ORGANIC EVOLUTION — MENTAL 159 



parrot or a jackdaw, whicli begins life with a compara- 

 tively slender equipment of instinct. So also a young 



it be remembered, was the first time it liad ever walked by 

 sight.' 



" Further, ' When twelve days old one of my little proteges, while 

 running about beside me, gave the peculiar chirr whereby they 

 announce the approach of danger. I looked up, and behold a 

 sparrow-hawk was hovering at a great height overhead. Equally 

 striking was the effect of the hawk's voice when heard for the first 

 time. A young turkey, which I had adopted when chirj^ing with- 

 in the uncracked shell, was on the morning of the tenth day of its 

 life eating a comfortable breakfast from my hand, when the young 

 hawk, in a cupboard just beside us, gave a shrill chip, chip, chip. 

 Like an arrow the poor turkey shot to the other side of the room, 

 and stood there motionless and dumb with fear, until the hawk 

 gave a second cry, when it darted out at the open door right to 

 the extreme end of the passage, and there, silent and crouched in 

 a corner, remained for ten minutes. Several times during the course 

 of that day it again heard these alarming sounds, and in every 

 instance with similar manifestations of fear.' 



" Again referring to young chickens, Mr. Spalding continues — 

 ' Scores of times I have seen them attempt to dress their wings 

 when only a few hours old — indeed, as soon as they could hold up 

 their heads, and even when denied the use of their eyes. The art 

 of scraping in search for food, whicli, if anything, might be acquired 

 by imitation — for the hen with chickens spends the half of her 

 time in scratching for them — is nevertheless another indisputable 

 case of instinct. Without any opportunities of imitation, when 

 kept quite isolated from their kind, chickens began to scrape when 

 from two to six days old. Generally, the condition of the ground 

 was suggestive ; but I have several times seen the first attempt, 

 which consists of a sort of nervous dance, made on a small table.' 

 " In this connection I may here insert an interesting observation 

 which has been communicated to me by Dr. Allen Thomson, F.R.S. 

 He hatched out some chickens on a carpet, where he kept them for 

 several days; They showed no inclination to scrape, because the 

 stimulus supplied by the carpet to the soles of their feet was of too 

 novel a character to call into action the hereditary instinct ; but 

 when Dr. Thomson sprinkled a little gravel on the carpet, and so 

 supplied the appropriate or customary stimulus, the chickens 

 immediately began their scraping movements. 



"But to return to Mr. Spalding's experiments, he says : — 'As 

 an example of unacquired dexterity, I may mention, that on 

 placing four ducklings a day old in the open air for the first time, 

 one of them almost immediately snapped at and caught a fly on the 

 wing. More interesting, however, is the deliberate art of catching 

 flies practised by the turkey. When not a day and a half old I 

 observed the young turkey already spoken of pointing its beak at 



