The Instinctive Reactions of Young Chicks 163 



young chicks are of strange moving objects in general, shock 

 in general, strange sounds in general. On the other hand, no 

 such general disturbances of the chick's environment led to 

 such well-marked reactions as Spalding described. And so 

 when Morgan thinks that such behavior as Spalding wit- 

 nessed on the part of the chick that heard the hawk's cry 

 demands for its explanation nothing more than a general 

 fear of strange sounds, my experiments do not allow me to 

 agree with him. If Spalding really saw the conduct which 

 he says the chick exhibited on the third day of its life in the 

 presence of man, and later at the stimulus of the sight or 

 sound of the hawk, there are specific reactions. For the 

 running, crouching, silence, quivering, etc., that one gets 

 by yelling, banging doors, tormenting a violin, throwing 

 hats, bottles, or brushes at the chick is never anything like so 

 pronounced and never lasts one tenth as long as it did with 

 Spalding's chicks. But, as to the fear of man, Spalding 

 must have been deluded. In the second, third and fourth 

 days there is no such reaction to the sight of man as he 

 thought he saw. Miss Hattie E. Hunt, in the American 

 Journal of Psychology, Vol. IX., No. i, asserts that there is 

 no instinctive fear of a cat. Morgan did not find such. I 

 myself put chicks of 2, 5, 9 and 17 days (different individ- 

 uals each time, n in all) in the presence of a cat. They 

 showed no fear, but went on eating as if there was nothing 

 about. The cat was still, or only slowly moving. I further 

 put a young kitten (eight inches long) in the pen with 

 chicks. He felt of them with his paw, and walked around 

 among them for five or ten minutes, yet they showed no fear 

 (nor did he instinctively attack them) . If, however, you let 

 a cat jump at chicks in real earnest, they will not stay to be 

 eaten, but will manifest fear at least chicks three to four 

 weeks old will. I did not try this experiment with chicks 



