INSTINCT. 131 



of merely testing the perceptions of the eye or the ear this is by far the 

 easier experiment. The hooding process requires considerable delicacy 

 of manipulation, and the chickens are very liable to be injured. 



With respect now to the space perceptions of the ear, which, in man 

 at least, even Mr. Spencer regards as acquired by each individual. 

 Chickens hatched and kept in the said bag for a day or two, when taken 

 out and placed nine or ten feet from a box in which a hen with chicks 

 were concealed, after standing for a minute or two, uniformly set off 

 straight for the box in answer to the call of the hen, which they had 

 never seen and never before heard. This they did, struggling through 

 grass and over rough ground, when not yet able to stand steadily on 

 their legs. Nine chickens were thus experimented upon, and each 

 individual gave the same positive results, running to the box scores of 

 times, and from every possible position. To vary the experiment I 

 tried the effect of the mother's voice on hooded chickens. These, when 

 left to themselves, seldom made a forward step, their movements were 

 round and round, and backward ; but when placed within five or six feet 

 of the mother, they, in answer to her call, became much more lively, 

 began to make little forward journeys, and soon followed her by sound 

 alone, though, of course, blindly, keeping their heads close to the ground 

 and knocking against everything that lay in their path. Only three 

 chickens were made subjects of this experiment. Another experiment 

 consisted in rendering chickens deaf for a time by sealing their ears 

 with several folds of gum paper before they had escaped from the 

 shell. I tried at different times to stop the ears of a good many in this 

 way, but a number of them got the papers off, others were found not 

 quite deaf, and only three remained perfectly indifferent to the voice 

 of the mother when separated from them by only an inch board. These 

 had their ears opened when between two and three days old, and on being 

 placed within call of the mother hidden in a box, they, after turning 

 round a few times, ran straight to the spot whence came what must 

 have been very nearly, if not actually, the first sound they had ever 

 heard. It seems scarcely necessary to make any comment on these facts. 

 They are conclusive against the theory that, in the history of each life, 

 sounds are at first but meaningless sensations ; that the direction of the 

 sounding object, together with all other facts concerning it, must be 

 learned entirely from experience. 



If now it be taken as established that in the perceptions of the eye 

 and the ear, chickens at least manifest an instinctive knowledge of the 

 relations and qualities of external things, the popular belief that the 

 special knowledge, the peculiar art and skill, so marked in the various 

 species of animals, come to them mostly without the labor of acquisi- 

 tion, is at once freed from all antecedent improbability. In the way of 

 direct evidence, the little that I have been able to observe in this wide 



