The Instinctive Reactions of Young Chicks 163 
young chicks are of strange moving objects in general, shock 
in general, strange sounds in general. On the other hand, no 
such general disturbances of the chick’s environment led to 
such well-marked reactions as Spalding described. And so 
when Morgan thinks that such behavior as Spalding wit- 
nessed on the part of the chick that heard the hawk’s cry 
demands for its explanation nothing more than a general 
fear of strange sounds, my experiments do not allow me to 
agree with him. If Spalding really saw the conduct which 
he says the chick exhibited on the third day of its life in the 
presence of man, and later at the stimulus of the sight or 
sound of the hawk, there are specific reactions. For the 
running, crouching, silence, quivering, etc., that one gets 
by yelling, banging doors, tormenting a violin, throwing 
hats, bottles, or brushes at the chick is never anything like so 
pronounced and never lasts one tenth as long as it did with 
Spalding’s chicks. But, as to the fear of man, Spalding 
must have been deluded. In the second, third and fourth 
days there is no such reaction to the sight of man as he 
thought he saw. Miss Hattie E. Hunt, in the American 
Journal of Psychology, Vol. TX., No. 1, asserts that there is 
no instinctive fear of a cat. Morgan did not find such. I 
myself put chicks of 2, 5, 9 and 17 days (different individ- 
uals each time, 11 in all) in the presence of a cat. They 
showed no fear, but went on eating as if there was nothing 
about. The cat was still, or only slowly moving. I further 
put a young kitten (eight inches long) in the pen with 
chicks. He felt of them with his paw, and walked around 
among them for five or ten minutes, yet they showed no fear 
(nor did he instinctively attack song If, however, you let 
weeks old will. I did not try this pune with chicks 
