i28 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



contact with any warm object. They advance very rapidly. I have 

 seen them hold up their heads well, peck at objects, and attempt to dress 

 their wings when only between four and five hours old. But there is no 

 difficulty in conceiving that, with great spontaneity and a strong power 

 of association, much might be learned in four or five hours. Professor 

 Bain is of opinion, from observations of his own on a newly dropped 

 lamb, that 'a power that the creature did not at all possess naturally, got 

 itself matured as an acquisition in a few hours.' Accordingly, in the 

 absence of precautions, the time that must elapse before chickens have 

 acquired enough control over their muscles to enable them to give evi- 

 dence as to their instinctive power of interpreting what they see and 

 hear, would suffice to let in the contention that the eye and the ear may 

 have had opportunities of being educated. To obviate this objection 

 with respect to the eye, I had recourse to the following expedient. Tak- 

 ing eggs just when the little prisoners had begun to break their way out, 

 I removed a piece of the shell, and before they had opened their eyes 

 drew over their heads little hoods, which, being furnished with an elastic 

 thread at the lower end, fitted close round their necks. The material of 

 these hoods was in some cases such as to keep the wearers in total dark- 

 ness; in other instances it was semi-transparent. Some of them were 

 close at the upper end, others had a small aperture bound with an elastic 

 thread, which held tight round the base of the bill. In this state of 

 blindness — the blindness was very manifest — I allowed them to remain 

 from one to three days. The conditions under which these little victims 

 of human curiosity were first permitted to see the light were then care- 

 fully prepared. Frequently the interesting little subject was unhooded 

 on the center of a table covered with a large sheet of white paper, on 

 which a few small insects, dead and alive, had been placed. From that 

 instant every movement, with the date thereof, as shown by the watch, 

 was put on record. Never in the columns of a Court Journal were the 

 doings of the most royal personage noted with such faithful accuracy. 

 This experiment was performed on twenty separate chickens at different 

 times, with the following results. Almost invariably they seemed a little 

 stunned by the light, remained motionless for several minutes, and con- 

 tinued for some time less active than before they were unhooded. Their 

 behavior, however, was in every case conclusive against the theory that 

 the perceptions of distance and direction by the eye are the result of 

 experience, of associations formed in the history of each individual life. 

 Often at the end of two minutes they followed with their eyes the move- 

 ments of crawling insects, turning their heads with all the precision of 

 an old fowl. In from two to fifteen minutes they pecked at some speck or 

 insect, showing not merely an instinctive perception of distance, but an 

 original ability to judge, to measure distance, with something like in- 

 fallible accuracy. They did not attempt to seize things beyond their 



