
suggestion which is valuable and may be further deve-
loped. He is there dealing with what he terms " intra-
selection " t — or that which gives to the individual its
plasticity. One of the examples that he adduces is the
structure of bone. " Hermann Meyer," he says,t " seems
to have been the first to call attention to the adaptiveness
as regards minute structure in animal tissues, which is

* Monist, January, 1896, p. 268.

t Prof. Mark Baldwin's " organic selection" appears to be a new and not,
very satisfactory term for the same process.

t Eomanes Lecture on " The Effect of External Influences on Develop-
ment" (1894), pp. 11, 12.

Modification and Variation. 313

most strikingly exhibited in the structure of the spongy
substance of the long bones in the higher vertebrates.
This substance is arranged on a similar mechanical
principle to that of arched structures in general: it is
composed of numerous fine bony plates, so arranged as
to withstand the greatest amount of tension and pressure,
and to give the utmost firmness with a minimum expendi-
ture of material. But the direction, position, and strength
of these bony plates are by no means congenital or deter-
mined in advance : they depend on circumstances. If the
bone is broken and heals out of the straight, the plates of
the spongy tissue become rearranged so as to lie in the new
direction of greatest tension and pressure : thus they can
adapt themselves to changed circumstances."

Then, after referring to the explanation by Wilhelm
Eoux, of the cause of these wonderfully fine adaptations
by applying the principle of selection to the parts of the
organism in which, it is assumed, there is a struggle for
existence among each other, Prof. Weismann proceeds
to show * " that it is not the particular adaptive struc-
tures themselves that are transmitted, but only the quality
of the material from which intra-selection forms these
structures anew in each individual life. ... It is not the
particular spongy plates which are transmitted, but a cell-
mass, that from the germ onwards so reacts to tension and
pressure that the spongy structure necessarily results." In
other words, it is not the more or less definite congenital
adaptation that is handed on through heredity, but an
innate plasticity which renders possible adaptive modifica-
tion in the individual.

This innate plasticity is undoubtedly of great ad-
vantage in race progress. The adapted organism will
escape elimination in the life struggle ; and it matters not
* Eomanes Lecture, p. 1 5.

314 Habit and Instinct.

•whether the adaptation be reached through individual modi-
fication of the bodily tissues or through racial variation of
germinal origin. So long as the adaptation is there — no
matter how it originated — that is sufficient to secure sur-
vival. Professor Weismann applies this conception to one
of those difficulties which have been urged by critics of
natural selection. "Let us take," he says,* "the well-
known instance of the gradual increase in development of
the deer's antlers, in consequence of which the head, in
the course of generations, has become more and more
heavily loaded. The question has been asked as to how
it is possible for the parts of the body which have to
support and move this weight to vary simultaneously and
harmoniously if there is no such thing as the transmission
of the effects of use or disuse, and if the changes have
resulted from processes of selection only. This is the
question put by Herbert Spencer as to ' co-adaptation,' and
the answer is to be found in connection with the process
of intra-selection. ' It is by no means necessary that all
the parts concerned — skull, muscles, and ligaments of the
neck, cervical vertebrae, bones of the fore limbs, etc. —
should simultaneously adapt themselves hy variation of the
germ to the increase of the size of the antlers; for in
each separate individual the necessary adaptation will be
temporarily accomplished by intra-selection," that is, by
individual modification due to the innate plasticity of the
parts concerned. "The improvement of the parts in
question," Professor Weismann urges, "when so acquired,
will certainly not be transmitted, but yet the primary
variation is not lost. Thus when an advantageous increase
in the size of the antlers has taken place, it does not lead
to the destruction of the animal in consequence of other
parts being unable to suit themselves to it. All parts oB

* Komanes Lecture, pp. 18, 19. '

Modification and Variation. 315

A

e organism are in a certain degree variable [i.e. modifi-
able], and capable of being determined by the strength and
nature of the influences that affect them, and this capacity
to respond conformably to functional stimulus must be
regarded as the means which make possible the mainten-
ance of a harmonious co-adaptation of parts in the course
of the phyletic metamorphosis of a species. ... As the
primary variations in the phyletic metamorphosis occurred
little by little, the secondary adaptations would as a rule
be able to keep pace with them."

So far Professor Weismann. According to his concep-
tion variations of germinal origin occur from time to time.
By its innate plasticity the several parts of an organism
implicated by their association with the varying part are
modified in individual life in such a way that their modifi-
cations co-operate with the germinal variation in producing
an adaptation of double origin, partly congenital, partly
acquired. The organism then waits, so to speak, for a
further congenital variation, when a like process of adapta-
tion again occurs ; and thus race progress is effected by a
series of successive variational steps, assisted by a series
of co-operating individual modifications.

If now it could be shown that, although on selectionist
principles there is no transmission of modifications due to
individual plasticity, yet these modifications afford the
conditions under which variations of like nature are
afforded an opportunity of occurring and of making them-
selves felt in race progress, a farther step would be taken
towards a reconciliation of opposing views. Such, it
appears to me, may well be the case.*

* In an article entitled " A New Factor in Erolution," published in the
American Naturalist for June and July, 1896, Prof. Mark Baldwin has
given expression to views of like nature to those which are here developed.
And Prof. Henry P. Osbom, in a paper read before the New York Academy
of Sciences, propounded a somewhat similar theory, but with, he tells me,
less stress upon the action of natural selection.

3i6 Habit and Instinct.

To explain the connection which may exist between
modifications of the bodily tissues due to innate plasticity
and variations of germinal origin in similar adaptive direc-
tions, we may revert to the pendulum analogy. Assuming
that variations do tend to occur in a great number of
divergent directions, we may liken each to a pendulum
which tends to swing — nay, which is swinging through a
small arc. The organism, so far as variation is concerned,
is a complex aggregate of such pendulums. Suppose, then,
that it has reached congenital harmony with its environ-
ment. The pendulums are all swinging through the small
arcs implied by the slight variations which occur even
among the offspring of the same parents. No pendulum
can materially increase its swing ; for since the organism
has reached congenital harmony with its environment, any
marked variation will be out of harmony, and the individual
in which it occurs will be eliminated. Natural selection
then will ensure the damping down of the swing of all the
pendulums within comparatively narrow limits.

But now suppose that the environment somewhat
rapidly changes. Congenital variations of germinal origin
will not be equal to the occasion. The swing of the
pendulums concerned cannot be rapidly augmented. Here
individual plasticity steps in to save some members of the
race from extinction. They adapt themselves to the
changed conditions through a modification of the bodily
tissues. If no members of the race have sufficient innate
plasticity to effect this accommodation, that race will be-
come extinct, as has indeed occurred again and again
in the course of geological history. The rigid races have
succumbed ; the plastic races have survived. Let us grant
then that certain organisms accommodate themselves to
the new conditions by plastic modification of the bodily
tissues, — say by the adaptive strengthening of some bony

Modification and Variation. 317

structure. What is the effect on congenital variations ?
Whereas all the other pendulums are still damped down
by natural selection as before, the oscillation of the pen-
dulum which represents a variation in this bony structure is
no longer checked. It is free to swing as much as it can.
Congenital variations in the same direction as the adaptive
modification will be so much to the good of the individual
concerned. They will constitute a congenital predisposition
to that strengthening of the part which is essential for
survival. Variations in the opposite direction tending to
thwart the adaptive modification will be disadvantageous,
and will be eliminated. Thus, if the conditions remain
constant for many generations, congenital variation will
gradually render hereditary the same strengthening of
bone structure that was provisionally attained by plastic
modification. The effects are precisely the same as they
would be if the modification in question were directly
transmitted in a slight but cumulatively increasing degree ;
they are reached, however, in a manner which involves no
such transmission.

To take a particular case : Let us grant that in the
evolution of the horse tribe it was advantageous to this line
of vertebrate life that the middle digits of each foot should
be largely developed, and the lateral digits reduced in
size ; and let us grant that this took its rise in adaptive
modification through the increased use of the middle digit
and the relative disuse of the lateral digits. Variations in
these digits are no longer suppressed and eliminated. Any
congenital predisposition to increased development of the
mid-digit, and decreased size in the lateral digits, will tend
to assist the adaptive modification and to supplement its
deficiencies. Any congenital predisposition in the contrary
direction will tend to thwart the adaptive modification
and render it less efficient. The former will let adaptive

o

18 Habit and Instinct.

modification start at a higher level, so to speak, and thus
enable it to be carried a step further. The latter will force
it to start at a lower level, and prevent its going so far.
If natural selection take place at all, we may well believe
that it would do so under such circumstances.* And it
would work along the lines laid down for it in adaptive
modification. Modification would lead ; variation follow
in its wake. It is not surprising that for long we believed
modification to be transmitted as hereditary variation.
Such an interpretation of the facts is the simpler and more
obvious. But simple and obvious interpretations are not
always correct. And if, on closer examination in the light
of fuller knowledge, they are found to present grave
difficulties, a less simple and less obvious interpretation
may claim our provisional acceptance.

