INVERTEBRATA, CRYPTOGAMIA, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 241 



In tlie cases above described this inference is rendered much more 

 probable, as the full beauty of the male can be seen by the female 

 only when he advances towards her. In a similar manner the males 

 of many birds, as the peacock, &c., display their wonderful plumage 

 to the greatest advantage before their unadorned friends. 



The consideration of these cases leads Mr. Darwin to add a few 

 remarks as to how far consciousness necessarily comes into play in 

 the first acquirement of certain instincts, including sexual display; 

 for as all the males of the same species behave in the same manner 

 whilst courting the female, we may infer that the display is at least 

 now instinctive. Most naturalists appear to believe that every instinct 

 was at first consciously performed ; but this seems to him an erroneous 

 conclusion in many cases, though true in others. Birds, when 

 variously excited, assume strange attitudes and ruffle their feathers ; 

 and if this were advantageous to a male whilst courting the female, 

 there does not seem to be any improbability in the oftspring which 

 inherited this action being favoured ; and we know that odd tricks 

 and new gestures performed unconsciously are often inherited by 

 man. 



In the case of young ground birds which squat and hide them- 

 selves when in danger directly after hatching, it seems hardly pos- 

 sible that the habit could have been consciously acquired without any 

 experience. But if those young birds which remained motionless 

 when frightened were oftener preserved from beasts of prey than 

 those which tried to escape, the habit of squatting might have been 

 unconsciously acquired. Again, a hen partridge when there is 

 danger flies a short distance from her young ones and leaves them 

 closely squatted ; she then flutters along the ground as if crippled ; 

 but, differently from a really wounded bird, she makes herself con- 

 spicuous. Now it is more than doubtful whether any bird ever 

 existed with sufficient intellect to think that if she imitated the 

 actions of an injured bird she would draw away an enemy from her 

 young ones ; for this presujiposes that she had observed such actions 

 in an injured comrade and knew that they would tempt an enemy to 

 pursuit. Many now admit that, fjr instance, the hinge of a shell 

 has been formed by the preservation and inheritance of successive 

 useful variations, the individuals with a somewhat better constructed 

 shell being preserved in greater numbers than those with a less well- 

 constructed one ; and Avhy should not beneficial variations in the 

 inherited actions of a partridge be preserved in like manner, without 

 any thought or conscious intention on her part any more than on the 

 I)art of the mollusc, tlic hinge of whoso shell has been modified and 

 improved independently of consciousness ? 



Bees eating Entrapped Moths.* — Mr. Packard, jun., says that 

 a flowering stalk of an asclopiad (Physinnthns \ Ardiijd^ albens) was 

 brought to him last Sei)tcmber, with the bodies of several moths 

 (Plusia prccationls) hanging dead from the flowers, being caught by 

 their tongues or maxilla;. These moths had, in endeavouring to 



♦ ' Anj. Nat.,' xiv. (1880) p. 48; kcc 'Nature,' xxi. (ISSO) p. .lOS. 

 VOL. m. R 



