SCIENCE. 



269 



the rest, and may be taken as representative of the whole. 

 If, then, there be any agency in Nature, or outside of it, which 

 can contrive and build up structures endowed with the 

 gifts of Life — structures which shall not onlv digest, 

 but which shall also feel and see, which shall be sen- 

 sible of enjoyment conducive to their welfare, and 

 of alarm on account of things which are dangerous to 

 the same — then such structures have the same relation to 

 that agency which machines have to man, and in this aspect 

 it may be a legitimate figure of speech to call them living 

 machines. What these machines do is different in kind 

 from the things which human machines do ; but both are 

 alike in this — that whatever they do is done in virtue of 

 their construction, and of the powers which have been given 

 to them by the mind which made them. 



Applying now this idea of a machine to the phenomena 

 exhibited by the young Dipper, its complete applicability 

 cannot be denied. In the first place, the young Dipper had 

 a physical structure adapted to diving. Its feathers were of 

 a texture to throw off water, and the shower of pearly drops 

 which ran off it, when it emerged from its first plunge, 

 showed in a moment how different it was from other fledge- 

 lings in its imperviousness to wet. Water appeared to be 

 its " native element," precisely in the same sense in which 

 it is said to be the native element of a ship which has been 

 built high in air, and of the not very watery materials of 

 wood and iron. Water, which it had never seen before, 

 seemed to be the native element of the little bird in this 

 sense, that it was so constructed as to be and to feel at home 

 in it at once. Its " lines " had been laid down for progres- 

 sion both in the air and water. It was launched with a motive- 

 power complete within itself, and with promptings sufficient 

 for the driving of its own machinery. For the physical 

 adaptation was obviously united with mental powers and 

 qualities which partook of the same pre-adjusted harmony. 

 These were as congenital as the texture of its feathers or the 

 structure of its wing. Its terror arose on seeing the proper 

 objects of fear, although they had never been seen before, 

 and no experience of injury had arisen. This terror 

 prompted it 10 the proper methods of escape, and the knowl- 

 edge how to use its faculties for this object was as intuitive 

 as the apparatus for effecting it was hereditary. In this sense 

 the Dipper was a living, breathing, seeing, fearing and div- 

 ing machine — ready made for all these purposes from the nest 

 — as some other birds are even from their first exclusion 

 from the egg. 



