194 THE BIOLOGY OF THE SEASONS 



drink from it. An association was probably established 

 between a shining surface and drink, for some gulls about 

 three weeks old tried to drink from a glass lid removed from 

 a pasteboard specimen box and placed on the floor. 



Numerous little observations grew into a general 



impression that the kin instinct was strong, but it would 



be important to investigate this point carefully. There 



seemed to be, even from within the egg, a responsive 



piping to those outside, whereas Lloyd Morgan's artificially 



reared chicks paid no attention to the cluck of their mother 



of whom they had no experience whatever when she 



called from outside the door. A newly hatched gull, 



called Beth, tried on the first day to make towards Aleph 



in a separate compartment of the incubator ; an older 



bird showed the greatest complaisance towards its younger 



companion, who followed it about and often tried to snuggle 



under its imperfect wing ; when a novice about to have 



his first bath tumbled into the water, and screamed, being 



for a moment confused, his companion, who had experience 



of two previous baths, jumped in, swam to the novice, 



and touched him. When two strangers were brought 



together for convenience of warmth, there was in one case 



amity after a few bill-peckings, while in another case they 



were not seen nestling together till the third day. In two 



cases when a gull had taken flight into freedom, leaving a 



younger companion in the garden, the first to fly returned 



several times to visit the younger until it also flew. It 



was also interesting to notice that adults of the species 



flew about overhead when the young in the garden were 



approaching their time for flight. On the other hand, a 



herring gull which had been shot in the wing and lived in 



the garden displayed not the remotest interest in its small 



congeners Nor were young coots interested in young gulls. 



There seemed to be an instinctive following of one gull 



