64 Habit and Instinct. 



even seem to shrink from the water, if for some days they 

 are not given access to it.* 



Tempted by the raft, then, my moorhen chicks tried to 

 scramble over the barrier, but would not attempt to dive 

 under it. I lifted the barrier, so as to leave half an inch 

 of space between it and the water, and so long as the bird 

 could put its beak and head through, he would make a 

 shift to bring the body after; but when the space was 

 insufficient for this, the little bird would not attempt to get 

 under the barrier. So all these early attempts to induce 

 my little charges to dive were abortive. When the last of 

 the brood was taken to the beck near a farmhouse on the 

 Yorkshire moors, I hoped he would exhibit his natural 

 powers as a diver; but for some time he did not do so. 

 One day, however, when he was about nine weeks old 

 and becoming pretty well fledged, he was swimming in a 

 narrow part of the stream, with steep banks on either side, 

 when an ungainly, rough-haired pup came bungling down, 

 and made an awkward feint towards the bird. Plop ! 

 down he went out of sight in the twinkling of an eye ; and 

 after a moment I saw his head appear, just peeping above 

 water beneath the bank. Though long deferred, here was 

 the instinctive activity in congenital purity and defmite- 

 ness, and absolutely true to type, for this was the very first 

 time he had ever dived, nor had he ever seen any bird do so. 

 I take it that the failure to make him dive in the bath was, 

 perhaps, partly due to the unnatural surroundings — though 

 it must be remembered that at first he did not dive in the 

 beck — but chiefly to my inability to frighten him, so accus- 

 tomed was the bird to me and my strange ways ; for his 

 tameness, both with myself and others, was in marked 



* The same is true of the gosling. See Lewes's " Problems of Life and 

 Mind," Prob. i. chap. ii. § 22, note ; also T. K. R. Stebbing, " Essays on 

 Darwinism," p. 73. 