In his recent paper on Germinal Selection, Prof.
Weismann says : t "I am fain to relinquish myself to
the hope that now after another explanation has been
found, a reconciliation and unification of the hostile views
is not so very distant, and that then we can continue our
work together on the newly laid foundations." As one to
whom Prof. Weismann alludes as having expressed the
opinion that the Lamarckian principle must be admitted
as a working hypothesis, I am now ready to relinquish
myself also to the same hope. Germinal selection does
not convince me, though it may be regarded as a suggestive
hypothesis; and, assuredly, I am not convinced by the
argument that because in certain cases, such as the
changes in the chitinous parts of the skeleton of insects
and Crustacea, and in the teeth of mammals, use and
disuse can have played no part, therefore in no other

* Prof. Weismann's "germinal selection," if a vera causa, would be a
co-operating factor, and assist in producing the requisite variations,
t Monist, loc. cit, p. 290.

Modification and Variation. 319

cases has use-inheritance prevailed. But it appears to me
that, on the lines above sketched out, we may accept the
facts adduced by the transmissionist, and at the same time
interpret them on selectionist principles.

It may be well now briefly to summarize the line of
argument in a series of numbered paragraphs,

1. In addition to what is congenitally definite in
structure or mode of response, an organism inherits a
certain amount of innate plasticity.

2. Natural selection secures

(a) Such congenital definiteness as is advan-
tageous.
(6) Such iimate plasticity as is advantageous.

3. Both a and 6 are commonly present ; but uniform
conditions tend to emphasize the former; variable con-
ditions, the latter.

4. The organism is subject to

(a) Variation, of germinal origin.
(/3) Modification, of environmental origin, affect-
ing the soma or body tissues.

5. Transmissionists contend that acquired somatic modi-
fication in a given direction in one generation is transmitted
to the reproductive cells to constitute a source of germinal
variation in the same direction in the next generation.

6. It is here suggested that persistent modification
through many generations, though not transmitted to the
germ, nevertheless affords the opportunity for germinal
variation of like nature.

7. Under constant conditions of life, though variations
in many directions are occurring in the organisms which
have reached harmonious adjustment to the environment,
yet natural selection eliminates all those which are dis-
advantageous, and thus represses all variations within
narrow limits.

320 Habit and Instinct.

8. Suppose, however, that a group of plastic organ-
isms is placed under new conditions.

9. Those whose innate plasticity is equal to the occa-
sion are modified, and survive. Those whose plasticity is
not equal to the occasion are eliminated.

10. Such modification takes place generation after
generation, but, as such, is not inherited. There is no
transmission of the effects of modification to the germinal
substance.

11. But variations in the same direction as the modi-
fications, are now no longer repressed and are allowed full
scope.

12. Any congenital variations antagonistic in direction
to these modifications will tend to thwart them and to
render the organism in which they occur liable to
elimination.

13. Any congenital variations similar in direction to
these modifications will tend to support them and to favour
the organism in which they occur.

14. Thus will arise a congenital predisposition to the
modifications in question.

15. The longer this process continues, the more marked
will be the predisposition, and the greater the tendency of
the congenital variations to conform in all respects to the
persistent plastic modifications ; while

16. The plasticity still continuing, the modifications
become yet further adaptive.

17. Thus plastic modification leads, and germinal
variation follows : the one paves the way for the other.

18. Natural selection will tend to foster variability in
given advantageous lines when once initiated ; for (a) the
constant elimination of variations leads to the survival
of the relatively invariable; but (6) the perpetuation of
variations in any given direction leads to the survival of

Modification and Variation. 321

the variable in that direction. Lamarckian palaeontologists
are apt to overlook this fact that natural selection produces
determinate variation.

19. The transmissionist fixing his attention first on the
modification, and secondly on the fact that organic effects
similar to those produced by the modification gradually
become congenitally stereotyped, assumes that the modifi-
cation as such is inherited.

20. It is here suggested that the modification as such
is not inherited, but is the condition under which congenital
variations are favoured and given time to get a hold on
the organism, and are thus enabled by degrees to reach the
fully adaptive level.

When we remember that plastic modification and
germinal variation have been working together all along
the line of organic evolution to reach the common goal of
adaptation, it is difficult to believe that they have all
along been wholly independent of each other. If the direct
dependence advocated by the transmissionist be rejected,
perhaps the indirect dependence here suggested may be
found worth considering.

It only remains to say a few words concerning the
bearing of the above discussion on our special subject,
habit and instinct. Habits are of the nature of individual
modifications rendered possible by intelligent adaptation
to the conditions of life ; instincts are due to congenital
variations of germinal origin. But instinctive activities
so often take the line which is marked out by adaptive
habit, that it is not surprising to find many who believe
that instinct is neither more nor less than inherited habit.
Special modes of flight, special ways of bathing, peculiar
methods of courtship, specific types of behaviour; these
and many other activities may well be regarded as having

Habit and Instinct.

their origin in habit, though they may now be more or
less definitely instinctive. It would seem, however, that if
natural selection be accepted as a potent factor in organic
evolution, and unless good cases can be brought forward
in which natural selection is necessarily excluded and yet
habit has become instinctive, we may, in face of the bio-
logical difficulties which render direct transmission more
and more hard to accept, adopt some such view as the
foregoing, and, while still believing that there is some
connection between habit and instinct, admit that the con-
nection is indirect and permissive rather than direct and
transmissive.

CHAPTER XV.

HEREDITY IN MAN.

An investigation which deals with habit and instinct is in
large degree a study in heredity. It will be of interest to
inquire whether the conclusions we have reached are of
any assistance in interpreting the phenomena of human
life ; and whether what we may learn of heredity in man
reflects any light on the problems of heredity in the animal
world.

To this end it will be well to pass rapidly in review the
more salient of our conclusions. Stated with the utmost
brevity, they are as follows : —

1. The activities termed instinctive are characterized
by relative definiteness of motor co-ordination, probably
dependent on congenital structure in the lower brain and
spinal centres. Under appropriate conditions a stimulus
gives rise to adaptive behaviour without previous learning
or experience.

2. The instinctive response is, as such, unconscious ;
but the performance of the instinctive activity affords,
through afferent channels, data to consciousness.

3. These data are linked by association with those
supplied by the special senses.

4. In addition to the co-ordinated outgoing currents
to the motor organs concerned in the instinctive response,
there are co-ordinated outgoing currents to the viscera

324 Habit and Instinct.

— heart, blood-yessels, lungs and respiratoiy apparatus,
digestive organs, glands, skin, and so forth.

5. From the organs thus innervated and called into
activity, there proceed ingoing currents to the sensorium.
These afford the primary data of the states of conscious-
ness termed emotions. And these data are linked by
association with those given by the special senses, and by
motor responses. The emotions are instinctive in that
the co-ordinated outgoing currents are of like nature with
those concerned in instinctive response.

6. The data of consciousness are all of afferent origin,
and any of them, whether sensory, motor, or visceral in
origin, may be either pleasant or painful.

7. The power of association by which the data of
consciousness are linked in experience — so that on the
recurrence of certain data, a revival in memory of other
associated data is rendered possible — is innate. Innate
also are susceptibilities to pleasure and pain.

8. Accompanying the functional activity of the higher
brain centres, called into play by incoming currents, is a
control over the lower centres, exercised through augmen-
tation or inhibition of their automatic action, in the light
of experience. This again is innate.

9. Acquired activities are those the definiteness of
which is reached by the exercise of control.

10. The term " congenital " is applied to inherited
definiteness of response in instinctive behaviour, reflex
action, or the distribution of innervating currents to the
viscera; the term "innate," to inherited faculties, and
susceptibilities to pleasure and pain. Instinctive definite-
ness is congenital and prior to experience. Acquired
definiteness is due to experience, and is rendered possible
by innate faculties and susceptibilities.

