Some Habits and Instincts of Young Birds. 55 



of the poison, of the hive bee does not serve as a warning 

 against humble-bees so long as they do not buzz, but, 

 on the other hand, may give rise to the avoidance of even 

 a large fly if it makes a buzzing noise. Some difference 

 in the results in different animals may, perhaps, be due to 

 the fact that in some cases the bee, the bitter experience 

 of which gave the initial avoidance, buzzed, and in some 

 cases did not. 



It seems, therefore, that the tendency to peck at small 

 objects, always within striking distance, is a congenital 

 and instinctive activity which involves great nicety and 

 no little complexity of motor co-ordination ; that in 

 presence of largish moving objects there is hesitation, and 

 probably instinctive shyness and timidity ; that apart from 

 this there is no instinctive discrimination ; that what shall 

 be selected for eating and what rejected is a matter of 

 individual experience ; and that, by repetition of the 

 selective process, the eating of certain materials, and not 

 of others, passes into a more or less fixed habit. 



I will conclude this chapter with a brief description 

 of a few observations made on nestling birds. 



The callow young of these birds are fed by the parents, 

 either on grubs, worms, or insects, or other such food 

 which they collect, or on food which is prepared for them, 

 or in some cases formed by a special mode of secretion. 

 They simply open their mouths, gaping widely to be fed ; 

 but the swallowing reflex is congenitally adequate. A 

 spotted fly-catcher, about a day old, with eyes not yet open, 

 would stretch out its neck and widely gape its beak on the 

 auditory stimulus of a low whistle, gulping down greedily 

 the little bits of raw beef on which it was fed. Swallows 

 in the nest will respond at once to a low whistle by 

 similar gaping actions. The eyes of the fly-catcher were 

 not open till the third day after I received it. It was 



