A scientist has found a way to implant the natural behavior of one animal into another species, creating a chicken that acts like a quail by transferring brain cells from one embryo to another.

''It turns out there's a part of the quail's brain that I can transfer into a chicken that makes the chicken move its head like a quail when it's crowing like a chicken,'' said Dr. Evan Balaban, an experimental neurobiologist at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego.

A chicken also sang like a quail after Dr. Balaban transplanted cells from a part of a quail's brain that dictates its distinctive sound patterns.

The crowing and head-bobbing behaviors could be transferred ''wholly independently of each other and still have behavior that's well organized,'' he said.