11. The frequent repetition of acquired activities gives

Heredity in Man. 325

rise to the secondary automatism of habit, which is thus
to be distinguished from the primary automatism of
instinct.

12. Impulse is the tendency of the organism to carry
out its instinctive or habitual activities under the appro-
priate internal conditions and external stimuli. The
accompanying consciousness is due to afferent currents.

13. Imitative behaviour may be either (1) instinctive,
when the stimulus afforded by the results of the activities
of another gives rise to a congenital response of like
nature ; or (2) intelligent, where there is conscious selec-
tion of the activities or their results. The latter is
dependent upon an innate susceptibility to pleasure when
the results reached by the imitating individual resemble
the copy.

14. Intelligence involves true selection or choice. And
the method of mental evolution, by the exercise of choice,
is to be clearly distinguished from the method of organic
evolution, by natural selection.

15. Similar activities may be — (1) acquired &e novo
by the individuals of successive generations through the
similar exercise of intelligent choice ; (2) handed on by
tradition through the instinctive or conscious imitation by
the young of their elders ; or (3) transmitted as congenital
instinctive behaviour.

16. It is a matter of importance, but of no little difficulty,
to determine whether the similar activities of individuals
in successive generations are acquired de novo, are handed
on by tradition, or are directly due to hereditary trans-
mission.

17. There is no conclusive evidence that the secondary
automatism of habit is transmitted by heredity, so as to
give rise to the primary automatism of instinct.

18. At the same time there are cases in which

326 Habit and Instinct.

behaviour, generally believed to be instinctive — such as
that of birds "feigning wounded" — appears to run
curiously parallel with that due to intelligent acquisition.

19. Though there may be no direct transmission of
acquired characters, yet acquired modifications of structure
may permit congenital variations of a similar kind ; other
variations being suppressed by natural selection.

20. The balance of evidence appears to favour the view
that instinctive behaviour is the result of natural selection
working on variations of germinal origin without the direct
transmission of acquired modifications of structure.

Such in outline are the conclusions we have reached.
There is, however, one more aspect of the problems of
heredity and acquisition to which attention must be directed
before passing from the life of animals to the life of man.
There are two important processes which fall under the
head of acquisition. We acquire experience, and we acquire
skill. The first involves the correlation of incoming data
from the special senses, from the motor organs, and from
the viscera. The second implies the more or less accurate
co-ordination of outgoing impulses to the viscera and to
the motor organs, both those concerned in ministering to
sensation and those concerned in general activity. If,
then, the term " experience " be applied to the correlation
of incoming data from whatever source, it would appear
that such experience is wholly a matter of acquisition. To
illustrate once more by a very simple case, if nasty taste
or the power of stinging be associated with colour or form
in a caterpillar or insect, there appears to be no inherited
transmission of such an association in experience ; no
inherited suggestion of the taste on sight of the colour or
form. The associative foundations of suggestion have to
be laid in individual experience, and are solely a matter of
acquisition. Heredity seems to have nothing to do with

Heredity in Man. 327

them save to supply the requisite faculty. On the other
hand, the co-ordination of outgoing impulses may be and
often is congenitally definite. But it may be, and often is,
the result of individual acquisition. Whereas, therefore,
experience is in all cases acquired ; motor co-ordination is
in some cases congenital, and in other cases acquired. If
this conclusion stand the test of further investigation
and critical study, it ■will afford an important line of
demarcation. We may expect to find further and fuller
evidence of inherited co-ordinations of a markedly definite
kind ; but we must not expect to find any evidence of
inherited knowledge. Co-ordination may be in a surpris-
ingly definite manner instinctive ; but knowledge, and
that correlated experience which is its precursor, though
founded on innate faculty, owes all its definiteness and
exactitude to individual experience.

We are now in a position to consider the relation of
the hereditary to the acquired in man. The first fact
— one of a broad and general nature — that strikes us is
how far what is innate is, in the hereditary endowment of
man, in excess of what is instinctive. No one is likely
to deny the assertion that man inherits an innate power
of acquisition and application, which enables him to cope
with an environment of extraordinary complexity, and of
a peculiarly specialized nature. But of definite instinctive
performance he inherits perhaps a smaller share than any
other organism. If, then, the question be asked, whether
man has a large or a small endowment of instinct, the
answer will depend upon the precise definition of ' instinct.'
If we take congenital definiteness as characteristic of in-
stinct, we shall agree with Darwin * that "the fewness and
the comparative simplicity of the instincts of the higher
animals are remarkable as compared with those of the

* "Descent of Man," vol. i. p. 101.

328 Habit and Instinct.

lower animals; " and with Komanes,* that "instinct plays
a larger part in the psychology of many animals than it
does in the psychology of man." If, on the other hand,
a broader definition of instinct be accepted, so as to in-
clude what is innate, in the sense before defined, we shall
agree with Prof. Wundt f that human life is " permeated
through and through with instinctive action, determined
in part, however, by intelligence and volition; " and shall
not profoundly disagree with Prof. Wm. James,$ who says
that " man possesses all the impulses that they (the lower
creatures) have, and a great many more besides." The higher
animals have, he continues, a number of impulses, such as
greediness and suspicion, curiosity and timidity, all of
them " congenital, blind at first, and productive of motor
reactions of a rigorously determinate sort. Each of them,
then, is an instinct, as instincts are commonly defined.
But they contradict each other — ' experience ' in each
particular opportunity of application usually deciding the
issue. The animal that exhibits them loses the ' instinc-
tive ' demeanour, and appears to lead a life of hesitation
and choice, an intellectual life ; not, however, because he
has no instincts — rather because he has so many that
they block each other's path." This theory of the equi-
libration of instinctive tendencies is, no doubt, ingenious.
But there is an old adage — de non a'pjyarcntibxis et non
existentibus eadem esP ratio. And in any case, according to
the method of interpretation we have adopted, activities,
congenitally definite, must be objectively manifested, as
such, if they are to make good their claim to the
instinctive class.

What, then, in the narrower acceptation of the term,

* " Mental Evolution in Man," p. 8.

t " Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology,'' p. 397.

+ " Principles of Psychology," vol. ii. pp. 392, 393.

Heredity in Man. 329

are the instinctive activities of man ? They appear to be
for the most part certain performances, some of them
rising little if at all above the level of reflex actions, which
are the heritage of our animal nature. Sucking and
taking the breast, hanging to one's fingers or to a stick,
as Dr. Louis Eobinson * has well shown, certain methods
of progression on all fours, according to Mr. S. S. Buck-
man,t co-ordinated leg movements for walking, an early
and probably instinctive differential response in arm and
hand movements according as an object is within or
beyond their reach, and a tendency to use the right hand
where strong effort is required, as Prof. Mark Baldwin +
has shown (the latter, so far as we know, a distinctively
human trait) ; these and the sexual instincts, together
with the coarser emotions and their more or less definite
expression, well nigh exhaust the list. And there is
little in them to throw any light upon these problems
of instinct which it is our business to discuss ; little to
help us in deciding between the rival claims of a purely
Darwinian and an exclusively Lamarckian theory of
origin.

The faculty of speech has been suggested as likely to
afford evidence of a decisive sort; but as matters stand
there is not much to be gained from it when it is cross-
examined as a witness. Prof. Weismann indeed brought
forward the absence of any instinctive result of the habit
of speech as an argument against the transmission of
acquired characters. "Not even are our children," he
said, "able to talk of their own accord; yet not only
have their parents, but more than that, an infinitely long

* Nineteenth Century, November, 1891.

t Nature, ]Sfovember 8, 1891, vol. li. p. .31. Cf. Nineteenth Century, for
November, 1894.

X " Mental Pevelopment in the Child and the Eace," pp. 54 and G4.

