THE PROBLEMS OF COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY. 37 



followed with, its head and eyes the movements of a fly twelve 

 inches distant; and about ten minntes later "made a vigorous 

 dart at the fly, . . . seized and swallowed it at the first stroke." 

 When placed within sight and call of a hen, " it started off toward 

 the hen, displaying as keen a perception of the qualities of the 

 outer world as it was ever likely to possess in after-life. . . . This, 

 let it be remembered, was the first time it had ever walked by 

 sight." The young of mammals, though not as independent as 

 chicks, show quite a remarkable series of powers ready at birth. 

 A pig in one of Mr. Spalding's experiments, blindfolded at birth, 

 went about freely, though stumbling against things. When the 

 blinder was removed the next day, it " went round and round as if 

 it had had sight and suddenly lost it. In ten minutes it was 

 scarcely distinguishable from one that had had sight all along." 

 And Mr. Fiske tells us that " all mammals and most birds have 

 thus a period of babyhood that is not very long, but is, on the 

 whole, longest with the most intelligent creatures. It is especially 

 long with the higher monkeys, and among the man-like apes it 

 becomes so long as to be strikingly suggestive." Mr. Wallace ob- 

 served an orang-outang three months old, perfectly helpless, un- 

 able to feed or walk without assistance, or to grasp objects well, 

 and of these creatures Mr. Huxley says that they " remain unusu- 

 ally long under their mother's protection," and are probably not 

 adult until ten or fifteen years old. 



The extreme divergence between the state in which the indi- 

 vidual enters the world and the powers attainable during life ap- 

 pears without question in the human species. A more complete 

 condition of helplessness than appears in the human infant can 

 scarcely be conceived : only such senses and movements as are 

 immediately necessary to nutrition are present ; although sensi- 

 tiveness to light, and after some days to sound also, appear, ac- 

 curate perception by these senses is impossible for several months. 

 While the newly hatched chick sees a grain of corn and accu- 

 rately seizes it, the human infant in the presence of a desired object, 

 even after months of practice, performs a host of uncoordinated, 

 useless movements, obtaining the object as much by accident as 

 by design. On the other hand, we should not forget the marked 

 educability of the higher animals. An old bird does and avoids 

 much that is impossible to the young one ; the kitten and cat, the 

 pup and dog, show still greater differences. As a single illustra- 

 tion from the vast testimony on this point, Dr. Eimer's observa- 

 tions with a trap for catching sparrows may be cited. At the first 

 setting he caught a dozen sparrows ; at the second setting, nine 

 were caught ; but all these " were young birds, hatched the same 

 spring, and therefore of little experience. Not a single old sparrow 

 had entered the trap." The following spring " a curious spectacle 



