40 Habit and Instinct. 



The facts above noted possibly gave origin to the 

 supposition to which Darwin gave his support,* that peck- 

 ing is, in young chicks, primarily suggested through the 

 sound of pecking. But both Spalding and Professor Preyer 

 showed t that sound does not necessarily play any part in 

 initiating the pecking activity. And my own observations 

 fully confirm theirs. It is apparently the sight of the 

 artificial pecking, and the movement thus caused among 

 the grains of food, rather than any sound made, that has 

 suggestive value. 



With regard to the objects at which domestic chicks 

 peck, in the absence of any parental guidance, one may 

 say that they strike at first with perfect impartiality at 

 anything of suitable size ; grain, small stones, bread- 

 crumbs, chopped-up wax matches, currants, bits of paper, 

 buttons, beads, cigarette-ash and ends, their own toes and 

 those of their companions, maggots, bits of thread, specks 

 on the floor, their neighbours' eyes — anything and every- 

 thing, not too large, that can or cannot be seized is pecked 

 at, and, if possible, tested in the bill. Similarly with 

 young pheasants, guinea-fowl, and moorhens. I watched 

 the latter for an hour the second or third time they were 

 put out in my little garden. They j)ecked at everything of 

 suitable size they could lay bill on. There does not seem 

 to be any congenital discrimination between nutritious and 

 innutritions objects, or between those which are nice and 

 those which are nasty. This is a matter of individual 

 acquisition. They soon learn, however, what is good for 

 eating, and what is unpleasant, and rapidly associate the 

 appearance with the taste. A young chick two days old, 

 for example, had learnt to pick out pieces of yolk from 



* "Expression of the Emotions," 1st edit., 1872, p. 47. On the authority 

 of Mowbray. 



t Of. oil., pp. 237, 238. 