330 Habit and Instinct.

line of ancestors have never ceased to drill their brains
and to perfect their organs of speech. From this alone we
may be disposed to doubt whether acquired capabilities in
the true sense can ever be transmitted." Komanes,* in
reply to this, brought forward a general argument, drawn
from the complexity of language and the connection of
speech with man's intellectual powers, and the consequent
improbability that definite use of words should become
hereditary. He then asked whether "it is not the case
that the particular feature common to all languages — the
combination of vowel and consonant sounds which go to
constitute what we know as articulate syllables — as a
matter of fact ara instinctive ? Long before a young child
is able to understand the meanings of any words, it begins
to babble articulate syllables ; and I do not know," he
adds, "that a more striking fact can be adduced at the
present stage of the Weismann controversy than is this
fact which he has thus himself unconsciously suggested,
namely, that the young of the only talking animal should
be alone in presenting the instinct of articulation." This
argument was met, in the discussion at the Newcastle
meeting of the British Association (1889), by the counter-
argument that since language has made man what he is,
articulation would be under the sway of natural selection.
Only those who possessed a congenital power of articula-
tion could possibly be evolved into a race of speakers.
Eomanes uses this as an illustration of what he terms
the elusiveness of Prof. Weismann's theory. First, the
absence of any instinctive result of the long use of speech
is adduced as evidence that acquired characters are not
transmitted; and then, when it is shown that the only
element in articulate speech which we could reasonably
expect to be transmitted is actually so transmitted, the

* "Darwin and after Darwin," vol. ii. pp. .^>35-:-!3C.

Heredity in Man. 331

reply is that obviously this is a congenital character on
which natural selection would take effect. But if the
selectionists have thus changed their ground and taken
up new lines of defence, this does not concern us here.
The question is, whether their new line of defence is valid
and tenable or not. It appears to me, that if natural
selection took any share in the development of man
from some lower form of life, the argument is valid.
A power of articulation is a sine qua non if a race of
speakers is to be evolved; and unless natural selection
be ruled out altogether, the congenital nature of this
power, and some instinctive manifestation of it, is just
what may be fairly expected on Darwinian grounds. On
the other hand, if use-inheritance be operative, this again
is, as Eomanes says, just what may be expected on
Lamarckian grounds. In fine, here, as in so many cases,
we have nothing which can conclusively decide between
the rival hypotheses. What we have is the sort of thing
that may be due to one or other or both, if both be
established as vera causce.

Dr. Arbuthnot Lane * has expressed his behef that
certain occupations, such as shoe-making and coal-heaving,
produce recognizable effects upon the skeleton and other
parts, and that these effects are inherited, being more
marked in the third generation than they were in the
first. And Sir Wm. Turner informed Prof. Herdman that
in his opinion, the peculiar habits of a tribe, such as tree-
climbing among the Australians and the inhabitants of the
interior of New Guinea, not only affect each generation
individually, but have an intensified action through the
influence of heredity. The inference may be drawn that
with acquired structure acquired habits would be trans-
mitted. But of this there is, so far as I know, but little

* " Journal of Anatomy and Pliysiology," vol. xxii. p. 215.

332 Habit and Instinct.

direct evidence ; and the structural question * does not call
for discussion here.

It would seem, then, that of acquired habit passing into
congenital instinct of demonstrable definiteness, there is
but ■ little, if any, reliable evidence of a crucial kind.
We must therefore turn to the other aspect of heredity
— that which has reference to innate power or faculty —
and must ask whether there is any such marked increase
of inborn capacity as may reasonably be attributed to
direct transmission of acquired increments of faculty.

It must here be remembered that innate capacity affords
to the individual what is at first a relatively unspecialized
power of dealing with the particular conditions of indi-
vidual life as they are presented to experience. The
amount and quality of this innate capacity unquestionably
varies in different individuals. Its specialization and the
particular mode of its application are determined by the
conditions of individual development, and the environment
to which there is need of adaptation. This serves to dis-
tinguish innate capacity, the definite application of which
is acquired in the course of individual life, from the con-
genitally determined adaptiveness of instinctive behaviour.
The distinction was illustrated in our introductory chapter
by an analogy drawn from the familiar facts of the inheri-
tance of wealth. That which is instinctive was likened
to the inheritance of specific drafts for particular, and
relatively definite purposes in the conduct of life, over the
initial application of which the individual is given no
control ; innate capacity to the inheritance of a legacy
which may be drawn upon for any purpose as need arises.

* Dr. Gustav EetziuB has shown ("Biologishe Untersuohungen," neue
FolgK, vii. 1895) that the modifications of stracture due to civilized habit
(e.g. the use of chairs) are not inherited, the foetus retaining the ancestral
condition. His arguments for transmission of habit appear to take little
account of the effects of tradition.

Heredity in Man. 333

If the need become habitual, the animal may, so to speak,
instruct his banker to set aside a specific sum to meet this
need as often as it arises. But this arrangement is a purely
individual matter, and no wise dictated by the terms of
the bequest. The human infant inherits a certain number
of specific drafts ; but the bulk of his inheritance is an
invaluable legacy of innate capacity, the specific applica-
tion of which is in his own hands, under the conditions of
his social environment, and under the guidance of his
parents and guardians. What we must consider, then,
is whether there is any such marked increase of innate
capacity as may fairly be ascribed to the direct transmis-
sion of acquired increments of faculty, and whether the
innate susceptibilities are specialized through the effects
of such transmission. The adequate discussion of these
questions would require a separate treatise ; all that can
here be attempted is an outline of what would seem to be
the more salient features in a field of inquiry which the
multiplicity of details renders extremely comphcated.

In considering these questions, we must take up the
thread of the discussion which occupied most of the
chapter on the Eelation of Organic to Mental Evolu-
tion. The conclusions there reached were, it will be
remembered, as follows. Mental evolution, as such, is
dependent upon individual choice ; throughout animal life
it is subservient to organic needs, and is conditioned and
controlled by natural selection ; continuity of mental de-
velopment in the race is rendered possible by organic
heredity; and progress in mental development is pre-
dominantly due to the combined effects of heredity and
natural selection acting upon organisms possessed of

mental powers.

We must be particular to note the suhservient position
tchich mental evolution holds in the life of animals. What

334 Habit and Instinct.

then is its position in the life of civilized man ? Let us
put the case in sharp antithesis to the conclusions of the
preceding paragraph. While mental evolution as such is
still dependent upon individual choice, it is no longer
wholly subservient to organic needs ; nor is it, save to a
limited extent, conditioned and controlled by natural selec-
tion. Mind to some extent escapes from its organic
thraldom, and is free to develop, still in accordance with
the natural laws of its own proper being, but in relation to
a new environment. And though continuity of mental
development in the race is still rendered possible by
organic heredity, mental progress is mainly due, not to
inherited increments of mental faculty, but to the handing
on of the results of human achievement by a vast extension
of that which we have seen to be a factor in animal life,
namely tradition.

We must first endeavour to make good the position
that mental evolution in civilized man is no longer wholly
subservient to organic needs, and that it is no longer, save
to a limited extent, conditioned and controlled by natural
selection. The first point is so obvious and so generally
recognized as to stand in no need of detailed demonstration.
Among civilized races, at any rate, mental evolution has
far outstripped what is required to maintain bare organic
existence. Among lower races and savage tribes this is not
so markedly the case, and among them natural selection is
still no doubt a factor, though perhaps even with them a
diminishing factor, in progress. But it would seem that,
when we have to deal with civilized mankind, natural
selection is no longer a factor of predominant importance.
The microbe is indeed still at work eliminating the weakly,
notwithstanding all that medical skill can do; the
drunkard and the sensualist are still working out their own
physical damnation, the unchecked result of which would

Heredity in Man. 335

be the elimination of drunkenness and sensuality * ; society
is at war with the criminal, and doing its best, so far as
the sometimes short-sighted leniency of public opinion will
permit, to eliminate him. But, when all is said and done,
natural selection plays but a subordinate part in the life of
civilized mankind. The method of conscious choice has in
large degree superseded that of natural selection.

