BLENDED ORIGIN, OR PLASTICITY OF INSTINCT. 215 



sciously corroborated in every detail by a correspondent, 

 Mrs. L. MacFarlane, of Glasgow. Indeed, the similarity is so 

 precise, that I think the two descriptions must refer to the same 

 incident ; but as to this I cannot be sure, because upon my 

 writing to Mrs. MacFarlane to enquire, she answers that she 

 is not able to inform me. However, this point is immaterial, 

 for my correspondent had the story at first hand from the 

 lady to whom the birds belonged (and with whom she was 

 intimately acquainted), so that if the case is not the same as 

 the one narrated by Jesse, its repetition is so exact that the 

 same description applies to both the cases. 



" A hen, who had reared three broods of ducks in three 

 successive years, became habituated to their taking to the 

 water, and would fly to a large stone in the middle of the 

 pond, and quietly and contentedly watch her brood as they 

 swam about it. The fourth year she hatched her own eggs, 

 and finding that her chickens did not take to the water as 

 the ducklings had done, she flew to the stone in the pond, and 

 called them to her with the utmost eagerness. This recollec- 

 tion of the habits of her former charge is not a little curious." 



^ly correspondent, Mrs. MacFarlane, also gives me another 

 closely similar but even more remarkable case, which was 

 observed by her sister. Miss IMackillar, of Tarbert, Cantyre. 

 In this case a hen had also reared three successive broods of 

 ducklings in successive years, and then hatched out a brood of 

 nine chickens. The season being late, she was confined for 

 some weeks till the chickens became strong enough to face 

 the cold weather. Then, in the words of my correspondent, 

 " the first day she was let out she disappeared, and after a 

 long search my sister found her beside a little stream which 

 her successive broods of ducklings had been in the habit of 

 frequenting. She had got four of her chickens into the 

 stream, which was fortunately very shallow at the time. The 

 other five were staudine^ on its maroin, and she was endea- 

 vouring by all sorts of coaxing hen-language, and by pushing 

 each chicken in turn with her bill, to get them into the water 

 also." 



From these cases it is evident that in a portion of the 

 lifetime of an individual hen there may be laid, by intelli- 

 gent observation and memory, the basis of a new instinct, 

 adapted to an immense and sudden change in the habits of 

 progeny : and that in all the foregoing cases the foster-mother 



