312 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



other was quite blind, walked about freely, knocking against things. 

 In the afternoon I uncovered its eyes, and it went round and round as 

 if it had liad sight, and had suddenly lost it. In ten minutes it was 

 scarcely distinguishable from one that had had sight all along. When 

 placed on a chair it knew the height to require considering, went 

 down on its knees and leaped down. When its eyes had been un- 

 veiled twenty minutes I placed it and another twenty feet from the 

 stv. The two reached the mother in five minutes and at the same 

 moment. 



Different kinds of creatures, then, bring with them a good deal of 

 cleverness, and a very useful acquaintance with the established order 

 of Nature. At the same time all of them later in their lives do a great 

 many things of which they are quite incapable at birth. That these 

 are all matters of pure acquisition ajDpears to me an unwarranted 

 assumption. The human infant cannot masticate ; it can move its 

 limbs, but cannot walk, or direct its hands so as to grasp an object 

 held up before it. The kitten just born cannot catch mice. The 

 newly-hatched swallow or tomtit can neither walk, nor fly, nor feed 

 itself. They are as hel|)less as the human infant. Is it as the result 

 of painful learning that the child subsequently seizes an apple and 

 eats it? that the cat lies in wait for the mouse? that the bird finds its 

 proper food and wings its way through the air? We think not. With 

 the development of the physical parts, comes, according to our view, 

 the power to use them, in the ways that have preserved the race 

 through past ages. This is in harmony with all we know. Not so 

 the contrary view. So old is the feud between the cat and the dog, 

 that the kitten knows its enemy even before it is able to see him, and 

 when its fear can in no way serve it. One day last month, after fon- 

 dling my dog, I put my hand into a basket containing four blind kit- 

 tens, three days ol<l. The smell my hand had carried with it set them 

 puffing and spitting in a most comical fashion. 



That the later developments to which I have referred are not ac- 

 quisitions can be in some instances demonstrated. Birds do not learn 

 to fly. Two years ago I shut up five unfledged swallows in a small 

 box not raiich larger than the nest from which they were taken. The 

 little box, which had a wire front, was hung on the wall near the nest, 

 and tlie young swallows were fed by their parents through the wires. 

 In this confinement, where they could not even extend their wings, 

 they were kept until after they were fully fledged. Lord and Lady 

 Amberley liberated the birds and communicated their observations to 

 me, I being in another part of the country at the time. On going to 

 set the prisoners free, one was found dead they were all alive on the 

 previous day. The remaining four were allowed to escape one at a 

 time. Two of these were perceptibly wavering and unsteady in their 

 flght. One of them, after a flight of about ninety yards, disappeared 

 among some trees; the other, which flew more steadily, made a sweep- 