Now we must use the phrase "natural selection" in its
biological acceptation, and not, as is so often done in
discussions on social evolution, in a vague general and
half metaphorical sense, through neglecting the difference
between natural selection through the elimination of
failures, and choice through the play of intelligenccf By

* I leave this passage as it stood in the MS. of my Lowell Lectures. Dr.
G. A. Eeid has since published a work on " The Present Evolution of Man,"
in which the point is worked out with great care and skill. He contends
that drunkenness and the excessive opium habit tends to disappear in com-
munities wherein the free use of these drugs has led to the elimination of
1hose who abused them to a fatally deleterious extent.

t As before noted, Mr. S. Alexander, in his interesting contributions in
the domain of ethics, fails to distinguish between natural selection and con-
scious choice. " The war of natural selection," he says, " is carried on in
human affairs not against weaker or incompatible individuals, but against
tlieir ideals or modes of life. It does not suffer any mode of life to prevail or
persist but one wliich is compatible with social welfare." "Persuasion and
education, in fact, loithout deatruction, replace here the process of propagation
of its own species and destruction of the rival ones, by which in the natural
woild species become numerically strong and persistent." And again,
" Persuasion corresponds to the extermination of the rivals.'' But, as Mr.
Alexander himself indicates, persuasion is the condition, not to natural
selection through elimination, but to conscious choice. We endeavour
by persuasion to induce others to choose the ideals which have been the
objects of our own choice. This is not natural selection ; and the loose
application of this term to the process can result only in a confusion of ideas.
(See "Moral Order and Progiess," and an aiticle on "Natural Selection in
Morals " in the International Journal of Etkiee, vol. ii. (1882), pp. 409, 439.)
It is instructive to compare Professor Huxley's treatment of ethical and social
problems with that of Mr. Alexander. No one can read the ninth volume of
Huxley's " Collected Essays," — that on "Evolution and Ethics" — without
seeing that he clearly perceived the distinction between the method of
natural scliction and that of oontcious choice which supersedes it in

;36 Habit and Instinct.

natural selection was meant by Darwin, and should be
meant by us, a process whereby in the struggle for exist-
ence certain individuals are either killed, or, what is really
the essential point, prevented from begetting offspring.
Such a process, I take it, plays but a small and insignifi-
cant part in social progress, among ourselves, for example.
No doubt there is an apparently large body of unskilled
workers who are ousted in the keen competition of the
labour market. But are they in any appreciable degree
eliminated either by death or by exclusion from all share in
the procreation of their race ? They may be excluded from
the labour market, and thus leave others more fitted than
themselves to survive as efficient workers. In that sense,
no doubt natural selection is operative in all ranks of
human society. But, from the biological point of view,
the role of natural selection may be condensed, with almost
brutal plainness, into a few words : To breed or not to
breed; that is the question. In this sense, and this sense
only, is natural selection efficient in race-progress. And
it is in this sense that the term is used when I express
the conviction that in race-progress among civilized nations
natural selection holds an altogether subordinate position.
If those who endeavour to apply biological conceptions to
social phenomena would only remember that the essence
of natural selection is the exclusion of the weakly, the
inefficient, and the anywise unfit, from transmitting their

social evolution. The criticisms called forth by his Eomanes Lecture and tlie
reiterated assertions that he had abandoned the naturalistic interpretation of
ethical phenomena, together with the defence of his position in the prole-
gomena prefixed to this ninth volume, all serve to indicate how essential it
is that the method of conscious choice should be clearly distinguished from
that of natural selection. What we strive to effect in the social evolu-
tion which embodies the results of human choice, is often very different
from that which natural selection alone would produce. Our ideals are the
products of a mental evolution which has escaped from the bondage of
natural selection.

Heredity in Man. 337

inefficiency, and the consequent hereditary increment of
efficiency in those who remain to contribute as parents
to the continuation of the race, much confusion of thought
would be ayoided. In this sense I contend that natural
selection is not an important factor in human progress
among the civilized races of to-day.

What does take place is a good deal of selective ar-
rangement of the individuals constantly coming to maturity'.
But, as I have elsewhere contended,* it is obvious that
such selection, without the removal or exclusion of the
non-selected, does nothing to alter the general level of
faculty, in the race of Englishmen for example. Nay,
more, if the elimination of the unintellectual may be
excluded, and if they steadily increase by natural genera-
tion more rapidly than the intellectual, the general level
of faculty must, on purely natural selection principles,
be steadily falling. Be this as it may, such selection,
icithout elimination, as occurs is merely a classification of
the individuals in order of merit. It arranges the indi-
viduals in classes, but does nothing more. Let me ex-
emplify by an analogous case. Fifty boys who have been
admitted to a public school, await examination in a class-
room. They are at present unclassified, but there is a
mean of ability among the whole fifty. A week afterwards
they are distributed in different forms. Some are chosen
for a higher form, others have to take lower places. But
though selection has classified the material, it has not
altered the mean of ability among the fifty boys. This can
only be done by rejecting a certain number altogether,
or excluding them from the school. Then the mean ability
of those that remain will of course be raised. Selection,
without ehmination, involves no racial progress.

* "Animal Life and Intelligence," p. 499, from which some of the
material of this paragraph has been extracted.

338 Habit and Insiinci.

Emigration may perhaps be adduced as affording
evidence of the operation of natural selection among man-
kind. But though it must, beyond question, affect the dis-
tribution of human individuals, it is not clear in what
manner it gives opportunity for that elimination which is
essential to natural selection. The effects of emigration
are indeed worthy of a fuller and more careful dis-
cussion than they have yet received. From the older
centres of European civilization, there has proceeded for
some centuries a stream of emigrants to distant countries.
What have been the effects on the old centres and on the
new ? They have no doubt varied as the facilities of tran-
sport increased. There have proceeded to the new centres
a few of our best and some of our worst. In earlier times
the more adventurous and energetic left our shores ; now
perhaps there is a preponderance of our failures, or more
accurately, of those who do not find suitable opportunities
in our social system. Since the rate of propagation, in
at any rate some of the new centres, has been more
rapid than that in the old centres, the mean level in all
the centres, taken collectively, has been proportionally
altered. The subject is too large a one to be discussed
incidentally. But it would seem that the alteration is due
rather to changes of distribution than to natural selection
properly so called.

Does sexual selection, by preferential matmg, have a
far-reaching influence ? There can be no doubt that, what-
ever be the case among animals, there is preferential
mating among mankind. In marriage, at its best and
highest, the man selects his ideal woman, her in whom
beauty and grace, physical, moral, and intellectual, are
embodied; and the woman selects her ideal man, con-
spicuous among all others for strength in mind and body,
character and conduct. Herein lies the value, from the

Heredity in Man. 339

evolution point of view, of our marriage system. The
more enduring the marriage bond, the more careful will
the contracting parties be to select wisely and well, look-
ing not merely to immediate satisfaction of natural im-
pulse, but to life-long association. But granting all this,
we must remember that • marriage, as a practical fact, is
not always contracted on these grounds. There are many
disturbing causes which mar the good effects of the system.
Moreover, from the point of view of the community as
a whole, the question is: Who are excluded, by such
selection, from participating in the duties of parenthood ?
One has met so many charming and intellectual old maids
and confirmed bachelors, and though for obvious reasons
it must not be breathed aloud that one has met, still one
has at any rate heard of so many fathers and mothers who
are neither charming nor intellectual, that one questions
whether the average ability of married folk is much in \(
excess of that of those who die unmated. If so, sexual
selection does not have any marked effect on the mean
level of faculty in our community ; and this factor, like
that of emigration, may be left on one side.

If then in the relative absence of natural selection
the mean efficiency of civilized man is not, from this
cause, undergoing progressive development, wherein lie
the possibilities of race progress ? The first and most
obvious answer is : By the hereditary transmission of
acquired increments of faculty. There are some who have
contended that if there be no inheritance of acquired
characters, the past history of our race is inexplicable,
and for the future there can be no hope. But when they
are pressed for definite and conclusive evidence of such
transmission it is not forthcoming in any measure pro-
portional to the confidence of their assertions. Nay,
more; the question may be raised whether the supposed

340 Habit and Instinct.

increment of human faculty in successive generations is
an established fact. As we shall presently see, there
are careful thinkers who are not prepared to admit it as a
fact at all. But if these be right in denying the fact, the
consideration of the Lamarckian answer is unnecessary,
and we must seek another solution of the problem.
This is that evolution has heen transferred from the
organism to his environment. There must be increment
somewhere, otherwise evolution is impossible. In social
evolution on this view, the increment is by storage in
the social environment to which each new generation
adapts itself, with no increased native power of adapta-
tion. In the written record, in social traditions, in the
manifold inventions which make scientific and industrial
progress possible, in the products of art, and the recorded
examples of noble lives, we have an environment which
is at the same time the product of mental evolution,
and affords the condition of the development of each
individual mind to-day. No one is likely to question
the fact that this environment is undergoing steady and
progressive evolution. It is not perhaps so obvious that
this transference of evolution from the individual to the
environment may leave the faculty of the race at a
standstill, while the achievements of the race are pro'
grassing by leaps and bounds. This is no new doctrine.
Buckle, in his "History of Civilization," wrote as foUows : *
" Whatever, therefore, the moral and intellectual progress
of men may be, it resolves itself not into the progress of
natural capacity, but into a progress, if I may say so, of
opportunity; that is, an improvement in the circumstances
under which that capacity after birth comes into play.
Here then is the gist of the whole matter. The progress

* " History of Civilization," vol. 1. (1858), p. 178. Quoted in Dr. Keid's
" Present Evolution of Man," p. 179.

