498 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



on the experimental method was the late Mr. Douglas 

 Spalding, who in 1873, in Macmillans Magazine, described 

 a number of experiments on young chicks, and ducklings, 

 carefully blinded for the first few hours after birth. His 

 conclusions were, that these young birds not only showed 

 intuitive power of walking, scratching, and pecking, but 

 also possessed intuitive knowledge — or acted as if they 

 possessed such knowledge — of various kinds. He asserted 

 that they were afraid of bees and of the cry of a hawk, 

 and that they intuitively knew the meaning of a hen's 

 call-note and danger-signal when heard for the first time. 

 These results were opposed to Mr. Spalding's preconceived 

 ideas, and were therefore the more readily accepted by 

 naturalists, and they have been frequently quoted as 

 settling this point — the possession by young animals of in- 

 stinctive knowledge as Avell as the power of co-ordinated 

 movements of various kinds. Now, Professor Lloyd 

 Morgan has repeated all these experiments many times 

 and with a considerable variety of species, and, while 

 confirming many of Mr. Spalding's observations and con- 

 clusions, has shown that those just referred to are 

 erroneous. More important still, he has shown exactly 

 where and why the conclusions arrived at are erroneous, 

 and has thus afforded most valuable guidance to future 

 experimenters in this interesting inquiry. Some examples 

 of these corrections are the following. 



Mr. Spalding noticed a difference in the behaviour of 

 young chicks to files and to bees, and concluded that they 

 " gave evidence of instinctive fear of the sting-bearing 

 insects." This, if true, would be very important, since it 

 would show an intuitive knowledge of the dangerous 

 ■character of a special insect, and if of one, presumably 

 of all the more common dangerous or hurtful objects, 

 antecedent to experience. But the whole series of ob- 

 servations made by Professor Morgan himself, as well as 

 those made by other good observers, shows that young 

 chicks have no such perception of the qualities of ol3Jects. 

 They pick up stones as well as grain, bits of red worsted 

 as well as worms, gaudy-coloured inedible caterpillars 



