94 Habit and Instinct. 



activities. As we have seen, the line is hard to draw. In 

 any case, they indicate that accuracy of response, implying 

 great nicety of organic mechanism, which is at the root of 

 all instinctive activity. 



The preening of the down is definitely congenital. I have 

 seen a little plover, hatched in the evening, and taken out 

 of the incubator drawer for the first time next morning, 

 bend back his head and apply the bill to the down of 

 throat and breast. In moorhen chicks the specialized way 

 in which, after a bath, they wring the water out of the 

 fluffy down-feathers and shake it from the bill with a 

 little jerk of the head is noteworthy, though I have not 

 observed its performance for the first few days. Both 

 chicks and pheasants and other young birds, when they 

 are freshly released from the basket in which they sleep, 

 run with little spurts indicative of the energy accumulated 

 during a period of inactivity and repose ; ducklings and 

 moorhen chicks sometimes. do the same. Quite different, 

 however, is the little dance with which somewhat older 

 chicks, and especially young moorhens, greet their liberty 

 and the freshness of the morning air. Ducklings stretch 

 their necks and flap their immature wings, and then race 

 round in mere exuberance of spirits. And the way in 

 which they preen, rubbing the bill to and fro over the 

 breast, applying it to the tail and rubbing it and their 

 whole head across and along the back, notes them as 

 ducks to the manner born. The scratching of the ground 

 by chicks and pheasants is definitely congenital. They 

 did this in some cases on the third or fourth day, while 

 in others it was deferred till the eighth or ninth, the con- 

 ditions being closely similar, and the surface that of 

 newspaper with generally a little sand strewn on it. I 

 noticed that some scratched very vigorously on the smooth 

 surface of the empty tin in which they generally found 



