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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



warm, soft hand applied to his face excited a 

 wish to suck. This must be considered as a re- 

 flex or an instinctive action, for it is impossible 

 to believe that experience and association with 

 the touch of his mother's breast could so soon 

 have come into play. During the first fortnight 

 he often started on hearing any sudden sound, 

 and blinked his eyes. The same fact was ob- 

 served with some of my other infants within the 

 first fortnight. Once, when he was sixty-six days 

 old, I happened to sneeze, and he started violent- 

 ly, frowned, looked frightened, and cried rather 

 badly : for an hour afterward he was in a state 

 which would be called nervous in an older per- 

 son, for every slight noise made him start. A 

 few days before this same date he first started at 

 an object suddenly seen ; but for a long time 

 afterward sounds made him start and wink his 

 eyes much more frequently than did sight ; thus, 

 when 114 days old, I shook a pasteboard box 

 with comfits in it near his face, and he started, 

 while the same box when empty, or any other 

 object shaken as near or much nearer to his face, 

 produced no effect. We may infer from these 

 several facts that the winking of the eyes, which 

 manifestly serves to protect them, had not been 

 acquired through experience. Although so sen- 

 sitive to sound in a general way, he was not able, 

 even when 124 days old, easily to recognize whence 

 a sound proceeded, so as to direct his eyes to the 

 source. 



With respect to vision, his eyes were fixed 

 on a candle as early as the ninth day, and up to 

 the forty-fifth day nothing else seemed thus to 

 fix them ; but on the forty-ninth day his atten- 

 tion was attracted by a bright-colored tassel, as 

 was shown by his eyes becoming fixed and the 

 movements of his arms ceasing. It was surpris- 

 ing how slowly he acquired the power of follow- 

 ing with his eyes an object if swinging at all rap- 

 idly ; for he could not do this well when seven 

 and a half months old. At the age of thirty- 

 two days he perceived his mother's bosom when 

 three or four inches from it, as was shown by the 

 protrusion of his lips and his eyes becoming fixed ; 

 but I much doubt whether this had any connec- 

 tion with vision ; he certainly had not touched 

 the bosom. Whether .he was guided through 

 smell, or the sensation of warmth, or through 

 association with the position in which he was 

 held, I do not at all know. 



The movements of his limbs and body were 

 for a long time vague and purposeless, and usu- 

 ally performed in a jerking manner ; but there 

 was one exception to this rule, namely, that from 



a very early period, certainly long before he was 

 forty days old, he could move his hands to his own 

 mouth. When seventy-seven days old, he took 

 the sucking-bottle (with which he was partly fed) 

 in his right hand, whether he was held on the left 

 or right arm of his nurse, and he would not take 

 it in his left hand until a week later, although I 

 tried to make him do so ; so that the right hand 

 was a week in advance of the left. Yet this infant 

 afterward proved to be left-handed, the tendency 

 being no doubt inherited — his grandfather, moth- 

 er, and a brother, having been or being left-hand- 

 ed. When between eighty and ninety days old, he 

 drew all sorts of objects into his mouth, and in two 

 or three weeks' time could do this with some skill ; 

 but he often first touched his nose with the ob- 

 ject and then dragged it down into his mouth. 

 After grasping my finger and drawing it to his 

 mouth, his own hand prevented him from sucking 

 it ; but on the 114th day, after acting in this man- 

 ner, he slipped his own hand down so that he 

 could get the end of my finger into his mouth. 

 This action was repeated several times, and evi- 

 dently was not a chance but a rational one. The 

 intentional movements of the hands and arms 

 were thus much in advance of those of the body 

 and legs ; though the purposeless movements of 

 the latter were from a very early period usually 

 alternate as in the act of walking. When four 

 months old, he often looked intently at his own 

 hands and other objects close to him, and in do- 

 ing so the eyes were turned much inward, so that 

 he often squinted frightfully. In a fortnight after 

 this time (i. e., 132 days old) I observed that if 

 an object was brought as near to his face as his 

 own hands were, he tried to seize it, but often 

 failed ; and he did not try to do so in regard to 

 more distant objects. I think there can be little 

 doubt that the convergence of his eyes gave him 

 the clew and excited him to move his arms. Al- 

 though this infant thus began to use his hands 

 at an early period, he showed no special aptitude 

 in this respect, for, when he was two years and 

 four months old, he held pencils, pens, and other 

 objects, far less neatly and efficiently than did his 

 sister who was then only fourteen months old, 

 and who showed great inherent aptitude in han- 

 dling; anything. 



Anger. — It was difficult to decide at how early 

 an age anger was felt; on his eighth day he 

 frowned and wrinkled the skin round his eyes 

 before a crying-fit, but this may have been due 

 to pain or distress, and not to anger. When 

 about ten weeks old, he was given some rather 

 cold milk and he kept a slight frown on his fore- 



