THE HOMING INSTINCT. 135 



searching for his cot, for it was time to be on his perch. Several times he stopped, looked 

 towards the cot, but then renewed his aimless and si upid search around the pens of the yard. 

 This time he did not venture to fly out of the yard. After a half-hour spent in vain, he 

 finally flew to the stand and at once recognized his home and went in. 



I think old doves are, in some respects, worse off than young doves in the matter of 

 finding home. The young are afraid to fly much, and hence go out on the stand for several 

 days before venturing to leave it. When they do fly from it they alight in the nearest place, 

 and seldom get out of sight of the old ones. Moreover, the old birds fly back and forth to 

 the cot, and thus teach the young just what to do to find home. 1 The young follow the 

 parents to their home. When this has been done once or twice, they have learned the 

 lesson and can depend upon themselves. Old doves, on the contrary, when set free for the 

 first time in a new place which they know only as seen from a window of the cot are 

 liable to fly more freely and then be utterly unable to find their way back. I have lost 

 several doves in this way. (R 7.) 



SUMMARY. 



True to his phylogenetic conception of instinct, the author regards the capacity 

 of homing pigeons as but an unusual development of tendencies and power pos- 

 sessed by alt pigeons. In the subsequent chapter this view is more explicitly stated 

 as to the instincts of tumbling and pouting. 2 As a consequence, the observations 

 are not limited to homers, but concern the attempts of any pigeon to return to 

 its cot or nest. In a sense, homing is also an aspect of migration, a phenomenon 

 which is rather widely distributed throughout the animal world, and the author 

 was evidently considering a study of homing in the light of its wider genetic 

 relations. This discussion is not to be regarded as a final treatment of the phe- 

 nomenon; it is to be considered as the formulation of a tentative hypothesis 

 useful for further study. 



One must distinguish between the motivating "impulses" in homing and the 

 "means" by which these impulses are gratified. There is no unique and single 

 homing impulse. The return to home may be motivated by any one of several 

 impulses. A home is particular only as a definite place or position; the concept 

 is complex from the side of satisfaction obtained. A home may mean food, safety, 

 companions, mate, nest and young, or a place to roost. An impulse or motive 

 is a tendency to act in response to a present sensory stimulus. An act is not 

 motivated by its sensory consequences. A bird removed from home does not 

 respond to a home stimulus, nor does it seek a return because of the resultant 

 satisfaction. The bird reacts negatively to the present situation rather than 



1 In the matter of leading the young, the common pigeon is ;\ good bird to watch. When the young first comes out 

 of the cot, its first trip to the ground is often made by falling off the edge of the shelf. But however it gets to the 

 ground, it of covirse knows very little about the way back again. The parent flies down to the young one and no 

 doubt helps it to find the way. This is especially true of the male, because the female is likely to be in the cot laying 

 or about to lay; the female, however, also helps the young sometimes. When the male is trying to get the young one 

 up In the col, the young bird is of course much confused by the new situation and the strange birds around it: but the 

 father feeds it a little and thus keeps up acquaintance with it. and then flies up to the cot. When it is time for the 

 young to go to roost the father will fly back and forth, back and forth, between it and the cot, perhaps feeding it a 

 lit lie cadi time. He shows great solicitude until the young are safely inside. The parents show this solicitude especially 

 the first time the young are out of the cot. fConv. 7/10, W. C.) 



2 In this connection it is well to note that all fancy pigeons, such as homers, tumblers, and pouters, are not true 

 .-t/irrii x, but are st rains or varieties developed by the breeding art of the pigeon fancier. This would indicate that these 

 special characters are but improvements on trait-sand tendencies already present. The wild species I'nlninlxi liriii is 

 oommonly supposed to be the progenitor of all domestic varieties. rWWm //// is a gregarious species, a fact which is 

 interesting in connection with the author's suggest ion that the " social instinct is the foundation of the home instinct." 



