i22 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



INSTINCT AND INTELLIGENCE IN BIRDS— III 



Br Professor FRANCIS H. HERRICK 



ADELBERT COLLEGE 

 I 



IN earlier papers we have tried to show how the behavior of wild 

 birds is moulded upon instinct and how some of their instincts 

 have been modified on a large scale, or specialized in a peculiar manner. 

 We shall now examine the other side of the shield, in order to ascer- 

 tain how intelligently they work, and in relation to their intelligence 

 it will be necessary to consider the growth of the young, and the de- 

 velopment of certain instincts, more particularly that of fear. 



Many birds, like some mammals, have been lauded by idealists, as 

 paragons of virtue, and endowed with all the human or even angelic 

 powers of intelligence and reason; others, again, have regarded them 

 as the slaves of a blind or stupid instinct, whose lives are stereotyped, 

 and run in grooves, determined largely by heredity. " Do not speak 

 of blind instinct," says Michelet, the historian, " facts demonstrate how 

 that clear-sighted instinct modifies itself according to surrounding 

 conditions; in other words, how that rudimentary reason differs in its 

 nature from the lofty human reason." " Through the thick calcareous 

 shell, where your rude hand perceives nothing," the bird-mother " feels 

 by a delicate tact the mysterious being which she nourishes and forms. 

 . . . She sees it delicate and charming in its soft down of infancy, 

 and she predicts with the vision of hope that it will be vigorous and 

 bold, when, with outspread wings, it shall eye the sun and breast the 

 storm." 



While we are not over-zealous in applying the rule of parsimony, 

 like most modern students, we are compelled to take- a middle course. 

 When the degrees of intelligence can be more justly weighed, the 

 mental powers of birds, as well as of mammals, will be better under- 

 stood. At present the balance does not seen to swing very far on the 

 side of intelligence. It is certain that the instincts of birds are modi- 

 fied at every step by association, and that the automatism of habit is 

 quite as striking as that due to heredity, which it sometimes replaces. 

 Many birds learn readily from experience; some remember long, when 

 past experience serves as guide to future conduct. It may well be 

 doubted if they ever attain to the level of analogical reasoning, or of 

 deliberately inventing the means in order to attain a definite aim. 



Every observer is no doubt unduly influenced by the force of 



