170 Darw'ni and Romanes dealt with. 



Here the action was as direct as any action could be 

 to secure the end desired, though it is very evident 

 that it was an action right in face of some strong 

 antecedent instinct which prevailed when, like certain 

 of the young of the American cuckoos, ours were 

 brooded, as they now are. The origin of the action of 

 the young cuckoo could no more have been merely 

 automatic or reflex action than the above actions of 

 the thrushes, and crows, and gulls ; seeing that it 

 must — since the species flourished — have come into 

 use precisely so as nearly to synchronise with actions 

 on the part of the old ones — which on no theory 

 whatever could you call instinctive, any more than 

 the habit of the thrush in carrying snails to stones to 

 break the shell, or the flying up of crows and gulls to 

 drop shell-fish on rocks or stones to crack the shells. 

 If this act in its beginning had not synchronised with 

 the precedent acts of the elders, the cuckoos would, 

 probably, have been extinct. So that here, not only 

 have you a definite act, to all appearance possible only 

 to reason and traversing one of the strongest and most 

 prevailing of all instincts, but corresponding acts on 

 the part of the young birds, without which the ante- 

 cedent acts of the adults would have wholly failed and 

 could not have been eff"ective for their end. Here is 

 a case of effort scarcely ever failing by a whole class 

 directed to secure a most definite end — or couple of 

 ends — self-preservation first and the perpetuation of 

 the species afterwards — which certainly could not 

 have originated in the process Mr. Darwin holds by — 

 *' through the selection of self-originating tricks.'' 

 Mr. Grant Allen at one place italicises these words as 

 giving in brief the main origin of instinct in wild 



