168 ACQUIRED CHARACTERS sec. 



the conditions of domesticated life in general, that our hens 

 lay eggs and our cows give milk almost all the year round % 

 How else are we to explain that our hens, ducks, and even 

 geese have almost completely lost the power of flight ? not to 

 mention the modifications of structure, some of considerable 

 importance, e.g. in the skeleton, which almost all our 

 domesticated animals exhibit, when compared with the wild 

 forms from which they are descended, and which cannot in 

 any way benefit them. 



Weismann points out as evidence against the inheritance 

 of acquired characters, that articulate speech and the art of 

 piano-playing are not inherited, but only the predispositions 

 thereto. But each of these is obviously not an acquired 

 " character " of the organism, but only an artistic skill, which 

 has been learned. But the necessary tones of voice which 

 constitute a gradually acquired character — indeed vt)ice itself, 

 and the acquired faculty of forming certain tones melodiously 

 in a definite succession — are inherited. 



In no less a degree faculties acquired through education, 

 through training, by various domesticated animals, e.^.'by our 

 breeds of dogs, are transmitted by heredity — no one would 

 doubt this who had ever observed the behaviour of a young 

 untrained pointer in presence of game which he has never 

 before seen, and compared it with the behaviour of a mongrel 

 of the same age. 



Here is an instance. Some years ago I was surprised to 

 see a pointer in my possession which had never before seen a 

 partridge, had never been taught to point at them, point at a 

 covey of partridges perfectly correctly, standing motionless 

 with head outstretched, fore -paw lifted up, and tail stiffly 

 erected. Exactly the same thing happened a few days ago 

 with a pointer now five months old which was sent to me by 

 one of my cousins who is chief forester in the Taunus, who 

 assured me that this dog had never yet had a partridge in 



