38 Habit and Instinct. 



but it is some time before they will pick up food from the 

 ground. I tried with two moorhens the experiment of 

 feeding them as little as possible from the hand, so as 

 to induce them to eat independently, but with fatal 

 results. Mr. Crisp, who has had good opportunities of 

 watching these birds under natural conditions in the moat 

 beneath the walls of Playford Hall, in Suffolk, informs 

 me that the parent birds always feed the young from their 

 beaks during the first few days of life. The instinctive 

 attitude quite bears out the accuracy of this observation. 



When they are a little older, and have had some 

 practice, their keenness of eye, both at long and short 

 distances, and their accuracy of aim are alike wonderful. 

 One, about ten days old, after nestling awhile in my hand, 

 singled out and seized in his bill several not very con- 

 spicuous hairs on the first joint of my fore-finger. There 

 was also a speck of white on my hand, which caught his 

 eye, and at which he pecked with complete accuracy of 

 aim again and again. A few days after, one pecked at 

 a minute black speck on my hand, though it was but a 

 quarter of an inch from the tip of his bill. Shortly after- 

 wards, in the garden, he spied a small ant moving on the 

 wall about four feet distant, ran, and seized it. The field 

 of vision is very soon completely ordered for practical use. 



I took a young pheasant, which had been hatched some 

 time in the night, from the incubator drawer at nine 

 o'clock in the morning. He was very unsteady on his 

 legs, so I held him in my hand, and tried to induce him to 

 peck at a piece of egg-yolk held in a pair of forceps. 

 He did not do so ; but he followed, with his head, every 

 movement of the object in a narrow circle about two 

 inches in front of his beak. Simple as the action seems, 

 it shows a striking example of congenital co-ordinated 

 movements accurately related to movements in the visual 