Heredity in Man. 341

is one not of internal power, but of external advantage.
The child born in a civilized land is not likely as such
to be superior to one born among barbarians ; and the
difference which ensues between the acts of the two
children will be caused, so far as we know, solely by
the pressure of external circumstances ; by which I mean
the surrounding opinions, knowledge, associations, in a
word, the entire mental atmosphere in which the two
children are respectively nurtured." No doubt the case
is here overstated. It would probably be more correct to
say that the dififerences in natural capacity between tht
civilized and barbarian infant are due to natural selection;
the rest being due to "the mental atmosphere." And
since, on our view, natural selection is a constantly
diminishing factor in the evolution of civilized man, it
follows that the innate differences are of constantly
diminishing value.

Huxley,* writing in 1863, says of man that "he alone
possesses the marvellous endowment of intelligible and
rational speech, whereby, in the secular period of his
existence, he has slowly accumulated and organized the
experience which is almost wholly lost with the cessa-
tion of every individual life in other animals." Further
quotations to a like effect might easily be collected. Prof.
Weismann f himself clearly saw the bearing of these facts
on the Lamarckian controversy, and in one of his most
luminous essays clearly indicates how man, "availing
himself of tradition is able to seize upon the acquire-
ments of his ancestors at the point where they left them."
The matter was at about the same time very ably dealt
with by Prof. Piitchie in his " Darwinism and Politics,"

' " Man's Place in Nature." See " OoUeoted Essays," vol. vii. pp. 155, 156.
t "Thoughts upon the Musical Sense in Animals and Man" (1889),
Essays, vol. ii. pp. 50, 51.

342 Habit and Instinct.

where he contends that language renders possible the
handing on of experience irrespective of transmission by
heredity. " Might we not," he asks,* " define civilization
in general as the sum of the contrivances which enable
human beings to advance independently of heredity ? "

According to this conception of human progress, then,
organic heredity keeps up a mean level— possibly even
permits only a diminishing average— of mental capacity,
with which succeeding generations have to deal with an
ever-evolving environment of mental products. And this
mean level, or even diminishing average, of mental
capacity, together with the wide variation around the
mean, is due to the comparative absence of natural
selection.

It is clear that, in this handing on of experience irrespec-
tive of transmission by heredity, there is an enormous
extension of that tradition which we have already seen
to be a factor, though only a subordinate one, in the
life of animals. But the question for special considera-
tion now is whether, in view of these facts, there is any
increment of human faculty in civilized races on which
to base an argument for hereditary transmission. Writing
in 1890,t I expressed myself somewhat guardedly on the
subject. With regard to the diffusion of knowledge, I
suggested that this, though it brings more grist to the
intellectual mill, may have no effect in raising the mean

* "Darwinism and Politica," 3rd edition, p. 101. In the same essay,
is an able criticism of Mr. Wallace's contention that the large brains of
savages are inexplicable on the theory of natural selection. The large
brain was required to deal with a complex environment ; the somewhat
larger brains of civilized folk with an environment of a different order of
complexity ; and it is this environment, rather than brain-power, which is
now undergoing development in civilized society. Mr. Kitchie unfortunately
does not avoid the error of identifying to some extent the effects of conscious
choice with those of natural selection. See p. 106.

t "Animal Life and Intelligence," pp. 500, 501.

Heredity in Man. 343

standard of excellence in the mill itself. There is more
to grind ; but this does not necessarily improve the grind-
ing apparatus. If, however, it does improve the mill, this
tells so far in favour of the Lamarckian and against the
neo-Darwinian hypothesis. Or to vary the analogy, the
diffusion and storage of knowledge while it increases the
stock of available food, does not necessarily bring with
it any additional power of digesting the food. But if
it does improve the faculty of assimilation, this may be
through inherited increments of digestive power. It may,
however, be contended that there is no conclusive proof
that the mean intellectual level of Englishmen to-day is
any higher than in the days of the Tudors. If so, of course
the argument for transmission falls to the ground. Having
no desire to dogmatize on the subject, I merely set down
the reasons which led me to entertain a general belief
that the intellectual progress of Englishmen during, say,
the past three hundred years has been in part due to the
inheritance of individually acquired faculty.

I must confess that this general belief has since then
been weakened rather than strengthened. Those who are
far better fitted to form an opinion in this matter seem to
regard the supposed raising of the mean standard of faculty
as, to say the least of it, exceedingly doubtful. Mr. Kidd,
in his " Social Evolution," has collected some of the evidence
and quotes this statement of Mr. Gladstone's in an inter-
view with Mr. Stead* : "I sometimes say, that I do not
see that progress in the development of the brain-power
which we ought to expect. . . . Development, no doubt, is
a slow process, but I do not see it at all. I do not think
we are stronger but weaker than men of the Middle Ages.
I would take it as low down as the men of the sixteenth
century. The men of the sixteenth century were strong
* iJewew of Reviews, April, 1892. Quoted in " Social Evolution," p. 256.

344 Habit and Instinct.

men, stronger in brain power than our men." Mr. Kidd
himself writes as follows * : " Not only is it probable that
the average intellectual development of the races which
are winning in the struggle for existence to-day is below
that of some of the peoples which have long ago dis-
appeared from the rivalry of life, but there seems every
reason to suppose that the average intellectual develop-
ment of successive generations amongst ourselves does
not show any tendency to rise above that of the genera-
tions immediately preceding them." And he quotes with
evident approval this passage from an article of Mr.
Bellamy's f: "All that man produces to-day more than
did his cave-dwelling ancestors, he produces by virtue of
the accumulated achievements, inventions, and improve-
ments of the intervening generations, together with the
social and industrial machinery which is their legacy."
Mr. Kidd's conclusion is that social evolution is not
primarily intellectual. But surely the main inference
to be drawn from all this, supposing it to be true, is,
not that social evolution is not primarily intellectual,
but rather that intellectual evolution, whether of primary
or secondary value, is no longer by increment of human
faculty, but by summation and storage in the environ-
ment it creates.

So far as intellectual evolution is concerned, Mr. Kidd's
contention is that natural selection affects it, if at all,
only in a secondary and subsidiary way. In this we
may agree with him. But no further. For he con-
tends that natural selection does affect man as a moral
agent. " Natural selection seems," he says,| " to be

" " Social Evolution," p. 255.

t Contemporary Eecietv, January, 1890. Quoted in " Social Evolution,"
p. 267.

X " Social Evolution," p. 280.

Heredity in Man. 345

steadily evolving in the race that type of character upon
which these [altruistic] forces act most readily and
efficiently ; that is to say, it is evolving religious character
in the first instance, and intellectual character only as a
secondary product in association with it. The race would,
in fact, appear to be growing more and more religious, the
winning sections being those in which, ccsteris loaribus, this
type of character is most fully developed." I cannot
agree with this, for it is uifficult to see in what way
elimination is at work so as to produce any such result.
All the arguments Mr. Kidd uses to show that the average
intellectual development of successive generations amongst
ourselves does not show any tendency to rise above that of
the generations immediately preceding them, apply also
with equal force to the average moral and religious develop-
ment. The power of conscience and what we may term,
somewhat loosely perhaps, the religious impulse, do not,
I imagine, stand at a higher average level to-day than
at the time of the Eeformation. But I do believe, and
trust, that the moral and religious environment has under-
gone evolution, and that the individual conscience and
religious impulse have to-day freer play than under the
narrower and more cramping conditions of the past.

It would seem, in fine, that if mental evolution in man
be manifested rather in the progressive advance of human
achievement than in progressive increment of human
faculty; if the developmental process have been trans-
ferred from the individuals to their environment ; if it be
rather the intellectual and moral edifice that is undergoing
evolution, than the human builders that contribute in each '
generation a few more stones to take a permanent place in
its fabric ; if there be thus no conclusive evidence that
faculty is improving, but rather the opposite ; if all this
be so, then it would seem that the ground is cut away

546 Habit and Instinct.

from under the feet of those who regard mental evolution
in man as due to inherited increments of individually
acquired faculty. Nay, more ; if the average level he not
rising, some explanation must he demanded from trans-
missionists of this fact. For surely if there be trans-
mission of individually acquired increment, the average
level of faculty ought to be steadily rising.

