The Instinctive Reactions of Young Chicks 159 
INSTINCTIVE REACTIONS TO DISTANCE, DIRECTION, 
SIZE, ETC. 
I have purposely chosen this awkward heading rather 
than the simple one, Space-Perception, because I do not wish 
to imply that there is in the young chick such consciousness 
of space-facts as there is in human beings. All that will be 
space-facts, reacts in a fashion which would in the case of a 
man go with genuine perception of space. 
If one puts a chick on top of a box in sight of his fellows 
below, the chick will regulate his conduct by the height of 
the box. To be definite, we may take the average chick of 
about 95 hours. If the height is less than ro inches, he will 
jump down as soon as you put him up. At 16 inches he will 
jump in from 5 seconds to 3 or 4 minutes. At 22 inches he 
will still jump down, but after more hesitation. At 27 
inches 6 chicks out of eight at this age jumped within 5 min- 
utes. At 39 inches the chick will Not jump down. The 
numerical values given here would, of course, vary with the 
health, development, hunger and degree of lonesomeness of 
the chick. All that they are supposed to show is that at any | 
given age the chick without experience of heights regulates 
his conduct rather accurately in accord with the spavetunt! 
of distance which confronts him. The chick does not peck 
a bird a score of feet away with a fy near by, or ie to get 
the moon inside his bill. Moreover, he reacts in pecking 
with considerable accuracy at the very start. Lloyd Mor- 
gan has noted that in his very first efforts the chick often 
fails to seize the object, though he hits it, and on this ground 
has denied the perfection of the instinct. But, as a matter 
of fact, the pecking reaction may be as perfect at birth as it is 
