Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 



those for whose guidance they are used. And among 

 animals of the same kind, or animals of about equal 

 strength, they are apt to call forth answering expressions 

 of like nature. The young cockerel or the young moorhen 

 that begins to show fight, immediately throws his com- 

 panion into a corresponding attitude. When animals live 

 in flocks or herds, the sudden flight of any one individual 

 startles all the others into a like procedure. I have else- 

 where confessed * that as a boy I sometimes visited a 

 farmyard for the vicious purpose of shooting little pigs 

 with a catapult. The shot, taking effect upon some 

 luckless pigling, was followed by a squeak and a rush, in 

 which not only my particular quarry, but the whole litter 

 participated. Each little pig experienced certain suggested 

 feehngs of alarm or fright, and at the same time seeing his 

 brothers running, imitated their action. Thus the sight of 

 another pig scuttling off on the one hand, and a feeling 

 of fright on the other hand, would become linked by 

 association ; and in this way participation in common 

 actions would beget a community in emotional experience, 

 and would lay the foundations of suggestive influence. 



The sounds and cries of animals are expressive of 

 emotional states, and have a distinctly and often definitely 

 suggestive value. Allusion has already been made to the 

 notes of young birds ; to their emotional accompaniments, 

 so far as we can interpret the matter ; to their suggestive 

 value, at least in some cases; and to their congenital 

 nature. No one can have watched with attention — 

 attention of ear as well as eye— the behaviour of a hen 

 with her brood of chicks, without noticing the different 

 effects of the call note and the warning cry. 



Let us take, as a starting-point for somewhat more 

 detailed consideration, the song of birds. The fact that 

 * "Introduction to Comparative Psychology," p. 321. 



