Habit and Instinct |
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accompanied acquired habit action adaptive afferent nerves afford animal association automatic bill brood caterpillars chaffinch choice cinnabar co-ordination congenital variations congenitally definite consciousness cuckoo Darwin days old direct dive duck ducklings effects eggs elimination emotional evidence fact factor faculty flight germinal guidance habit and instinct hand hatched head hereditary heredity house martins imitation impulse incubation individual acquisition individual experience inherited insects instinctive activities instinctive behaviour instinctive response intelligence kitten larvæ less mating matter megapodes mental evolution mode modification moorhen chicks motor natural selection nest object observations origin ovules parents peck performance pheasants plovers Prof question race reflex reflex action regard result Romanes Lecture seems seized sexual selection sight song species stimulus structure suppose swallowed tendency term tion tradition transmission transmissionist truly instinctive visceral W. H. Hudson wings young birds young moorhen Yucca moth
Popular passages
Page 192 - Instinctive reactions and emotional expressions thus shade imperceptibly into each other. Every object that excites an instinct excites an emotion as well. Emotions, however, fall short of instincts, in that the emotional reaction usually terminates in the subject's own body, whilst the instinctive reaction is apt to go farther and enter into practical relations with the exciting object.
Page 264 - I shall adhere throughout the present volume, is as follows: — Does the organism learn to make new adjustments, or to modify old ones, in accordance with the results of its own individual experience? If it does so, the fact cannot be due merely to reflex action...
Page 34 - It leaped over the smaller obstacles that lay in its path and ran round the larger, reaching the mother in as nearly a straight line as the nature of the ground would permit. This, let it be remembered, was the first time it had ever walked by sight.* • Since writing this article, I see it stated in Mr.
Page 66 - But one of them stumbled into the pool. The effect was most curious. When the young bird touched the water, there was a moment of pause, as if the creature were surprised. Then instantly there seemed to wake within it the sense of its hereditary powers. Down it dived with all the facility of its parents, and the action of its wings under the water was a beautiful exhibition of the double adaptation to progression in two very different elements, which is peculiar to the wings of most of the diving...
Page 34 - For twenty minutes it sat on the spot where its eyes had been unveiled without attempting to walk a step. It was then placed on rough ground within sight and call of a hen with a brood of its own age. After standing chirping for about a minute, it started off towards the...
Page 48 - Another suggestive class of phenomena that fell under my notice may be described as imperfect instincts. When a week old my turkey came on a bee right in its path — the first, I believe, it had ever seen. It gave the danger chirr, stood for a few seconds with outstretched neck and marked expression of fear, then turned off in another direction. On this hint I made a vast number of experiments with chickens and bees. In the great majority of instances the chickens gave evidence of instinctive fear...
Page 340 - Whatever, therefore, the moral and intellectual progress of men may be, it resolves itself not into a progress of natural capacity, but into a progress, if I may so say, of opportunity; that is, an improvement in the circumstances under which that capacity after birth comes into play. Here, then, lies the gist of the whole matter. The progress is one, not of internal power, but of external advantage.
Page 14 - The silvery, straw-coloured insects emerge from their chrysalis-cases just when the large, yellowish-white, bellshaped flowers of the yucca open, each for a single night. From the anthers of one of these flowers the female moth collects the golden pollen, and kneads the adhesive material into a little pellet, which she holds beneath her head by means of the greatly enlarged bristly palps. Thus laden, she flies off and seeks another flower. Having found one, she pierces with the sharp lancets of her...
Page 47 - For six minutes it sat chirping and looking about it; at the end of that time it followed with its head and eyes the movements of a fly twelve inches distant; at ten minutes it made a peck at its own toes and the next instant it made a vigorous dart at the fly, which had come within reach of its neck, and seized and swallowed it at the first stroke; for seven minutes more it sat calling and looking about it, when a hive-b8e coming sufficiently near was seized at a dart and thrown some distance, much...
Page 103 - ... to follow after any object receding from it, and, on the other hand, to run from anything approaching it. " If the dam turns round and approaches it from even a very short distance, it will start back and run from her in fear, and will not understand her voice when she bleats to it ; at the same time it will confidently follow after a man, dog, horse, or any other animal moving from it. A very common experience on the pampas, in the sheep country, is to see a lamb start up from sleep and follow...