The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4): A Plain Story Simply ToldThomson, J. Arthur (John Arthur)
Science
The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4): A Plain Story Simply Told
Thomson, J. Arthur (John Arthur)
Science
Birds have inborn predispositions to certain effective ways of pecking,
scratching, swimming, diving, flying, crouching, lying low,
nest-building, and so on; but they are marked off from the much more
purely instinctive ants and bees by the extent to which individual
"nurture" seems to mingle with the inherited "nature." The two together
result in the fine product which we call the bird's behaviour. After
Lloyd Morgan's chicks had tried a few conspicuous and unpalatable
caterpillars, they had no use for any more. They learned in their early
days with prodigious rapidity, illustrating the deep difference between
the "big-brain" type, relatively poor in its endowment of instinctive
capacities, but eminently "educable," and the "little-brain" type, say,
of ants and bees, richly endowed with instinctive capacities, but very
far from being quick or glad to learn. We owe it to Sir Ray Lankester to
have made it clear that these two types of brain are, as it were, on
different tacks of evolution, and should not be directly pitted against
one another. The "little-brain" type makes for a climax in the ant,
where instinctive behaviour reaches a high degree of perfection; the
"big-brain" type reaches its climax in horse and dog, in elephant and
monkey. The particular interest that attaches to the behaviour of birds
is in the combination of a good deal of instinct with a great deal of
intelligent learning. This is well illustrated when birds make a nest
out of new materials or in some quite novel situation. It is clearly
seen when birds turn to some new kind of food, like the Kea parrot,
which attacks the sheep in New Zealand.
Some young woodpeckers are quite clever in opening fir cones to get at
the seeds, and this might be hastily referred to a well-defined
hereditary capacity. But the facts are that the parents bring their
young ones first the seeds themselves, then partly opened cones, and
then intact ones. There is an educative process, and so it is in scores
of cases.
Using their Wits
When the Greek eagle lifts the Greek tortoise in its talons, and lets it
fall from a height so that the strong carapace is broken and the flesh
exposed, it is making intelligent use of an expedient. Whether it
discovered the expedient by experimenting, as is possible, or by chance,
as is more likely, it uses it intelligently. In the same way
herring-gulls lift sea-urchins and clams in their bills, and let them
fall on the rocks so that the shells are broken. In the same way rooks
deal with freshwater mussels.
The Thrush's Anvil
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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