Ii6 histinct. 



by which it varies within certain limits, to meet 

 change of condition in the world around it. 



But the peculiar fear which all grain-eating birds 

 have of hawks, even when they are seen for the first 

 time, is marvellous. The domestic fowls always 

 know their enemy, — raise the cry of alarm, — and even 

 the young chickens rush to cover. Young birds of 

 other kinds, in the nest, unable to fly and as yet 

 having no experience of evil, shrink with wild ter- 

 ror from a hawk. 



The fact that the fowl knows every bird of prey 

 at first sight, as something to be specially dread- 

 ed, is a thing that marks the manifestation of Instinct 

 as peculiar ; and for the existence of this peculiar 

 terror no rational account can be given, except that 

 this instinctive dread is an original endowment of 

 the fowl, without which the species would be de- 

 stroyed. All attempts to resolve it into habit or 

 experience, seem to us to utterly fail, as we shall at- 

 tempt to show in a future lecture. It is one of 

 the original outfits essential for the preservation 

 of the species, and therefore could no more be left 

 to experience than the Instinct for selecting food 

 could be left to experience. 



There is not only instinctive recognition, by 

 the fowl, of the hawk as an enemy, but Instinct 

 also makes every fowl a sentinel for all the rest 

 of the flock. The first one that sees the enemy 

 does not seek its own safety alone, but instantly 

 raises the cry of alarm, which all its fellows, even 

 the youngest, instantly understand. That note is 

 like no other, but it is common to all fowls when 



