BABIES AND MONKEYS. 381 



articles it is necessary to sleep with tliem, if not on them. When 

 a young child is trying to resist another taking things away from 

 it, the usual method it pursues is to put the articles between its 

 legs, to push away its assailant with its hands, and to scream 

 loudly. During the scream it brings its mouth into a particular 

 shape to show its canine teeth to the best advantage, and it fre- 

 quently puts its head forward, especially protruding the chin so 

 that the other animal may have a good view of its canine teeth. 

 This is what the reason was ; with a child, of course, it is a case 

 of inherited habit and association, because it has never known 

 how to fight with the canine teeth. 



The earlier inheritance of the maternal instinct is worth notic- 

 ing further ; the doll-proclivity of girls is a particular instance of 

 earlier inheritance thereof. Doll-nursing instinct is not shared in 

 the least by any healthy boys, nor can they take to little house- 

 hold duties with the handiness of a girl. Boys' earlier inherit- 

 ance is all in the way of offensive weapons, of bows, bats, balls, 

 and noise, with a tendency to teasing and bullying, a feature 

 for which the male has been famous, the sufferer who was put 

 upon being the female the weaker vessel ; weaker because the 

 males fought with one another for her ; had she fought with her 

 sisters for the males she could have been the stronger and the 

 bigger brained. 



The female, however, does inherit a pugnacious instinct, 

 chiefly defensive. She has had to fight on behalf of her young 

 ones, and in such cases the maternal instinct becomes very strong 

 indeed. Children show this character ; and I witnessed in one of 

 mine a very curious exhibition of what might be called perverted 

 instinct arising from a conflict of inherited associations. She 

 was quite a little girl and was nursing her doll with all possible 

 expression of affection, loving it, kissing it, and calling it all the 

 endearing names she knew. Up came her brother and began to 

 tease her. In an instant the pugnacious idea was aroused in 

 defense of the doll, but, having no available weapon in hand, she 

 seized the doll by the hind legs and, wheeling it aloft, brought 

 its china head down with resounding force on the cranium of her 

 brother. He retired, howling and discomfited. She, excited with 

 her triumph, returned to the caressing of her doll with redoubled 

 ardor, quite unconscious of the incongruity of her actions, an 

 unconsciousness which heightened the comicality of the incident. 



Another habit of children a sadly destructive habit too is 

 that of picking at anything loose, any piece of wall-paper espe- 

 cially, so as to tear it off. This habit is a survival of a monkey 

 practice of picking off the bark from trees in order to search for 

 insects. Any loose piece of bark, even the very least displace- 

 ment, indicates an insect refuge, atid immediately suggests live 



