A CHAPTER ON INSTINCT. iO 



Again, the voices of birds are very descriptive of tlieir various characters. 

 The soft inward notes of the fruit- eating and insectivorous birds proclaim 

 their harmless habits, while the discordant notes of others point them out 

 at once, either as predaceous or so in a modified degree. It is remarkable 

 that amongst water-birds there are no songsters; as if the murmuring of 

 the brook, or the roar of the ocean ought not to be broken by any other 

 sound. It is true there is the Reed Wren, or Salicaria, a "sweet polyglot," 

 as Gilbert White aptly calls it, and the Water-pyot, which have sweet 

 inward "trillin::rs;" but when we come to the Ducks, Gulls, Terns, and 

 Tringas, we all know very well what sort of music they make; but still each 

 of them has its "voices" too; and the common Ducks and Geese of domes- 

 tication, if watched, will be found to furnish as good an example of my 

 proposition as the Gallince; and so would probably many more kinds, had 

 we the same opportunity of observing them. The Swan is said to sing, 

 but when I first heard the Hooper or Wild Swan, I paid it the very 

 bad compliment to mistake it for the turning of a rusty hinge. 



The song of birds, that charming attribute which distinguishes them 

 from all other creatures, the human race not excepted, I shall perhaps 

 speak of hereafter, but for the present shall content myself with these 

 observations. 



Pembroke Square, Kensington, February, 1856. 



A CHAPTER ON INSTINCT. 



BY THE REV. F. 0. MORRIS. 

 ( Continued from page 60. J 



The Gasteropods, or cuttle-fish, still more advanced, endowed with some- 

 thing approaching to a brain, are enabled to move towards an object as 

 if with curiosity, and if alarmed by it, are to be seen suffused with a blush 

 of red, and then they eject the contents of an ink-bag, which Nature has 

 furnished them with for a protection, and hide themselves from the obserr 

 vation of the enemy that they dread. 



A step farther in the scale of creation we meet with the class of star- 

 fishes. These give the first manifestation of a true nervous system, for 

 though apparently sluggish, and devoid of all intelligence, they display an 

 instinctive sagacity in choosing and seeking for their food. So also the 

 common sea-hog, sea-egg, or echinus, though seemingly destitute of- every 

 sense, and unable either to see or hear, will ascend up and descend into 

 the trap set to catch crabs, and when it wishes, will ascend again to the 

 bait, and choose that which it seems to prefer. 



It would appear to be a certain fact that many animals have nerves of 



