DISCUSSIONS ON INSTINCT 281 



reference to the observation specially described in my 

 letter, he plainly either misses the real point of iny ob- 

 servation or neatly evades it. One might as well say 

 a puppy learns to smell by accident, for, in the case 

 in question, the chick did not swallow water merely, 

 but raised its head like an old fowl and drank perfectly 

 well on the very first occasion that its beak had ever 

 been immersed in water (as a puppy sucks when its lips 

 first come in contact with a teat, etc.) ; and this I take 

 it is what happens in nature. The young grouse in the 

 forest, or even the chick on a grass plot or in a garden, 

 would come in contact with water without any assistance 

 from the mother bird. 



The assumption that " the chick might die of thirst in 

 the presence of water, as the sight of water does not 

 call up the movements of pecking at it, as do food and 

 other small objects," is purely gratuitous. It is not 

 primarily so much the sight, but rather the touch of 

 water inevitable, as I have tried to show, in a wild 

 state that in the very first instance leads to drinking, 

 though the bird would also peck at shining dewdrops, 

 as my chick did at the drops on the rim of a vessel 

 containing water. With a fair chance, and plenty of 

 water about, in a condition at all resembling that in 

 nature, there is no such thing for a vigorous, hardy 

 chick as death from thirst. 



That habits may be hereditary in dogs I have many 

 times observed in my own kennel, during the last eight 

 years, and, without expressing any opinion as to the 

 origin of instincts now, I can see no impossibility in 

 their dating back to habits. 



A doctrine which asserts that eating is instinctive, 

 but that drinking is not, is, to my mind, one to marvel 

 at, and is a poor foundation for theories of evolution or 

 heredity. 



