192 THE SOCIAL LIFE OF ANIMALS 



positions are reversed, and a previously hen-pecked 

 male may drive his usually dominant mate back 

 onto the nest when she attempts to leave it. The 

 sexes in these parrakeets can be told apart only by 

 slight differences in color. 



When hens are giving the brooding reaction or 

 are caring for small chickens, they become less sub- 

 missive to other hens. Some of the other birds, whose 

 social ranking has been investigated, move up and 

 down in the social scale according to the phase of 

 the breeding and nesting cycle which they are in at 

 the time. 



It has been reported that with hens those high in 

 the peck-order have a higher IQ than their more 

 lowly placed flock mates. (72) The IQ was measured 

 in this case by placing grains of corn out on the 

 floor with every other grain securely fastened down, 

 and finding the speed and accuracy with which the 

 fowls would learn to peck at the loose grains only. 



We have had as yet only the most casual personal 

 contact with this problem so far as chickens are con- 

 cerned. With the parrakeets, Masure and I could 

 find no evidence of a positive correlation between 

 any aspect of ability to learn a maze and social rank. 



From this summary it is evident that in spite of 

 a great deal of study we do not know all the factors 

 which determine the position of birds in their social 



