Page:George Archdall Reid 1896 The present evolution of man.djvu/171

Rh it be remembered, was the first time it bad ever walked by sight.' "Further, 'When twelve days old one of my little protege's, while running about beside me, gave the peculiar chirr whereby they announce the approach of danger. I looked up, and behold a sparrow-hawk was hovering at a great height overhead. Equally striking was the effect of the hawk's voice when heard for the first time. A young turkey, which I had adopted when chirping within the uncracked shell, was on the morning of the tenth day of its life eating a comfortable breakfast from my hand, when the young hawk, in a cupboard just beside us, gave a shrill chip, chip, chip. Like an arrow the poor turkey shot to the other side of the room, and stood there motionless and dumb with fear, until the hawk gave a second cry, when it darted out at the open door right to the extreme end of the passage, and there, silent and crouched in a corner, remained for ten minutes. Several times during the course of that day it again heard these alarming sounds, and in every instance with similar manifestations of fear.' "Again referring to young chickens, Mr. Spalding continues— ' Scores of times I have seen them attempt to dress their wings when only a few hours old— indeed, as soon as they could hold up their heads, and even when denied the use of their eyes. The art of scraping in search for food, which, if anything, might be acquired by imitation—for the hen with chickens spends the half of her time in scratching for them—is nevertheless another indisputable case of instinct. Without any opportunities of imitation, when kept quite isolated from their kind, chickens began to scrape when from two to six days old. Generally, the condition of the ground was suggestive; but I have several times seen the first attempt, which consists of a sort of nervous dance, made on a small table.' "In this connection I may here insert an interesting observation which has been communicated to me by Dr. Allen Thomson, F.R.S. He hatched out some chickens on a carpet, where he kept them for several days. They showed no inclination to scrape, because the stimulus supplied by the carpet to the soles of their feet was of too novel a character to call into action the hereditary instinct; but when Dr. Thomson sprinkled a little gravel on the carpet, and so supplied the appropriate or customary stimulus, the chickens immediately began their scraping movements. "But to return to Mr. Spalding's experiments, he says:—'As an example of unacquired dexterity, I may mention, that on placing four ducklings a day old in the open air for the first time, one of them almost immediately snapped at and caught a fly on the wing. More interesting, however, is the deliberate art of catching flies practised by the turkey. When not a day and a half old I observed the young turkey already spoken of pointing its beak at parrot or a jackdaw, which begins life with a comparatively slender equipment of instinct. So also a young