IMPERFECTION OF INSTINCT. 171 



corner, remained cowering for a length of time. We might 

 guess at the meaning of this strange and exceptional wild- 

 ness ; but the odd fact is enough for my present purpose. 

 Whatever might have been the meaning of this marked change 

 in their mental constitution — had they been unhooded on the 

 previous day they would have run to me instead of from me 

 — it could not have been the effect of experience ; it must 

 have resulted wholly from changes in their own organiza- 

 tion." 



Subsequently Mr. Spalding tried the experiment of 

 keeping young ducklings away from the water for several 

 days after they were hatched ; on then bringing them to a 

 pond they showed as much dislike to the water as young 

 chickens would have done. (See Lewes, article Instinct, 

 " Problems of Life and Mind.") 



The change produced in the instincts of male animals by 

 castration may also be mentioned in the present connection, 

 and particularly the tendency which is thus induced among 

 cock birds to adopt the incubating and other habits of the 

 hen. I quote the following from a recently published article 

 by Dr. J. W. Stroud of Port Elizabeth, who has devoted a 

 good deal of attention to the subject of caponizing : — 



"Aristotle, more than two thousand years ago, tells us of 

 a cock that performed all the duties of a hen. (' Hist. An. 

 Lib.' ix, 42.) Pliny, too, speaks of the motherly care bestowed 

 by a cock on chickens. ' He did everything for them,' says 

 he, ' like to the very hen that hatched them, and ceased to 

 crow.' (' Pliny Trans.' i, 299.) Albertus Magnus witnessed 

 tin; same thing; and .Elian (' Hist.' iv, 29) mentions a cock 

 which on the death of the hen while hatching, took to the 

 i s, sat on them, and brought out chicks.' Says Willoughby 

 (in ' Ray's Willoughby's Natural History'), • We have beheld 

 more than once, not without pleasure and admiration, a ( lapon 

 l.i inging up a brood of chickens, like a hen clucking over them, 

 feeding them, and brooding them under his wings with as 

 much care and tend) mesa as their dams are wunt to do.' 



'Once accustomed to this office/ says Baptists Rosa ('Magia 

 Nataralis' iv, 26), 'a Capon will never abandon it. hut when 



one brood is grown up another hatch of newly hatched 

 chickens may be put to him and he will he as kind to them 

 and take as much rare of them as of the liist, and so in 

 succession.' Pcaumur (^ Art de Fa ire Ecloie,' torn, ii, p. 8) 



