PARENTAL CARE AND NEST-MAKING 305 



delicate bag. They may even hold the young ones in such 

 a position over the edge of the nest that all fouling is avoided. 

 Nature is all for health ! 



There are, of course, some repulsive nests, like that of the 

 beautiful hoopoe, smeUing of ordure, rancid butter, ammonia 

 and milk. This must surely be deliberate ; in any case it 

 is an exception that proves the rule. And there is no doubt 

 that the rule is that the parent birds should scrupulously 

 remove all trace of foulness from the nest, and sometimes 

 from the vicinity of the nest. This instinctive piece of 

 behaviour has been established in the course of time not 

 merely in relation to health, but to conceal the whereabouts 

 of the family. 



§ 4. Educating the Young 



The experiments of Lloyd Morgan and others have 

 shown that young birds (in some cases at least, e.g. chickens) 

 have not many ready-made or inborn capacities of effective 

 behaviour, not many when they are compared with ants or 

 bees. Thus the newly-hatched chick, undoubtedly thirsty 

 and willing to swallow drops of water brought to its bill, 

 will walk through a saucer of water without becoming aware 

 of its significance. If it happen to peck its toes when it is 

 standing in water, it becomes aware and drinks, raising its 

 bill to the sky. But it has no instinctive knowledge of water 

 as such, nor even of the meaning of its mother's cluck if it 

 has been hatched out in a mechanical " foster-mother." 

 What it lacks in the way of inborn instinctive endowment, as 

 compared with a bee or an ant, it makes up for by its power 

 of rapid " learning," its marvellous educability. Hence 

 the importance of the instruction which many parent birds 

 give their young. 



The solicitous mother-hen teaching its chickens to scratch 

 and peck, and teaching them also what certain calls mean, 

 is an image of many. There is often direct instruction as 

 well as apprenticeship in flying and diving, in catching 

 prey and avoiding enemies. The peregrine-falcons and 



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