The case of the young Merganser is still more curious and 

 instructive with reference to the same questions. The young 

 of all the Anatidm are born, like the gallinaceous birds, not 

 naked or blind, as most others are, but completely equipped 

 with a feathery down, and able to swim or dive as soon as 

 they see the light. Moreover, the young of the Merganser 

 have the benefit of seeing from the first the parent bird per- 

 forming these operations, so that imitation may have 

 some part in developing the perfection with which they are 

 executed by the young, But the particular manoeuvre re- 

 sorted to by the young bird which baffled our pursuit was 

 a manoeuvre in which it could have had no instruction from 

 example — the manucevre, namely, which consists in hiding 

 not under any cover, but by remaining perfectly motionless 

 on the grouni. This is a method of escape which cannot 

 be resorted to successfully except by birds whose coloring 

 is adapted to the purpose by a close assimilation with the 

 coloring of surrounding objects. The old bird would not 

 have been concealed on the same ground, and would never 

 itself resort to the same method of escape. The young 

 therefore, cannot have been instructed in it by the method 

 of example. But the small size of the chick, together 

 with its obscure and curiously mottled coloring, are spe- 

 cially adapted to this mode of concealment. The young of 

 all birds which breed upon the ground are provided with a 

 garment in such perfect harmony with surrounding effects 

 of light as to render this minceuvre easy. It depends, how- 

 ever, wholly for its success upon absolute stillness. The 

 slightest motion at once attracts the eye of any enemy 

 which is searching for the young. And this absolute still- 

 ness must be preserved amidst all the emotions of fear and 

 terror which the close approach of the object of alarm must, 

 and obviously does, inspire. Whence comes this splendid, 

 even if it be unconscious, faith in the sufficiency of a de- 



fense which it must require such nerve and strength of will 

 to practice ? No movement, not even the slightest, though 

 the enemy should seem about to trample on it ; such is the 

 terrible requirement of Nature — and by the child of Nature 

 implicitly obeyed ! Here, again, beyond all question, we 

 have an instinct as much born with the creature as the har- 

 monius tinting of its plumage — the external furnishing be- 

 ing inseparably united with the internal furnishing of mind 

 which enables the little creature in very truth to " walk by 

 faith and not by sight." Is this automatonism ? Is this 

 machinery? Yes. undoubtedly in the sense explained be- 

 fore — that the instinct has been given to the bird in pre- 

 cisely the same sense in which its structure has been given 

 to it — so that anterior to all experience, and without the 

 aid of instruction or of example, it is inspired to act in this 

 manner on the appropriate occasion arising. 



Then, in the case of the Wild Duck, we rise to a yet 

 higher form of instinct, and to more complicated adapta- 

 tions of congenital powers to the contingencies of the ex- 

 ternal world. It is not really conceivable that Wild Ducks 

 have commonly many opportunities of studying each other's 

 action when rendered helpless by wounds. Nor is it conceiv- 

 able that such study can have been deliberately made even 

 when opportunities do occur. When one out of a flock is 

 wounded all the others make haste to escape, and it is cer- 

 tain that this trick of imitated helplessness is practiced by 

 individual birds which can never have had any such oppor- 

 tunities at all. Moreover, there is one very remarkable cir- 

 cumstance connected with this instinct, which marks how 

 much of knowledge and of reasoning is implicitly contained 

 within it. As against Man the manoeuvre is not only use- 

 less, but it is injurious. When a man sees a bird resorting 

 to this imitation, he may be deceived for a moment, as I 

 have myself been ; but his knowledge and experience and 

 his reasoning faculty soon tell him from a combination of 

 circumstances that it is merely the usual deception. To 

 Man, therefore, it has the opposite effect of revealing the 

 proximity of the young brood, which would not otherwise 

 be known. I have repeatedly been led by it to the discovery 

 of the chicks. Now, the most curious fact of all is that this 

 distinction between Man and other predacious animals is re- 

 cognized and reflected in the instinct of birds. Themanceuvre 

 of conterfeiting helplessness is very rarely resorted to except 

 when a dog is present. Dogs are almost uniformly deceived 

 by it. They never can resist the temptation presented by a 

 bird which flutters apparently helpless just in front of their 

 nose. It is, therefore, almost always successful in drawing 

 them off, and so rescuing the young from danger. But it is 

 the sense of smell, not the sense of sight, which makes dogs 

 so specially dangerous. The instinct which has been given 

 to birds seems to cover and include the knowledge that as the 

 sense of smell does not exist to the like effect in Man, the 

 mere concealment of the young from sight is ordi- 

 narily, as regards him, sufficient for their protection : and 

 yet I have on one occasion seen the trick resorted to when 

 Man only was the source of danger, and this by a species of 

 bird which does not habitually practice it, and which can 

 have had neither individual nor ancestral experience. This 

 was the case of a Blackcap {Sylvia Atiicapilla), which fell to 

 the ground, as if wounded, from a bush, in order to dis- 

 tract attention from its nest. 



If now we examine, in the light of our own reason, all 

 the elements of knowledge or of intellectual perception 

 upon which the instinct of the Wild Duck is founded, and 

 all of which, as existing somewhere, it undoubtedly reflects, 

 we shall soon see how various and extensive these ele- 

 ments of knowledge are. First, there is the knowledge 

 that the cause of the alarm is a carnivorous animal. On 

 this fundamental point no creature is ever deceived. The 

 youngest chick knows a hawk, and the dreadful form fills it 

 with instant terror. Next, there is the knowledge that 

 dogs and other carnivorous quadrupeds have the sense of 

 smell, as an additional element of danger to the creatures 

 on which they prey. Next, there is the knowledge that 

 the dog, not being itself a flying animal, has sense enough 

 not to attempt the pursuit of prey, which can avail itself of 

 this sure and easy method of eicape. Next, there is the 

 conclusion from all this knowledge, that if the dog is to be 

 induced to chase, it must be led to suppose that the power 

 of flight has been somehow lost. And then there is the 



