Habituation among Wild Animals 161 



habit, to which people sometimes refer when they 

 speak of the force of habit. But it is very improbable 

 that a habit (unless pathological) has in itself any 

 motive power or "drive" ; it is but the instrument of 

 some appetite or urge, some appetency or purpose. 



Keeping habits (in the strict sense) separate from 

 instinctive routine on the one hand and controlled 

 intelligent behavior on the other, some authorities 

 have held that habituation does not count for much 

 in the everyday life of wild animals. Our impression 

 is different. For we think that among birds and mam- 

 mals there is often in the individual lifetime a habitua- 

 tion of activities which were learned either by the 

 help of parental tuition or by serving an apprentice- 

 ship in the school of trial and error, testing all things 

 and holding fast that which is good. We refer espe- 

 cially to chains of actions exhibited in locomotion, 

 food-capture, construction, and the like, some of 

 which, intelligently learned, look as if they became 

 habitual. But the question whether an individual 

 habituation in the present may become a racial in- 

 stinct in the distant future, leads us now to some 

 interesting experiments, which deserve careful con- 

 sideration. 



alcoholized rats 



Many experiments have been made in America in 

 the way of treating animals like rats and guinea-pigs 

 with alcohol. The object has been to discover how 

 far subsequent generations were affected by the alco- 

 holic habits of their parents or ancestors. It cannot be 



