Habit and Instinct. 



the direction of a beech tree, which it gracefully avoided. 

 It was seen for a considerable time sweeping round the 

 beeches, and performing magnificent evolutions in the air 

 high above them. The other, which was observed to beat 

 the air with its wings more than usual, was soon lost to 

 sight behind some trees. Titmice, tomtits, and wrens," 

 says Spalding, " I have made the subjects of a similar 

 experiment, and with similar results." * Professor Preyer 

 writes as follows :f " The young redstarts which I have 

 observed daily before they were fledged, receive no in- 

 structions for flying. But they exercise their wings in 

 the nest before the first attempt at flight, often spreading 

 them and making them whir. The first excursion is 

 slower than the flight of the parents ; the young creature 

 flies downward, but it never hits against anything, and 

 after a few days the certainty of its flight is worthy of 

 admiration. Confidence comes with practice." 



The following experiment, to which Dr. Van Dyck, of 

 Beyrout, drew my attention, may readily be performed. 

 If a chick a day or two old be placed in a basket, held 

 firmly in the hand, and then lowered rapidly through the 

 air, the fledgeling will stretch out his little immature wings 

 in such an attitude as would make them break his fall were 

 they fully developed; or will, if he be a little older, flap 

 them with flight-like action, in either case showing an 

 instinctive response. I do not find that moorhen chicks 

 do this for some weeks, the early movements of the wings, 

 which are very skinny and unfledged, being, as before 

 mentioned, peculiar and alternating; they are held out 

 forwards over the back, and at the sides of the thrown- 

 back head, when food is offered or when they scold each 



* Nature, vol. xii. p. 507. 



t " The Mind of the Child," part i. p. 239. Translated by H. W. Brown, 

 New York. 





