JOURNAL OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR 



Vol. 6 JANUARY-FEBRUARY No. 1 



THE COLOR VISION OF BIRDS 



I. The Spectrum of the Domestic Fowl 



K. S. LASHLEY 

 Johns Hopkins University 



Evidence bearing upon the color vision of birds has come, 

 thus far, chiefly from three sources; tests for the Purkinje 

 phenomenon, discrimination tests with pigments, and photo- 

 electric studies of the retina. Hess ('07) advanced the first 

 evidence for the Purkinje phenomenon in birds. He placed 

 white rice grains on a matt-black background, illuminated them 

 with a spectrum, and placed fowls before them. The birds, 

 light adapted, pecked first from the region of the orange through 

 the red to the limit of the human spectrum, then in the yellow 

 to blue-green, never in the blue or violet. Dark adapted and 

 with a spectrum of low intensity they began to peck in the 

 region of the yellow or orange-yellow and reached somewhat 

 farther into the blue-green but never into the blue. Similar 

 behavior was observed in the pigeon. The point of greatest 

 stimulating value seemed to shift from the longer to the shorter 

 wave-lengths with darkness adaptation. These results also led 

 Hess to conclude that the spectrum of the day-bird is shortened 

 at the violet end. In view of Watson's proof ('15) that the 

 spectrum of the fowl is fully as extensive as that of man the 

 validity of such a method as that of Hess becomes questionable. 



Katz and Revesz ('07 and '09) reported experiments with 

 color-papers and stained rice grains in which fowls, when dark 

 adapted and in dim light pecked more frequently at grains 

 reflecting the shorter wave-lengths than when light adapted and 



