136 BEHAVIOR OF PIGEONS. 



positively to the home environment. The motivating stimulus is hunger, not 

 food; loneliness, not companionship; fear, not safety, etc. Most of these motives 

 are suggested by the author. 



The social or gregarious instinct is considered of prime importance. The 

 author indicates that a bird with gregarious habits is more likely to return than 

 one in whom the social instinct is less well developed; a single bird will return 

 when a pair or group will not. 



Hunger is also a motive. Homers are trained when hungry, according to 

 Fulton; and Whitman asserts that hunger was responsible for the return of some 

 of his escaped birds. Obviously hunger could not operate with wild birds capable 

 of finding sustenance in the open. It would apply only to domestic and semi- 

 domestic breeds which have been accustomed to obtain their food in a certain 

 locality and which find difficulty in living a life of freedom. 



Wildness is a factor. Wild pigeons rarely return to the cot when they escape. 

 Semi-domesticated birds may return if they have been tamed. In a sense, the 

 failure of wild pigeons to return is a case of homing, for these birds seek and return 

 to an environment which they instinctively prefer. They react against confinement 

 and too close proximity to man. 



Fear of unfamiliar surroundings induces return to a familiar environment 

 where experience has justified a reasonable degree of safety. Homers manifest 

 fear and caution when first released. A young bird taken a short distance from the 

 nest is frightened and seeks to get back. The parents assist the young in making 

 its first returns. When exploring, the young hustle for the nest whenever startled. 



The impulse to incubate or to feed the young may instigate returns. These 

 impulses arise at definite times, and a free bird may manifest perfect contentment 

 away from the nest until the onset of these internal stimuli. The reader will 

 recognize that in many cases the notes offer insufficient proof of the efficacy of 

 these motives. 



Since these impulses are avoiding reactions toward the environment, and not 

 positive responses to the home situation, they do not furnish the means or mechan- 

 ism of homing. The motive may be present and yet the bird may fail dismally in 

 the attempt. The mechanism, according to the author, is "eyesight" and "ex- 

 perience." The bird can "home" because it has learned a system of positive 

 responses toward the visual aspects of the environment. Placed in a new situa- 

 tion, the bird must wander aimlessly until by accident a familiar situation is reached. 

 The influence of experience in this capacity is rather well attested by the obser- 

 vations on the young in leaving the nest, by the experiments on adult homers 

 when freed for the first time, and by the methods of training homing pigeons. 

 The influence of vision in the reaction is an assumption without adequate factual 

 support so far as the notes are concerned. If this view is correct, two facts are 

 significant the readiness and ease with which these position habits are acquired 

 and the strength with which they are retained for considerable periods of time. 

 However, it is well to note that all behavior studies reveal the fundamental impor- 

 tance of position habits in the life of animals. 



