On Animal Instinct : in its Relation to the Mind of Man. 329 



its plumage — the external furnishing being inseparably united with 

 the internal furnishing of mind which enables the little creature in 

 very truth to " walk by faith and not by sight."' Is this automatonism? 

 Is this machinery? Yes, undoubtedly, in the sense explained befoie— 

 that the instinct has been given to the bird in precisely the same sense 

 in which its structure has been given to it — so that anterior to all 

 experience, and without the aid of instruction or of example, it is 

 inspired to act in this manner <m the appropriate occasion arising. 



Then, in the case of the Wild Duck, we rise to a yet higher form of 

 instinct, and to more complicated adaptations of congenital powers to 

 the contingencies of the external world. It is not really conceivable 

 that Wild Ducks have commonly many opportunities of studying each 

 other's action when rendered helpless by wounds. Nor is it conceiv- 

 able that such study can have been deliberately made even when 

 opportunites do occur. When one out of a flock is wounded all the 

 others make haste to escape, and it is certain that this trick of 

 imitated helplessness is practised by individual birds which can never 

 have had any such opportunities at all. Moreover there is one very 

 remarkable circumstance connected with this instinct, which marks 

 how much of knowledge and of reasoning is implicitly contained within 

 it. As asainst Man the manoeuvre is not onlv useless but it is injurious. 

 When a man sees a bird resorting to this imitation, he is deceived for 

 a moment, as I have myself been ; but his knowledge and experience 

 and his reasoning faculty soon tell him, from a combination of circum- 

 stances, that it IS merely the usual deception. To Man, theref )re, it 

 has the opposite eflect of revealing the proximity of the young brood, 

 which would not otherwise be known. I have repeatedly been led by 

 it to the discovery of the chicks. Now, the most cuiious fact of all is 

 that this distinction between Man and other predacious anima's is 

 recognized and reflected in the insthict of birds. The manoeuvre of 

 counterfeiting helplessness is very rarely resorted to except when a 

 dog is present. Dogs are almost uniformly deceived by it. They 

 never can resist the temptation presented by a bird which flutters 

 apparently heli)less just in front of their nose. It is, therefore, almost 

 always sti'ccessful in drawing them off and so rescuing the young from 

 danger. But it is the sense of smell, not the sense of sight which 

 makes dogs so specially dangerous. The instinct which has been given 

 to birds seems to cover and include tJie knowledge that as the sense of 

 smell does not exist to the like effect in Man. the mere concealment of 

 the young from sight is ordinarily as regards him sufficient f )r their 

 protection; and yet I have on one occasion seen the trick resorted to 

 when Man only wa&the source of danger, and this by a species of bird 



