24 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
hardly a suitable place for the discussion of a theme of this 
kind. Let us take a bird’s egg, as more convenient to 
handle. 
Consciousness may seem too big a term to connote the 
chick’s sensation of imprisonment within the shell, and its 
impulse to escape, as indicated by hammering and cheeping ; 
though it might pass without comment as explanatory of the 
action of the adult hen, thrusting her neck vigorously 
through the bars of the coop and straining for liberty. But 
Mr Hudson has observed concerning several species of birds 
in widely separated orders that, before the shell of the egg 
was cracked, the chick within, hammering and “‘ cheeping ”’ 
in its attempt to get out, would cease instantly and lie per- 
fectly still when the parent bird sounded the note of danger, 
but would resume operations when she uttered a reassuring 
note.® 
From this it appears that the consciousness of the un- 
hatched chick is sufficiently active to exchange oral com- 
munications with a mother outside the shell. In fact, the 
chick has been born before it is hatched, and it is suggested 
that it must be regarded as sentient and conscious from the 
moment it pierces the air-chamber within the egg and 
becomes a lung-breathing creature. 
The young of gallinaceous and certain other fowls dis- 
play upon hatching a much more precocious intelligence than 
other nestlings. They are able to run at once, the Mega- 
podes, as aforesaid, being actually able to fly at once and 
cater for themselves. Their motor organs are so well 
developed as to respond immediately to their congenital 
automatism; whereas those birds which are hatched blind, 
and depend upon food being brought to the nest by their 
parents, acquire the power of locomotion slowly and more 
6 Naturalist in La Plata, p. 90. Mr Lloyd Morgan has dis- 
tinguished at least six notes of different significance uttered by 
domestic chicks, namely, the gentle ‘‘ piping,’’ expressive of con- 
tentment ; a further low note, expressive of enjoyment; the danger 
note of warning; the plaintive ‘‘ cheeping,’’ expressive of want; a 
sharp squeak of irritation; and, lastly, a shrill cry of distress, as 
when a chick gets separated from the rest of the brood. 
