It must not be supposed that, in adducing flight as an example of instinctive behaviour in birds, we are contending that it is this and nothing more throughout life. The inference to be drawn from the facts of observation is rather that instinct provides a general ground plan of behaviour which intelligent acquisition, by enforcing here and checking there, perfects and guides to finer issues. Few would contend that the consummate skill evinced in fully developed flight at its best, the hurtling swoop of the falcon, the hovering of the kestrel, the wheeling of swifts in the summer air, the rapid dart and sudden poise of the humming bird, the easy sweep of the sea-gull, the downward glide of the stork--that these are, in all their exquisite perfection, instinctive. A rough but sufficient outline of action is hereditary; but the manifold graces and delicacies of perfected flight are due to intelligent skill begotten of practice and experience. There are many little idiosyncracies and special traits of flight which are probably instinctive--such as enable an ornithologist or a sportsman to recognize a flying bird from a distance. And the same is true of other modes of behaviour. The observer of young birds cannot fail to note and to be impressed by many of these. The way in which a little moor-hen uses its wings in scrambling up any rough surface is very characteristic; so, too, is the manner in which a guinea-chick runs backwards and then sideways at a right angle when one attempts to catch him. If suddenly startled, moor-hens and chicks scatter and hide; plovers drop and crouch with their chins on the ground; pheasants stand motionless and silent. Knowledge of the ways of birds enables one to predict with tolerable accuracy how each kind will behave under given circumstances. That the actions are always precisely alike cannot be said with truth; but that the behaviour is so relatively definite as to be readily recognizable can be confidently asserted. That a moor-hen will flick its tail, that a chick will dust itself in the sand, that pheasants and partridges will scratch the ground, that a jay will go through certain actions in the bath, that the preening of the down will be carried out in particular ways--moor-hens, for example, wringing out the water in a peculiar manner,--and that all these, and many other modes of behaviour, will be presented in relatively definite ways: all these are, to borrow a phrase of Dr. Peckham’s, so characteristic of the several groups of birds, that they would be an important part of any definition based upon behaviour. And there can be no question that they are instinctive. They may indeed seem trivial and commonplace, scarcely worthy of special note; but they serve to show in how many details organic heredity lays the foundation for future behaviour, and affords groups of data for effective consciousness to utilize.