When you walk through the park on a spring day, you sometimes see a platoon of ducklings waddling single-file behind their mother. They’ll follow her wherever she goes. They’ve been doing that since the day they hatched.

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            The urge to follow is a powerful instinct among newly hatched ground births like ducks, swans, chickens, geese, and turkeys. These birds are able to stand up and run around soon after they hatch. Usually they start to follow their mother. But if for some reason their mother isn’t around, they’ll look for something else to follow.

            Farmers noticed this behavior a long time ago. If a farmer takes a newly hatched ground bird from its mother and keeps it with him long enough, the baby bird will try to follow him. If it is returned to its mother, it doesn’t seem to recognize her. It will still run after the farmer.

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            An Austrian scientist named Konrad Lorenz was the first to investigate this following instinct. He hatched some goose eggs in an incubator, and after they hatched he conducted some experiments. He found that newly hatched goslings would run after the first moving object they see. It may be their mother, or it may be a person, a dog, or rolling ball, a toy car, or almost anything else the goslings see moving away from them. And after following something for just a brief time, they’ll refuse to follow anything else.

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            This following instinct is strongest during the first few hours of a gosling’s life. If a newly hatched bird is kept in a room by itself and isn’t given a chance to follow, it gradually loses the urge to follow. At the end of only one day, it hesitates and seems fearful of anything that moves. At the end of two days, it won’t follow at all.

            Dr. Lorenz called this behavior imprinting, because a baby bird’s first impression seem to become so deeply imprinted in its mind. By following its mother, a newly hatched gosling learns to recognize her and associate with others of its kind. But if it follows a farmer and accepts him as it mother, then it may want to associate with human for the rest of its life. Such a birth has become imprinted to humans.

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            Imprinting is important in the lives of other creatures as well. Hoofed animals like cows, sheep, and deer also struggle to their feet and start to walk a few minutes after they are born. Ordinarily they follow their mother. In this way they learn to recognize her and stay with the rest of the herd. But if a hoofed animal is taken from its mother and raised on a bottle by humans, it will learn to follow humans. A bottle-reared lamb becomes so strongly attached to humans, it will “baa” plaintively when left alone with other sheep. If it is forced to return to its flock. It will go off by itself to graze and may stay apart from the flock for the rest of its life. That’s why Mary’s little lamb followed her everywhere she went.