i 3 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



And, when guided by sight alone, they seem to have no more disposition 

 to follow a hen than to follow a duck, or a human being. Unreflecting 

 on-lookers, when they saw chickens a day old running after me, and 

 older ones following me miles and answering to my whistle, imagined 

 that I must have some occult power over the creatures, whereas I simply 

 allowed them to follow me from the first. There is the instinct to 

 follow; and, as we have seen, their ear prior to experience attaches 

 them to the right object. The advantage of this arrangement is 

 obvious. But instincts are not conferred on any principle of supplying 

 animals with arts very essential to them, and which they could not very 

 well learn for themselves. If there is anything that experience would 

 be sure to teach chickens, it would be to take care when they had got a 

 piece of food not to let their fellows take it from them, and from the 

 very first they may be seen to run off with a worm, pursued by all their 

 companions. But this has been so stamped in their nature that, when 

 they have never seen one of their kind, nor ever been disturbed in the 

 enjoyment of a morsel, they nevertheless, when they get something larger 

 than can be swallowed at once, turn round and run off with it. 



Another suggestive class of phenomena that fell under my notice 

 may be described as imperfect instincts. When a week old my turkey 

 came on a bee right in its path — the first, I believe, it had ever seen. It 

 gave the danger chirr, stood for a few seconds with outstretched neck 

 and marked expression of fear, then turned off in another direction. 

 On this hint I made a vast number of experiments with chickens and 

 bees. In the great majority of instances the chickens gave evidence of 

 instinctive fear of these sting-bearing insects; but the results were not 

 uniform, and perhaps the most accurate general statement I can give is, 

 that they were uncertain, shy and suspicious. Of course to be stung 

 once was enough to confirm their misgivings forever. Pretty much in 

 the same way did they avoid ants, especially when swarming in great 

 numbers. 



Probably enough has been said to leave no doubt in minds free from 

 any bias on the subject, that in the more important concerns of their 

 lives the animals are in great part guided by knowledge that they 

 individually have not gathered from experience. But equally certain 

 is it that they do learn a great deal, and exactly in the way that we 

 are generally supposed to acquire all our knowledge. For example, 

 every chicken, as far as my observations go, has to learn not to eat its 

 own excrement. They made this mistake invariably; but they did not 

 repeat it oftener than once or twice. Many times they arrested them- 

 selves when in the very act, and went off shaking their heads in disgust, 

 though they had not actually touched the obnoxious matter. It also 

 appeared that, though thirsty, they did not recognize water by sight, 

 except perhaps in the form of dew-drops on the grass ; and they had to 



