148 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



of the domestic fowl some years ago, when the negh'gence of a 

 sitting hen obliged him to undertake the care of some young 

 chicks from the time of their leaving the shell. Hatched under 

 these circumstances there were special opportunities for observing 

 the inborn faculties of the birds, and the lecturer had found that 

 all his preconceived notions of inherited instinct must give way 

 before the utter helplessness of the chicks. Unable at first to 

 balance themselves on their feet, repeated efforts had to be made 

 before they could stand. They were without any notion of 

 picking up food when hungry or swallowing it ; indeed, the most 

 rudimentary actions of life had to be learned by experience. 

 Absurd attempts to reach an object were made before any idea of 

 distance was gained ; and, stranger still, the " clucking " of the hen 

 only excited fear, though the chicks would run confidingly to the 

 hand of the lecturer. Further details were given of the habits of 

 young birds brought up away from the parent, giving evidence 

 of intelligence and application, but showing a lack of the usual 

 peculiarities when unable to learn them from other members of 

 their species. The lecturer pointed out that there are two 

 methods of communicating thoughts and wishes — the visible 

 method, i.e. gesture, and the audible, or language, and that in 

 man the latter had become so complete and accurate that the 

 former was unnecessary, though in lower animals it was all- 

 important. Keeping to the domestic fowl as a type, he admitted 

 the great difficulty of learning its language, as the means of 

 gesture and the organs of speech are so different from our own. 

 Long and close observation of the poultry yard had enabled him 

 not only to analyze the sounds produced, and to explain them 

 physiologically, but also to learn their significance and imitate 

 them so successfully as to be understood by the birds themselves. 

 He pointed out that they would not notice or answer to ordinary 

 pet names, but looked up at once if their own call-notes were 

 imitated. They did not understand pointing with the finger, as 

 they themselves pointed with the head and beak. Very close 

 investigations of the call-notes of different individuals, the alarm- 

 note, the call to food, and the cry of danger had been made. 

 Gestures and expressions of fear and disgust, the modes of 

 salute, and soothing, reassuring sounds heard at roosting time, in 

 the darkness, were described and imitated. The brooding hen 

 has a vocabulary of her own, modified and limited till her young 

 ones are able to run about. The crowing of cocks, though 

 similar to the ears of the uninitiated, differs in individuals, and 

 varies with the emotions which it expresses. In conclusion, the 

 lecturer urged the members of the society to undertake further 

 investigation into the language of birds, a study for which there 

 is special facility in the case of domesticated species. — The 

 /Zoologist, July, 1895. 



