98 Habit and Instinct. 



at the sides and the glass above. Any new object 

 introduced was carried about and curiously examined. A 

 wax match was soon torn to shreds. After hopping about 

 with an object for a time, and trying to tear it to pieces, 

 they would take it to a corner of the cage, and try and 

 hammer it in with vigorous blows of the beak. Again and 

 again, as it caught their eye, they would return to it, 

 hammer at it for a while, and then hop off. Under natural 

 conditions they would no doubt have buried it. Many 

 little, apparently instinctive, traits were observed, such as 

 the attitude assumed in sleeping, with the head turned, 

 and the bill buried in the feathers, and the lifting of the 

 head over the wing when they wished to scratch the head ; 

 but further details would only prove wearisome. 



I have already, perhaps, presumed too largely on the 

 reader's patience. The diary-notes — themselves selected 

 from a considerable body of observations recorded day 

 by day — may well appear in many cases to savour of 

 triviality. It is only, however, by careful and minute 

 observation that we can hope to gauge the length to which 

 heredity runs. In anatomical investigations we must pay 

 patient attention to details of structure ; and in investiga- 

 tions into the phenomena of habit and instinct, we must 

 not shrink from the labour and the expenditure of time 

 involved in daily and almost hourly observation, if we 

 would attempt to distinguish between what is inherited 

 in a relatively perfect condition, and what is acquired by 

 experience or through imitation. 



Such observations as have been given in this and the 

 preceding chapters require to be extended to other species, 

 and over longer periods of time. If what is here set down 

 should induce others to take up a mode of investigation 

 which will be found full of interest, and in which much 

 still remains to be done, one of the objects in placing on 