The conclusions reached, then, in this chapter are
somewhat as follows. There is little or no evidence of
individually acquired habits in man becoming instinctive
through heredity. Natural selection becomes more and
more subordinate in the social evolution of civilized man-
kind ; and it would seem probable that with this waning of
the influence of natural selection there has been a diminu-
tion also of human faculty. Hence there is little or no
evidence of the hereditary transmission of increments of
faculty due to continued and persistent use. A discus-
sion of heredity in man thus confirms the inference drawn
from the study of habit and instinct in some of the lower
animals.

INDEX.

ACEEBI, 67

Acquired, meaning; of term, 17-19
Acquisition and inheritance, 280
Activity-feelings, 201
Adjustment, conscious, importance

of, 267
Alarm notes, 89-92
Alexandek, Prof. S., 271, 335
Allen, Mr. Charles A., 83, 249
Antipathy, hereditary, 117, 118, 196
Ant-lion larva, 9
Argentine cowbirds, 2(5
Aegtll, Duke of, 65, 204
Articulation, 330
Association, illustrations of, 45, 147 ;

and suggestion, 151
Atkinson, Canon, 202
Attodbon, 220
Automatism, 128 ; unconscious, 130;

conscious, 131
Aversion or avoidance, instinctive,

43, 44, 48-54

B

Baldwin, Prof. J. Mark, 106, 149,

162, 168, 183, 233, 264, 312, 315,

329
Bakrington, Hon. Daines, 178
Bat, instinctive climbing, 104
Batcheldee, Mr. Charles F., 121
Bathing, a congenital activity, 96, 97,

198
Bechstein, 170
Bees, birds peeking at, 47, 52
Bellamy, Mr. B., 344
Bendire, Major Charles, 223, 244,

245

BiDWELL, Mr. Edward, 241

BiNET, M., 263

Blackburn, Mrs. Hugli, 240

Blackcap and flowers, 163

Blackwall, Mr,, 234

Bolton, Mr., 231

BosoHER, Mr. E., 182

Bre-wster, Mr. William, 221

BKITONNli)RE, 77

Buckle, H. T., 310

Buckman, Prof. S. S., 329

BuDSETT, Ml-. John S., 236, 237

BuLLEE, Mr., 240

Bullfinch and primroses, 159 ; imita-
tive song of, 176 ; nest-building of,
237

Burnett moth, experiments with, 42

Butler, Dr. A. G,, 179

C

Canary, nest-building of, 236

Cattle, motor co-ordination, 102

Chaffinches in New Zealand, 233

Chapman, Mr. F. M., 10, 76, 174,
222, 284

Chabbohnier, Mr. H. J., 97, 178

Cherhie, Mr. G. U., 284

Chicks, shrinking from hand, 32 ; in-
stinctive recognition of hen, 34,
36 ; peeking, 37 ; drinking, 44 ;
catching fly on the wing, 47 ; and
bees, 52 ; walking, 59 ; running,
61 ; flight, 70 ; no fear of dog, 81 ;
notes of, 90 ; intelligent action of,
153

Chirping in tlie egg, 31

Choice, criterion of, 263

Cinnabar larvse, experiments with,
41,43

Claypole, Prof. E. W., 167

548

Index.

Clucking of hen, instinotive response
to, 34, 36

Oo-adaptation, 314

Coliu, habits of the, 99

Collins, Mr. F. Howard, 88

Congenital, term defined, 17

Connate instincts, 18

Consciousness, effective, 127 ; func-
tion of twofold, 147

Co-ordination of lower centres, 128;
motor, essential in instinctive ac-
tivities, 134

OoKNiSH, Mr. C. J., 68, 102, 239, 249

Correlation, 295

CouoH, 180

Cowbirds, 244

Criterion of choice, 264

Crouching in young birds, 202

Crow-blackbird, habit of, 165

Cuckoo, instincts of, 239; American,
244

D

Darwin, Charles, 40, 44, 116, 159,
214, 220, 235, 243, 288, 291, 296,
307, 327, 336

Deer, motor co-ordination, 102

Deferred instincts 18, 136

Determinate variations, 311

Dipper, diving, 65

Direction, sense of, 261

Distasteful insects, experiments with,
43 ■

Diving in moorhen, 63, 136; in
dipper, 65; in hoactzin, 66; in
wild duck, 67

Dixon, Mr. Charles, 233

Dogs, intelligent action of, 153, 155

Dkane, Mr. B., 109, 110

Drone ily, experiments with, 52

Duck, chirping in egg, 31 ; pecking,
37; drinking, 45; and bees, 53
walking, 59 ; swimming, 62
paddling, 69 ; tame and wild, 83
bathing, 95 ; feigning wounded
249 ; brought up under hens, 281

DxcK, Dr. Van, 70.

EiMBK, Prof., 30, 36, 44, 294
Elvers, spring migration of, 9
Emigration, 338

Emotions, the, 186; current theory
of, 188 ; James and Lange's theory
of, 188 ; Marshall's theory of, 192 ;
relations to instinctive activities,
194, 206; Evolutional value of,
207 ; interpretation of, 207 ; ex-
pression of, 210

Eve, Mr. A. S., 202

Experience, rdle of, 131, 132 ; due to
incoming currents, 133

Fabre, M., 15

Falcons, training of, 19 ; flight of, 70

Fascination, 88

Fear, instinctive, 33, 81

Feigning dead, 202 ; feigning

wounded, 248
Festing, Major E. E., 159
Flight of birds, 69-79
Flycatcher, spotted, observation on,

55-58, 74
Foster, Dr. Michael, 266
Fowler, Mr. A¥arde, 175, 297
Fhanrland, Prof. E., 160
Frog and Jay, 57

Galhula ruficauda, 9
Gallwey, Sir E. Payne, 67
Galton, Dr. Francis, 308
Gatke, Herr, 258, 261
Geddes, Prof. Patrick, 226
Germinal selection, 310
Gladstone, Mr. W. E., 343
Goldfinches, nesting of, 234
Goosander carrying young, 67
Grebe divins; with young, 69
Greenfinch, nest-building of, 236
Guinea-fowl, pecking, 37; following
duckling, 44 ; walking, 59 ; run-
ning, 61
Guinea-pig, activity at birth, 104;
rapid development, 110-; sensory
development, 110 ; taste and smell,
112; sight, 112; sucking, 113

H

Habit, defined, 1 ; rdle of, 283
Hare, 104, 109, 110

Index.

549

Hatching of young birds, 31
Haywakd, Miss J. M., 75. 86, 92, 240
HEA.DLET, Mr. F. AV., 69, 78, 233,

259, 260
Hearing in young mammals, 113
Hedgehog, 11
Hen, maternity of, 218 ; with brood

of ducks, 281
Hekdmann, Prof, 331
Heredity in man, 323
Hermit crab, 12

Hippopotamus, activity of newly born
calf, 104

Hive bee, neuters of, 303

Hoaclzin, wing of, 60 ; diving of, 66

Horse tribe, evolution of, 317

Howard, Mr. H. F., 71

Hudson, Mr. W. H., 31, 36, 66, 88,
89, 92, 101-104, 115, 119, 125, 179,
183, 184, 223-225, 229, 245-247

HuGGiNs, Dr., 196

Hughes, Mr. W. A. P., 178

HuKT, Mr., 292

HuxLET, 'J\ H., 128, 335, 341

Hymenoptera, neuter, 303

Imitation, 16S; nature of, 167; in-
stinctive, 168 ; conscious or inteu-
tional, 170 ; and copying, 171 ;
biological value of, 181

Impulse, 137 ; and experience, 156

Incubation, 126

luheritance of acquired characters,
280

Innate capacity, 26, 332

luquisitiveness of jays, 97

In6tir]Ct,characteristicsof, 4,"connate,
18 ; deferred 18 ; defined, 27 ; and
intelligence antithetical, 252 ; in
man, 327

Instinct-feelings, 135, 192

Instinct-habits, 136, 185

Intelligence, foundations of, 152 ;
role of, 162; antithetical to in-
stinct, 252

