PLAY AND INSTINCT. 43 



ing a quite similar experiment with young rabbits and 

 ferrets.* Hudson once found some eggs of the Parr a 

 jacana. " While I was looking closely at one of the 

 eggs," says he, " lying on the palm of my hand, all at 

 once the cracked shell parted, and the young bird quick- 

 ly leaped from my hand and fell into the water. I am 

 quite sure that its sudden escape from the shell and 

 from my hand was the result of a violent effort on its 

 part to free itself, and it was doubtless stimulated to 

 make the effort by the loud, persistent screaming of the 

 parent birds, which it heard while in the shell. Stoop- 

 ing to pick it up to save it from perishing, I soon saw 

 that my assistance was not required, for immediately on 

 dropping into the water it put out its neck and with the 

 body nearly submerged, like a wounded duck trying to 

 escape observation, it swam rapidly across, and, escaping 

 from the water, concealed itself in the grass, lying close 

 and perfectly motionless like a young plover." f 



Weinland reports of the snapping turtle: " For 

 months these turtles emerge daily from eggs laid in the 

 sand and moss, and it is noteworthy that the first move- 

 ments of the little heads thrust out of the broken shell 

 are those of snapping and biting." ■ J 



Preyer and Binet are firmly convinced that instinct 

 is the source of the child's first attempts to walk. Ac- 

 cording to Binet's observations, children only a few 

 weeks old really take measured steps when held up so 

 that the soles of their feet rest on the floor* In short, 



mals, 1895, iv and vi, where Spalding's investigation is referred to 

 as " somewhat overdone, though reliable in the main." 



* 6. J. Romanes, Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 164f. See 

 also Hudson's Naturalist in La Plata, chap, vi, p. 89. 



f The Naturalist in La Plata, p. 112. 



X From Brehm's Thierleben, second edition, vii, p. 64. 



* A. Binet, Recherches sur les mouvements quelques jeunes 



