Further Observations on Youn^ Birds. 91 



Vb 



and generally were restless when I left them ; and under 

 such circumstances they made this sound. Then there is 

 the sharp squeak when one seizes them against their 

 inclination. Lastly, there is the shrill cry of distress, 

 when, for example, one of them is separated from the rest. 

 A chick that was brought up with ducklings always cried 

 thus when they were taken away for a swim. I have very 

 little doubt that all these sounds have, or soon acquire, a 

 suggestive value of emotional import for the other chicks. 

 Certainly the danger note at once places others, both of 

 their own kind and of different species, on the alert. But 

 the suggestive value seems to be, in part at least, the 

 result of association, and the product of experience ; though 

 this is a point upon which it is difficult to speak with any 

 certainty. With pheasants a gentle piping note of con- 

 tentment, and a shriller cry of distress were differentiated 

 from the first. On the sixth day an alarm or danger note, 

 much like that of the domestic chick, was heard when the 

 little pheasant came suddenly upon a piece of paper the 

 size of a half-crown ; and afterwards, if I seized in my 

 forceps a worm from one of the pheasants, he would utter 

 the note and show fight. Another bird uttered the note 

 when he saw a Java sparrow in a cage. The complaining 

 note of the partridge is uttered six or seven times quickly 

 in succession, followed by a pause. The note of the plover 

 is high-pitched and much like that so familiar in the older 

 bird. So, too, the guinea-fowl in down utters from the first 

 notes quite characteristic of its kind. Its danger note, also, 

 is not unlike that of the domestic chick. The piping of the 

 ducklings is comparatively monotonous, and I have not 

 heard in them any danger or alarm note. Moorhen chicks, 

 as above noted, cheep in the egg before they are hatched. 

 On the first day two notes were marked — a calling note 

 lower in pitch than that of the chick, and rather harsh 



