J260 Mr Black wall on the Instincts q/' Birds. 



almost wholly founded on the hearsay reports of ignorant and 

 credulous persons. 



The history of the cuckoo proves, most incontrovertibly, 

 that the propensity to migrate in this species is instinctive, 

 since nearly all the young ones brought up annually in the 

 north of Europe, quit it without receiving the least instruc- 

 tion that such a proceeding is requisite, and without any guide 

 to direct them in their novel undertaking. But I forbear to 

 dwell on the instincts of this extraordinary bird, partly on ac- 

 count of their being so very anomalous, but chiefly because I 

 have considered them at length on a former occasion *. The 

 highly curious fact, that the swallow, house-martin, sand-mar- 

 tin, and puffin, sometimes leave their" last hatched brood to die 

 of hunger in the nest, in order to accompany their species in 

 their autumnal migration, is alone sufficient to establish the in- 

 stinctiveness of that inclination which can thus overcome their 

 parental affection^ — a feeling so energetic as frequently to coun- 

 teract one of the most powerful laws of nature, self-preservation. 

 No theory, in short, which is not founded on the opinion that 

 birds of passage, in undertaking their annual journeys, are in- 

 fluenced by an instinctive desire to migrate, liable to be called 

 into action by various exciting causes, can satisfactorily account 

 for the remarkable phenomena which result from this periodical 

 disposition to wander. 



The certainty with which the carrier-pigeon directs its course 

 towards its accustomed home, from distant places where it has 

 never been before, after every precaution has been taken in it-s 

 conveyance to prevent it from obtaining any knowledge of the 

 way by observation, must, as well as the act of migration, to 

 which it bears a striking resemblance, be likewise attributed to 

 instinct. 



It appears, then, from the foregoing observations, that the 

 principal action of birds, though liable to be considerably modi- 

 fied by the operations of the intellectual powers and changes of 

 organization, as well as by various external circumstances, are, 

 contrary to the opinion of Dr Darwin, decidedly of instinctive 

 origin. 



♦ See observations conducive towards a more complete history of the 

 cuckoo, printed in the fourth volume of the new series of the Society's Me- 



