160 The Study of Animal Life part ii 



(a) They may be perfected by perceptual inferences on 

 the part of the individuals, and the mental efforts may or 

 may not, after a certain number of repetitions, be replaced 

 by reflexes. 



(6) They may be perfected by less complex mental 

 efforts, such as those involved in imitation or in receiving 

 instruction from other members of the species. 



Actions of the third class may be as purely instinctive 

 as any of those in the first class, or may be improved by 

 intelligence like those of the second class ; but among 

 them are many of the most wonderful performances of 

 animals, for they often seem to show a prevision of an 

 unknown future. 



Some interesting experiments have been made upon 

 instincts of the first class. The observations show that the 

 precision of the neuro- muscular co-ordinations of some 

 newly-born creatures is very surprising. Mr. Spalding 

 blindfolded some chickens immediately after they were 

 hatched, and removed the hood after two or three days 

 when they were stronger. He says that " almost invariably 

 they seemed a little stunned by the light, remained motion- 

 less for several minutes, and continued for some time less 

 active than before they were unhooded. Their behaviour, 

 however, was in every case conclusive against the theory 

 that the perceptions of distance and direction by the eye 

 are the result of experience, or of associations formed in the 

 history of each individual life." 



" Often at the end of two minutes they followed with 

 their eyes the movements of crawling insects, turning their 

 heads with all the precision of an old fowl. In from two to 

 fifteen minutes they pecked at some speck or insect, show- 

 ing not merely an instinctive perception of distance, but an 

 original ability to judge, to measure distance, with some- 

 thing like infallible accuracy. They did not attempt to 

 seize things beyond their reach, as babies are said to grasp 

 at the moon ; and they may be said to have invariably hit 

 the objects at which they struck, they never missed by a 

 hair's-breadth, and that too when the specks at which they 

 aimed were no bigger and less visible than the smallest dot 



