ing under leaves and limbs. They will 

 do this when not more than a day old. 

 In like manner chickens just from the 

 shell will run under the wings of the 

 mother hen or into the coop, when the 

 cock sounds warning that a hawk or 

 other birds of prey are near, and will 

 stay in their hiding place until they hear 

 another note from their guardian which 

 means that the danger has passed and 

 all is well. 



The foregoing are but selections from 

 episodes noticed among animals of vari- 

 ous species, which show that their young 

 are born with an instinct to interpret the 

 language of their parents when it means 

 danger is near, hide, keep still, and after- 

 wards when it means safety. This 

 appears more evident from the fact that 

 when one comes upon a nest of young 

 birds to which no parental warning has 

 been given, they will stretch up their 

 necks and open their mouths for food, 

 but the moment after the mother comes, 

 sees the danger and speaks her inarticu- 

 late word of warning, down goes the 

 heads and they become as still as grave- 

 stones. 



Let us glance at another and contrary 

 class of well authenticated facts. Here is 

 an incident which is in pleasing contrast 

 to the one related about the cuckoo, 

 which was told me by a well known 

 and perfectly trustworthy citizen, and 

 confirmed by several of his com- 

 panions, equally trustworthy. He went 

 with a small party of men on an 

 exploring expedition in the White 

 Mountains, where he was spending his 

 last summer's vacation. They sought 

 to reach a point on the side of one of 

 the highest mountains that had not been 

 explored, and succeeded. Leaving the 

 regular trail they plodded and climbed 

 up and up to a wholly unfrequented ele- 

 vation of that picturesque region and 

 in "the forest primeval," four thousand 

 feet above the sea, sat down under the 

 blue sky where there were wonderful 

 views of the valley and the mountains 

 around, to appease their hunger in a 

 noonday lunch. While sitting there in 

 Turkish attitude, relishing tlieir rapidly 



disappearing food, a flock of Canada 

 jays came down upon them uninvited, 

 and made themselves familiar without 

 one symptom of fear. They lit on the 

 men's heads and shoulders, tripped 

 across their hands and feet, eagerly 

 helped themselves to bits of food, and 

 one of them stood on one of the men's 

 shoulder and picked crumbs from his 

 lips. Old birds, though they were, they 

 did not manifest the least fear of man. 

 The logical inferences are that the jays 

 and their ancestors were reared high up 

 in that mountain wilderness, where they 

 had never met man, and therefore, had 

 never learned to fear him like their kind 

 of the lower regions. All the Canada 

 jays that I have seen in the midst of our 

 civilization, have shown fear of man by 

 not coming near him, and flying away 

 when he approached, and this observa- 

 tion agrees with that of others with 

 whom I have talked, who have become 

 acquainted with them in New York. 

 These jays exhibit nothing of that 

 familiar confidence in cruel humanity, 

 which characterized the jays of the 

 upper region of the White Mountains. 

 Explorers of the uninhabited islands 

 of the sea have almost uniformly 

 discovered the same lack of fear among 

 the birds and animals native tO' them 

 found upon them, which generally can 

 be approached and handled. It is 

 almost unnecessary to say that all kinds 

 of birds of our settled districts shyly 

 avoid man, and fly or run from him, and 

 that their young seem to inherit their 

 fear of him to that degree that, almost 

 at the moment of birth, they instinct- 

 ively recognize the parental note of 

 danger, and obey its command as well 

 as they can. What is the deduction as 

 to the transmission of their acquired 

 characteristics by inheritance? The 

 fear is acquired by mingling with man- 

 kind and noticing that they sometimes 

 kill them, sometimes capture and carry 

 them off, and sometimes rob their nests ; 

 and, as I have pointed out, they trans- 

 mit their fear to their fledglings, who 

 fully understand their parents' words — 

 when they say danger, lay low. 



Anson C. Allen. 



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