Intra-selection, 312

Jacamae, habits of, 9
Jacana, newly hatched, 66; dance
of, 224

James, Prof AVilliam, 187-193, 195,

196, 205, 328
Jay, following object with head and

eyes, 39 ; observations on, 55-58 ;

flight, 74 ; fear, 83 ; bathing, 97 ;

luquisitiveness, 97; imitation in,

175
Jenner, Henry, 240
Jesse, W., 281
Jones, Mr. T. Mann, 105-107, 110,

114, 115-117

Kea, modified habits of, 164
Keener, Prof. Anton, 13
KiDD, Mr. Benjamin, 343-345
Kitten, motor co-ordination, 102 ; and
puppy compared, 108 ; taste and
smell, 112; sight, 112; hearing,
113 ; spitting, 118 ; persistent effort
in, 154 ; begging, 292
Knight, Andrew, 293
Knight, Mr. F. A,, 63, 85

L

Lamarck, 307

Landrail, feigning dead, 202

Lane, Dr. Arbuthnot, 331

Lange, Prof, 188

Lardbn, Mr W., 211

Lewes, G. H., 04

Limpet, wanderings of, 9

Localization of irritated spot, 93, 111

Locomotion, in birds, 59

LooMis, Mr. L. M., 174

Lowe, Dr., 163

Lubbock, Sir John, 15

Lucas, Mr. F. A., 60

M

Macfarlane, Mrs. L., 281
Magpie, bathing, 97 ; habits of, 291
Maleo, habits of, 77
Mammals, observations on young, 101
Marshall, Mr. H. Eutgers, 135, 142,

192, 200
Martin, house, flight, 71 ; nidificatiou

of, 286
Mavnaed, Mr., 221, 222

350

Index.

Megapode, 44, 76, 302

Mental evolutiou, 262 ; method of,
271 ; environment in, 273 ; subser-
vient position of in animal life,
275, 333; its escape from organic
thraldom in man, 334

Merganser, observations on, 204

Meyer, Hermann, 312

MiALL, Prof. L. C, 5

Migration, of eels, 9 ; of birds. 256

Mills, Dr. "Wesley, 30, 33, 45, 101.
104, 107-109, 112-114, 117, 119-
121, 124, 154, 166, 184, 207

Mimetic behaviour, 12, 169

Montagu, Col., 175, 180

Mocking bird, 174

Modification and variation, 233, 280,
307

Moorhen, chirping in egg, 31 ; peck-
ing, 37, 40 ; instinctive attitude,
:i7 ; accuracy of aim, 38 ; drinking,
46 ; walking, 59 ; clambering, 59 ;
wing of, 60 ; swimming, 62 ; div-
ing, 63 ; shyness, 65 ; startled, 85 ;
notes of, 91; dance of, 94; bathing,
96, 198; frightened, 201

MoKRis, Rev. F. 0., 210

Motmot, habit of, 284

Motor sensations, 134

Motor and visceral effects distin-
guished, 187

N

Katceal selection, 219, 270 ; in man,

334
Nest-building, 234
Newton, Pruf. A., 65, 256, 257, 2.TJ
NoKTON, Dr. J. A., 241, 242
Notes of birds, 90

OSEOKN, Prof. H. F., 315
Ostriches, pecking of, 39

Palmen, Prof., 258
Pangenesis, 307

Paitridges, following, 34 ; pecking,
37 ; walking, 59 ; running and

leaping, 61 ; no fear of dog, 81 ;
note of, 91 ; jugging of, 99

Peal, Mr. S. R, 39, 167

Pecking, in young birds, 36, 55

Pfeppek, Prof., 263

Pheasants, pecking, 37, 40 ; following
object with head and eye, 38;
Assamese, 39 ; following duckling,
44 ; drinking, 46 ; mode of seizing
worm, 51 ; walking, 59 ; running,
61 ; no fear of dog, 81 ; instinctive
attitude, 84 ; and blindworni, 87 ;
notes of, 91

Pig, activity of newly-born, 105;
leaping from chair, 107; sucking,
116

Plasticity of the individual, 157, 278,
313, 316

Pleasure and pain, 149, 199

Plover, protective attitude, 32 ; peck-
ing, 37 ; walking, 59 ; no fear of
dog, 81 ; crouching, 85 ; spur-
winged, dance of, 224 ; feigning
wounded, 248

Pointers, habit of, 291

Polyandry in cuckoos, 243 ; in cow-
birds, 244

PODLTON, Prof. E. B., 46

Prairie chickens, dances of, 223

Preening the down, 94

Preferential mating, 216-218, 225,
338

Preyer, Prof., 30, 36, 40, 70, 74, 101,
105,106, 112-114,148

Pkootor, Mr., 68

Protective resemblance of dionefly,
52

Puppy, motor co-ordination, 102 :
avoids edge, 107 ; and kitten com-
pared, 108; taste and smell, 112;
sight, 112; hearing, 113; social
character of, 124, intelligence of,
155

Pyobaet, Mr. \V. P., 60

Q

QoELOH, J. J., 60, 66

B

IIabbit, motor co-ordination, 102 ;
specialized movements, 1 08 ; rapid
development, 110 ; taste and smell,
112; sight, 112; hearing 113

Index

iSi

Radclipf, Col., 21

Kae, Dr., on ducklings, SL!

Kalph, Dr. W. L., 248

Eedwings, sexual selection in, 222

Eeid, Dr. J. Archdall, 335, 340

Eefles action, 6, 7

Repetition. 157

Ketzics, Dr. Gustav, 332

Eet, Dr., 239, 241

EiTCHiE, Prof. D. G., 183, 184, 341,

342
EoBiNSON, Dr. Louis, 320
EoMANEs, George J., 177, 180, 235,

264, 281, 288, 292-294, 328, 330
Eoux, Dr. Wilhelm, 313

Sand-dusting, 95
Sandpiper, 62
Scratching the ground, 94
Sea-anemone, Romanes' observation

on, 264
Seebohm, Henry, 260
Selection, intelligent, 155 ; natural,

219, 270; in men, 334; sexual,

214,219; in men, 338
Selection-value, 294
Selods, Mr., on instinctive fear of

lion, 119
Sheep, Pampas, 103, 115
Sheldrakes, and young, 67, 68
Shrinking, instinctive in young birds,

32
Sight, in young mammals, 112
SitarU, 15, 304

Smell, in young mammals, 112, 116
Snake, egg-eating, 12; angrv, 211
Song of birds. 174, 178, 213, 217, 229
Southwell, Mr. J., 163
Spalding, Douglas, 30, 34, 36, 40, 44,

47, 48, 51, 69, 70, 74, 86, 101, 105,

106, 117, 182
Sparrows and crocuses, 163
Special sensations, 134
Speech, 329

Spencer, Mr. Hobert, 7, 99, 314
Squirrel, instinctive procedure of, 121
Stead, Mr. W. T., 343
Stbbbinu, Eev. T. E. R., 64
Stolzman, M. Jean, 220
Stork, sailing, fliglit of, 77
Sucking, reflex, 1 1 3
Suggestion, 151
Swallows, in nest, 55; flight of, 69,

71
Swimming, in birds, 62-66

Tait, Mr. Lawson, 292

Taste, in young mammals, 112

Tegetmeier, Mr., 181

Temminok, 258

Thomson, Mr., 69; Mr. Ernest E.,
222

Thunberg, 104

Toad ami Jay, 57

Tradition, animal, 89, 119, 178, 183,
184, 227, 229, 230, 258, 290; in
man, 342

Turkey and bee, 48 ; mode of catch-
ing flies, 51 ; and hawk, 86

Turner, Sir William, 331

Tylor, Alfred, 216

Variation and modification, 233,

280, 307
Visceral and motor effects, distin-

guistied, 187
Visceral sensations, 134

W

Walking, in child, 106

Wallace. Dr. A. R.. 77, 180, 216,

225, 226, 233, 235, 259, 342
Wasp, experiments with, 53
Water-beetle, 5, 6, 8
Water-ouzel, diving, 65
Water-rail, feigning dead, 203
Watson, Mr. John, 68
Weik, Jenner, 235
Weismann, Prof., 251, 288, 308, 310,

312-315, 318, 329, 341
White, Mr. Taylor, 164
WiLLOOx, Mr. Joseph, 164
Winking, reflex, 112
Witchell, Mr. C. A., 90, 169, 176,

178, ISO
Worcester, Dr. D. C, 76, 302
Worms, experiments with, 42
Worth, Mr. John, 223
WuNDT, Prof., 26, 158, 328

Yarkell, 62, 67, G8, 99, 175, 176, 180,

234
Ypecaha, dance of, 224
Yucca moth, 13, 304

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