iSgy. THE PROBLEM OF INSTINCT. 163 



walks and runs, and is able to pick up small objects in its beak, some 

 being rejected and others swallowed. The young duck swims when 

 put into the water, or when it accidentally walks into it, but it has no 

 instinctive desire for it, and does not, as is often stated, run to it from 

 a distance. Young dippers dive perfectly the first time they reach the 

 water, and young swallows fly with great precision, avoiding obstacles 

 almost as readily as do the old birds. With such congenital powers, 

 and with an instinctive fear or suspicion of everything that is strange 

 to them, they learn with marvellous rapidity ; and having once found 

 that a particular object is disagreeable or unfit for food they rarely 

 require a second lesson, and thus in a few days accumulate a stock of 

 experience, which, unless the process has been closely watched, may 

 easily be set down to instinct. 



About one-third part of Professor Lloyd Morgan's work is devoted 

 to such experiments and observations on young birds and mammals as 

 have now been indicated, and the amount of new and varied informa- 

 tion here brought together is sufficiently large to form the basis of 

 sound reasoning on the nature and limitations of the faculties 

 involved ; and perhaps no living biologist is better fitted to do this 

 successfully than the author. In the series of chapters headed: "The 

 Relation of Consciousness to Instinctive Behaviour," " Intelligence 

 and the Acquisition of Habits," " Imitation," and " The Emotions in 

 Relation to Instinct," we have a careful and interesting study of the 

 physiological and psychological aspects of the facts that have been 

 laid before us ; a study which is in the highest degree instructive, 

 and which will serve to guide future students of the subject both as 

 to the interpretation of the facts already established, and as to the 

 observations most needed for the elucidation of matters which are 

 still unsettled. These chapters, however, are hardly suited for illus- 

 tration or summary, and we will therefore pass on to those which 

 deal with the alleged instincts of adult animals, and with some of the 

 most disputed questions which now divide biologists ; but, before 

 doing so, it will be well to quote the author's definition of instinct, as 

 well as the conclusions he has reached as to its nature. 



At the end of the first chapter, which gives a popular sketch of 

 the facts which demand explanation or verification, Professor Morgan 

 says : — 



" We may now sum up what has been advanced in the foregoing 

 discussion, and say that, from the biological point of view, instincts 

 are congenital, adaptive, and co-ordinated activities of relative com- 

 plexity, and involving the behaviour of the organism as a whole. 

 They are not characteristic of individuals as such, but are similarly 

 performed by all like members of the same more or less restricted 

 group, under circumstances which are either of frequent recurrence 

 or are vitally essential to the continuance of the race. . . . They are 

 to be distinguished from habits which owe their definiteness to indi- 

 vidual acquisition and the repetition of individual performance." 



And after having described the various actions of young birds 



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