84 Habit and Instinct. 



the alarm or danger note, as they did also when I threw 

 among them a large ball of screwed-up paper. Of a Java 

 sparrow, too, in a cage they seemed afraid. The ducks, 

 wild and tame alike, seemed to show any disquiet they 

 may have felt less markedly — perhaps because they have 

 no danger note which can be readily noticed. But they did 

 not go near the tin for more than an hour. I have omitted 

 to try the effect of introducing the dog to their notice for 

 the first time at a comparatively late period — after they 

 are ten days or so old. I should expect them then to show 

 signs of timidity ; not because he is a dog, but because he 

 is new and strange to their experience. For in some respects 

 timidity increases with increased experience of the ways of 

 this wicked world. 



Very noticeable is the effect on chicks of any sudden 

 noise — a sneeze, a clap of the hands, a sharply struck chord 

 on the violin, or the sudden pitching among them of a piece of 

 screwed-up paper. They scatter and crouch, or sometimes 

 simply crouch down where they are ; the constant piping 

 " cheep-cheep " ceases, and for a moment there is dead 

 stillness, each bird silent and motionless. In a minute or 

 so up they get, and resume their cheeping notes. Plovers, 

 when they hear a sudden noise, also crouch at once. The 

 effect on pheasants is somewhat different. I have seen 

 them stop dead and remain silent at a sudden sharp knock 

 at the door. While two of them, thirteen days old, were 

 walking about and uttering a contented peeping sound, a 

 loud chord was struck on the violin. Both stopped dead ; 

 the peeping noise ceased, and one of them who was walking 

 with his leg just lifted from the ground remained for half 

 a minute in this attitude, with neck stretched out, as if 

 struck quite still and mute in the attitude in which he 

 chanced to be when the sharp sound fell on his ears. 

 Then he took a few steps, and again stopped quite still for 

 about the same period. 



