INSTINCT. 129 



reach, as babies are said to grasp at the moon ; and they may be said to 

 have invariably hit the objects at which they struck — they never missed 

 by more than a hair's breadth, and that, too, when the specks at which 

 they aimed were no bigger, and less visible, than the smallest dot 

 of an i. To seize between the points of the mandibles at the very 

 instant of striking seemed a more difficult operation. I have seen a 

 chicken seize and swallow an insect at the first attempt: most fre- 

 quently, however, they struck five or six times, lifting once or twice 

 before they succeeded in swallowing their first food. The unacquired 

 power of following by sight was very plainly exemplified in the case of a 

 chicken that, after being unhooded, sat complaining and motionless for 

 six minutes, when I placed my hand on it for a few seconds. On 

 removing my hand the chicken immediately followed it by sight back- 

 ward and forward and all round the table. To take, by way 

 of example, the observations in a single case a little in detail: A 

 chicken that had been made the subject of experiments on hearing, 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 head 

 and eyes the movements 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. For twenty minutes 

 it sat on the spot where its eyes had been unveiled without attempting 

 to walk a step. It was then placed 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 per- 

 ception 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 dis- 

 cover 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 a straight line as the nature of the ground would 

 permit. This, let it be remembered, was the first time it had ever walked 

 by sight.* 



* Since writing this article, I see it stated in Mr. Darwin's new book, ' The 

 Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals,' that " the wonderful power 

 which a chicken possesses only a few hours after being hatched, of picking up 

 small particles of food, seems to be started into action through the sense of 

 hearing; for, with chickens hatched by artificial heat, a good observer found 

 that ' making a noise with a fingernail against a board, in imitation of the hen- 

 mother, first taught them to peck at their meat.' " My own observations give no 

 countenance whatever to this view : (1)1 have frequently observed chickens 

 finally hatched in a flannel nest over a jar of hot water and left undisturbed for 



VOL. LXI. — 9. 



