SIDE UGHTS ON BIRDS 



Lord Grey of Falloden who, forgetting awhile the 

 cares of State, brings his wide experience and 

 keen intelHgence to bear on many moot points 

 in Natural History, has stated in an address, that 

 wild things when young, until warned by their 

 parents, have in many cases, no fear of man. 

 Professor Thomson, too, remarks that experiments 

 have shown that young birds are not usually 

 rich in inborn knowledge and that a chick hatched 

 in an incubator away from its kind has no inborn 

 knowledge of the meaning of its unseen mother's 

 cluck. 



That parental guidance begins very early, even 

 before the chick is actually hatched, is proved by 

 many observations. Mr. E. Kay Robinson has 

 stated that he once saw a young water-hen en- 

 gaged in chipping the egg in which it was en- 

 closed, and uttering from time to time, the low 

 " peep " of its kind. At a warning cluck from 

 its mother it instantly became silent, and ceased 

 its efforts to free itself. But the view that young 

 wild animals, both birds and beasts, have little 

 or no inborn knowledge of the dangers of this 

 strange material plane on which they find them- 

 selves placed, and of the best means of escaping 

 them, is one that, to our mind, cannot be upheld. 

 In the matter of instinctive fear it is useful to 

 compare the behaviour of a young creature de- 

 rived from a tame, domesticated stock, and one 

 that owes its parentage to wild and naturally 

 very shy forebears. A young canary born in a 

 cage shows the utmost placidity in regard to its 

 surroundings : a young grey linnet hatched 

 from a " wild" egg, in the same circumstances, 

 gives evidence of the wild blood running in its 

 veins at a very early stage. The young of a tame 

 rabbit or of a domestic cat, are contented little 

 bundles of fur ; but at the same age, the progeny 



122 



