160 BEHAVIOR OF PIGEONS. 



eggs with her beak. Then she may glance at the eggs and appear as if half consciously 

 recognizing them, but makes no move to replace them, and after 10 to 20 minutes or more 

 leaves the nest with a contented air, as if her duty were done; or, she may stretch her 

 neck toward the eggs and try to roll one back into the nest. If she succeeds in recovering 

 one she is satisfied and again sinks into her usual restful state, with no further concern 

 for the second egg. The conduct varies considerably with different individuals. 



(3) The dove-cote pigeon The dove-cote pigeon behaves in a similar way, but will 

 generally try to get both eggs back and, failing in this, she resigns the nest with more hesi- 

 tation than does the ring-dove. 



(4) Results considered -The passenger-pigeon's instinct is wound up to a high point 

 of uniformity and promptness, and her conduct is almost too blindly regular to be credited 

 even with that stupidity which implies a grain of intelligence. The ring-dove's stupidity 

 is satisfied with one egg. The dove-cote pigeon's stupidity may claim both eggs, but 

 it is not always up to that mark. 



In these three grades the advance is from extreme blind uniformity of action, with 

 little or no choice, to a stage of less rigid uniformity, with the least bit of perplexity and 

 a very feeble, uncertain, dreamy sense of sameness between eggs in and eggs out of the 

 nest, which prompts the action of rolling the eggs back into the nest. That is the instinc- 

 tive way of placing the eggs when in the nest, and the neck is only a little further extended 

 in drawing the eggs in from the outside. How very narrow is the difference between the 

 ordinary and the extraordinary act! How little does the pendulum of normal action have 

 to swing beyond its usual limit! 1 



But this little is in a forward direction, and we are in no doubt as to the general char- 

 acter of the changes and the modifying influences through which it has been made possible. 

 Under conditions of domestication the action of natural selection has been relaxed, with 

 the result that the rigor of instinctive coordinations which bars alternative action is more 

 or less reduced. Not only is the door to choice thus unlocked, but more varied oppor- 

 tunities and provocations arise, and thus the internal mechanism and the external con- 

 ditions and stimuli work both in the same direction to' favor greater freedom of action. 



When choice thus enters no new factor is introduced. There is greater plasticity 

 within and more provocation without, and hence the same bird, without the addition or 

 loss of a single nerve-cell, becomes capable of higher action and is encouraged and even 

 constrained by circumstances to learn to use its privilege of choice. 



Choice, as I conceive, is not introduced as a little deity, encapsuled in the brain. In- 

 stinct has supplied the teleological mechanism, and stimulus must continue to set it in 

 motion. But increased plasticity invites greater interaction of stimuli and gives more even 

 chances for conflicting impulses. Choice runs on blindly at first, and ceases to be blind 

 only in proportion as the animal learns through nature's system of compulsory education. 

 The teleological alternatives are organically provided; one is taken and fails to give satis- 

 faction; another is tried and gives contentment. This little freedom is the dawning grace 

 of a new dispensation, in which education by experience comes in as an amelioration of the 

 law of elimination. This slight amenability to natural educational influences can not, of 

 course, work any great miracles of transformation in a pigeon's brain ; but it shows the way 

 to the open door of a freer commerce with the eternal world, through which a brain with 

 richer instinctive endowments might rise to higher achievement. 



1 We come to equally surprising results in many different ways. Change the position of the nest box of the ring- 

 dove, without otherwise disturbing bird, nest, or contents, and the birds will have great difficulty in recognizing their 

 nest, for they know it only as something in a definite position in a fixed environment. If a pair of these birds have a 

 nest in a cage, and the cage be moved from one room to another, or even a few feet from its original position in the 

 same room, the nest ceases to be the same thing to them, and they walk over the eggs or young as if completely 

 devoid of any acquaintance with or interest in them, lleturn the cage to its original place and the birds know the nest 

 and return to it at once. 



