TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 141 



fish shaped like a conger eel, which was very common in EarraiuVs Inlet, and 

 which swam about in shoals along with the dogfishes, tliat in the living animal 

 these " backbones " were transparent like the rest of tlie animal, but became ossified 

 when dried on the beach. 



Dr. Gray having obtained one of thoie rods had recently described it as being 

 either the axis of a Pennatulid animal or the " bone of a Cephalopod," under the 

 name OdeoceUa septmfrionaHs. But Mr. Sclater was of opinion that, supposing the 

 facts above stated to be true, these rods must be regarded as the ossified notochords 

 ofsome low organized fish with tlie skeleton wholly cartilaginous, probably belonging 

 to the Lampreys or to the Chiniojroid group. 



Instinct — ivith original Observations on Touncj Animals. By D. A. Spalding*. 



With regard to instinct, we have yet to ascertain the fixcts, — Do the animals 

 exhibit untaught skill and innate knowledge ? May not the suppposcd cases of 

 instinct be, after all, but the results of rapid learning and imitation ? The contro- 

 versy on this subject has been chiefly concerning the perception-) of distance and 

 direction by the eye and the ear. Against the instinctive nature of these percep- 

 tions it is ai'gued that as distance means movement, locomotion, the very essence 

 of the idea is such as cannot be taken in by the eye or the ear— that what the 

 varying sensations of sight and hearing correspond to must be got at by moving 

 over the ground, by experience. The results, however, of experiments on chickens 

 were wholly in fiivour of the instinctive character of these perceptions. Chickens 

 kept in a state of blindness, by various devices, from one to three days, when 

 placed in the light under a set of carefully prepared conditions, gave conclusive 

 evidence against the theory that the perceptions of distance and direction by tlie 

 eye are the result of associations formed in the experience of each individual life. 

 Often at the end of two minutes they followed with their eyes the movements of 

 crawling insects, turning their heads with all the precision of an old fowl. In 

 from two to fifteen minutes they pecked at some object, showing not merely an 

 instinctive perception of distance, but an original ability to judge distance and 

 direction with something like infallible accuracy. If beyond the reach of their 

 necks they ran up to the object of their pursuit, and may be said to have invariably 

 struck it, never missing by more than a hair's breadth ; this, too, when the specks 

 at which they struck were no bigger than the smallest visible dot of an i. To seize 

 between the points of the mandibles at the very instant of striking seemed a more 

 difficult operation. Though at times they seized and swallowed an insect at the 

 very first attempt, most frequently they struck five or six times, lifting once or 

 twice before they succeeded in swallowing their first food. To take, by way of 

 illustration, the observations on an individual case a little more in detail : a chicken 

 at the end of six minutes, after having its eyes unveiled, followed with its head the 

 movements of a fly twelve inches distant ; at ten minutes the fly coming within 

 reach of its neck was seized and swallowed at the first stroke ; at the end of twenty 

 minutes it had not attempted to walk a step. It was then placed on rou,^h ground 

 within sight and call of a hen with chickens of its own age. After standing chii-p- 

 ing for about a minute, it went straight towards the hen, displaying as keen a per- 

 ception of the qualities of the outer world as it was ever likely to possess in after 

 life. It never required to knock its head against a stone to discover that there 

 was "no road that way." It leaped over the smaller obstacles that lay in its 

 path, and ran round the larger, reaching the mother in as nearly a straight line as 

 the nature of the ground would permit. Thus it would seem that prior to expe- 

 rience the eye, at least the eye of the chicken, perceives the primary qualities of 

 the external world — all arguments of the purely analytical school of psychology to 

 the contrary notwithstanding. 



No less decisive were experiments on hearing. Chickens hatched and kept in 



the dark for a day or two, on being placed in the light nine or ten feet from a box 



in which a brooding hen was concealed, after standing chirping^ for a minute or 



two, uniformly set ofl:' straight to the box, in answer to the call of the hen, which 



* Printed in cxicnso in ' Maomillan's Magazine,' March 1873. 



1872, 11 



