500 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



water, or when it accidentally walks into it, but it has no 

 instinctive desire for it, and does not, as is often stated, 

 run to it from a distance. Young dippers dive perfectly 

 the first time they reach the water, and young swallows fly 

 with great precision, avoiding obstacles almost as readily 

 as do the old birds. With such congenital powers, and 

 with an instinctive fear or suspicion of everything that is 

 strange to them, they learn with marvellous rapidity ; and 

 having once found that a particular object is disagreeable 

 or unfit for food, they rarely require a second lesson, and 

 thus in a few days accumulate a stock of experience, 

 which, unless the process has been closely watched, may 

 easily be set down to instinct. 



About one- third part of Professor Lloyd Morgan's work 

 is devoted to such experiments and observations on 

 young birds and mammals as have now been indicated, 

 and the amount of new and varied information here 

 brought together is sufficiently large to form the basis of 

 sound reasoning on the nature and limitations of the 

 faculties involved ; and perhaps no living biologist is 

 better fitted to do this successfully than the author. In 

 the series of chapters headed : " The Relation of Con- 

 sciousness to Instinctive Behaviour," " Intelligence and 

 the Acquisition of Habits," " Imitation," and " The 

 Emotions in Relation to Instinct," we have a careful and 

 interesting study of the physiological and psychological 

 aspects of the facts that have been laid before us ; a study 

 which is in the highest degree instructive, and which will 

 serve to guide future students of the subject both as to 

 the interpretation of the facts already established, and as 

 to the observations most needed for the elucidation of 

 matters which are still unsettled. These chapters, 

 however, are hardly suited for illustration oi summary, 

 and we will therefore pass on to those which deal with the 

 alleged instincts of adult animals, and with some of the 

 most disputed questions which now divide biologists ; but, 

 before doing so^ it will be well to quote the author's 

 definition of instinct, as well as the conclusions he has 

 reached as to its nature. 



