32 Habit and Instinct. 



long time, or until the parent, by a changed note, conveys 

 to it an intimation that the danger is over." Here we 

 have a remarkable connate response to definite stimulus. 



In some cases the shell is finally rent by the struggles 

 of the little bird, in whom air-breathing probably provokes 

 increased activity. But some birds, ducks for example, 

 chip the egg along a circle near the broad end. When 

 they emerge, the down is wet and draggled in appearance, 

 and the little new-born things are comparatively helpless for 

 some hours, having, as a rule, little power to hold up their 

 heads, and none to stand firmly. I noticed that newly 

 hatched plovers lay in the drawer with bill on the ground 

 and outstretched neck in a well-known protective attitude. 

 Like the eggs, they assimilate well in colour with their 

 natural surroundings. Some young moorhens, hatched 

 out in a drawer lined with cotton-wool, had taken a good 

 deal into their beaks during the first five or six hours — so 

 much, indeed, that in one case it was in some danger of 

 choking. 



There would seem to be some instinctive shrinking from 

 one's hand when the birds are for the first time taken from 

 the drawer after hatching, and this seems to be the more 

 marked the longer they have been left to recover from the 

 shock of birth. There was, however, little sign of shrink- 

 ing in plovers or lapwings. Chicks and ducklings lie quiet 

 longer than partridges and pheasants, which soon begin 

 to move about. Any instinctive fear which they may 

 show soon passes by, and after a very little experience 

 they come to the hand instead of shrinking from it. Still, 

 we may probably regard the shrinking as congenital, but 

 more marked at a slightly deferred period of life. And 

 perhaps there may be in this a special adaptation. The 

 hen, for example, is a somewhat fussy being, and, in the 

 absence of any instinctive knowledge of her as their 



