83 INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOUR 
notw:thstanding the fact that it had probably never before 
seen the light of day. 
It must not be supposed that, in adducing flight as an 
example of instinctive behaviour in birds, we are contending 
that it is this and nothing more throughout life. The inference 
to be drawn from the facts of observation is rather that 
instinct provides a general ground plan of behaviour which 
intelligent acquisition, by enforcing here and checking there, 
perfects and guides to finer issues. Few would contend that 
the consummate skill evinced in fully developed flight at its 
best, the hurtling swoop of the falcon, the hovering of the 
kestrel, the wheeling of swifts in the summer air, the rapid 
dart and sudden poise of the humming bird, the easy sweep 
of the sea-gull, the downward glide of the stork—that these 
are, in all their exquisite perfection, instinctive. A rough but 
sufficient outline of action is hereditary; but the manifold 
graces and delicacies of perfected flight are due to intelligent 
skill begotten of practice and experience. 
There are many little idiosyncracies and special traits 
of flight which are probably instinctive—such as enable an 
ornithologist or a sportsman to recognize a flying bird from 
a distance. And the same is true of other modes of behaviour. 
The observer of young birds cannot fail to note and to be 
impressed by many of these. ‘The way in which a little moor- 
hen uses its wings in scrambling up any rough surface is very 
characteristic ; so, too, is the manner in which a guinea-chick 
runs backwards and then sideways at a right angle when 
one attempts to catch him. If suddenly startled, moor-hens 
and chicks scatter and hide; plovers drop and crouch with 
their chins on the ground; pheasants stand motionless and 
silent. Knowledge of the ways of birds enables one to predict 
with tolerable accuracy how each kind will behave under given 
circumstances. That the actions are always precisely alike 
cannot be said with truth; but that the behaviour is so 
relatively definite as to be readily recognizable can be con- 
fidently asserted. That a moor-hen will flick its tail, that 
a chick will dust itself in the sand, that pheasants and 
