DISCUSSIONS ON INSTINCT 283 



offered. Kepeatedly, before these small chickens, not 

 twenty-four hours from the shell, and before they had 

 been offered food, I have filled their shallow water-tray, 

 and observed them toddle out to it, peck at it, or at 

 once thrust their bills into it, to drink at once T)y up- 

 lifting their heads, as all adult fowls do, the hen never 

 putting her head out from the bars, or showing these 

 young chicks how to do what they instinctively did. 

 I have made the same experiments repeatedly with 

 food, with the same result, i.e. that chicks instinctively 

 drink and eat without any example being set by the 

 mother hen. HENKY W. ELLIOTT. 



LAKEWOOD, OHIO, llth March 1896. 



THE INSTINCT OF PECKING. 



IN discussing Prof. Morgan's lecture on " Instinct," it 

 has several times been stated that chickens pecked 

 instinctively, but had to be taught to drink. There 

 was a note in Nature last year, concerning some species 

 of Asiatic pheasants it may possibly have been the 

 Jungle Fowl to the effect that the young did not 

 peck instinctively, and did not offer to take food 

 spread before them. The natives seem aware of this 

 peculiarity, and in the particular instance recorded, a 

 native induced the young birds to peck by tapping on 

 the ground with a pencil near the food. They seemed 

 attracted by the sound and movement, and were thus 

 induced to peck at the food. F. A. LUCAS. 



SCIENCE," 13th March 1896. 



