THE WAYS OF LIFE 225 



ticesMp to the future pecking. But it is quite different. 

 As Spalding observed : — 



' Instead of striking forward and downward (a move- 

 ment impossible on the part of a bird packed in shell with 

 its head under its wing), it breaks its way out by vigorously 

 jerking its head upward, while it turns round within the 

 shell, which is cut in two — chipped round in a perfect 

 circle some distance from the great end '. 



At the time of hatching there is an exaggeration of a 

 special muscle which afterwards ceases to be conspicuous ! 



Some of the cases of so-called instinctive reaction are 

 so strikingly specific, so definitely related to particular 

 circumstances, that one is certainly prejudiced, at first sight, 

 in favour of the view that the lessons of experience are in 

 some way entailed. Professor Semon cites such a case 

 from Lenz's Schlangen und Schlangenfeinde (Gotha, 1870) 

 — a very rehable work, henz took two young buzzards 

 from the nest and reared them. They killed slow-worms 

 and ringed snakes carelessly, but they were in a most 

 striking way excited when they first had to deal with an 

 adder. They had previously devoured pieces of adder's 

 flesh quite greedily, so it could not be smell that pulled the 

 trigger of the instinctive excitement. Moreover, buzzards 

 work by sight. The question then is. What was it that 

 made the buzzards treat the adder in a way entirely different 

 from that in which they dealt with grass snakes ? The 

 same kind of fact was brought out by the experiments 

 made in the London ' Zoo ', of confronting various types 

 of maromals with venomous snakes. None paid any 

 attention to the apparition except monkeys, who showed 

 unmistakable symptoms of great fear. It is probable 



