CHAPTER XI. 



THE HOMING INSTINCT. 



Besides the material given in this chapter, several of the author's manuscripts 

 contain quotations and digests, with running comments thereon, from the writings 

 of Reynaud, Wood, Moore, Mills, Wallace, Kobelt, Gatke, Weismann, Gourand, 

 Jacobi, and Palmen, on the migration, orientation, and homing instinct of birds. 

 These comments are hardly of such a nature as to warrant their utilization. In 

 addition there are a few rough outline notes of the author's, and the following 

 list of animals under the title of "cases of migration": (1) herring, shad, white- 

 fish, salmon, eels; (2) fishes, toads, Amblystoma, turtles, seals (Lemming); (3) a, 

 Stork; b, swallow, robin, flicker, larger woodpecker of Europe; c, homer-carriers, 

 turtle-dove, wood-pigeon, Edopistes, mourning-dove; d, ducks, geese, terns, gulls, 

 eider-duck (Weismann); (4) Grasshopper (locusts), ants, caterpillars (Loeb), 

 Nereis. It is apparent from this list, and the accompanying notes and comment, 

 that the author contemplated an extended study of the phylogeny of migration 

 and homing, similar to his phylogenetic treatment of the incubation instinct as 

 given in Chapter VIII. For a further study of this subject the above list is help- 

 fully suggestive. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES. 



A discussion of the "homing instinct" is perhaps not without its value. 1 People are 

 inclined to believe that there is something mysterious in regard to the homing instinct in 

 the birds, perhaps a "sixth sense," a "sense of direction," or something of that sort. The 

 way to find out whether a homer pigeon has any unusual instinct or unusual sense, is, of 

 course, to make a test of the case, and this is very easily done. 



In considering such tests, let us suppose that some homers have been kept in a pen, 

 with no opportunity to fly about and see the country, and that this lack of opportunity 

 has extended from the time they were hatched up to an age of a few months or a year; and 

 that these homers were then let out into a small yard a yard as extensive as a large room. 

 One would think that a bird might find its way in a yard of that size, even if it had not 

 been there before, particularly if it had always been looking out into such a yard from its 

 smaller pen. I have repeatedly made experiments of this kind, and have found that the 

 behavior of the birds is, in all cases, practically the same. They never seem to know what 

 to do when they get out into this small yard. They are in a new world. The only world 

 they know anything about is the small pen on the side of the yard. They had looked out 

 upon this main yard daily, for months, but they have never traveled around it nor used 

 their wings in getting from one pen to another; they have used their wings only in the 

 small cage. The moment you let them out they smooth down their feathers and act as 

 though they were afraid. Every step is taken with caution. They look around to see 

 what everything means before they venture to feel that it is safe to go over it; they step 

 around on the ground very, very cautiously indeed, and act as though they were in a new 

 world. 



1 Stenographic notes (corrected and edited) on a lecture delivered at Woods Hole, Aug. 10, 1906. The questions of 

 the audience and their answers have been, in so far as this was possible, incorporated into the text. EDITOR. 



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