INSTINCT. 133 



of nervous dance, made on a smooth table. As an example of unacquired 

 dexterity, I may mention that on placing four ducklings a day old in the 

 open air for the first time, one of them almost immediately snapped at 

 and caught a fly on the wing. More interesting, however, is the 

 deliberate art of catching flies practised by the turkey. When not a 

 day and a half old I observed the young turkey already spoken of 

 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 is then seized by a sudden dart. If all this can be proved 

 to be instinct, few, I think, will care to maintain that anything that 

 can be learned from experience may not also appear as an intuition. 

 The evidence I have in this case, though not so abundant as could be 

 wished, may yet, perhaps, be held sufficient. I have mentioned that this 

 masterpiece of turkey cleverness when first observed was in the incipient 

 stage, and, like the nervous dance that precedes the actual scraping, 

 ended in nothing. I noted it simply as an odd performance that I did 

 not understand. The turkey, however, which was never out of my 

 sight except when in its flannel bag, persisted in its whimsical pointing 

 at flies, until before many days I was delighted to discover that there 

 was more in it than my philosophy had dreamt of. I went at once to 

 the flock of its own age. They were following a common hen, which 

 had brought them out; and as there were no other turkeys about the 

 place, they could not possibly learn by imitation. As the result, how- 

 ever, of their more abundant opportunities, I found them already in the 

 full and perfect exercise of an art — a cunning and skilful adjusting of 

 means to an end — bearing conspicuously the stamp of experience. But 

 the circumstances under which these observations were made left me 

 no room for the opinion that the experience, so visible in their admirable 

 method of catching flies, was original, was the experience, the acquisition 

 of those individual birds. To read what another has observed is not, 

 however, so convincing as to see for oneself, and to establish a case so 

 decisive more observation may reasonably be desired; at the same time, 

 it can scarcely be attempted to set aside the evidence adduced, on the 

 ground of improbability, for the fact of instinct : all that is involved in 

 this more striking example has, we venture to think, been sufficiently 

 attested. 



A few manifestations of instinct still remain to be briefly spoken of. 

 Chickens as soon as they are able to walk will follow any moving object. 



