THE LAWS OF VARIABILITY. 67 



INHERITED PECULIARITIES IN MAN. 



Animals and Gait > gestures, Toice, and general bearing, 

 Plants, vol. are all inherited, as the illustrious Hunter and 

 i, page 450. gir ^ Carlisle have insisted. My father com- 

 municated to me some striking instances, in one of which 

 a man died during the early infancy of his son, and my 

 father, who did not see this son until grown up and out 

 of health, declared that it seemed to him as if his old 

 friend had risen from the grave, with all his highly pe- 

 culiar habits and manners. Peculiar manners pass into 

 tricks, and several instances could be given of their in- 

 heritance ; as in the case, often quoted, of the father who 

 generally slept on his back, with his right leg crossed over 

 the left, and whose daughter, while an infant in the 

 cradle, followed exactly the same habit, though an at- 

 tempt was made to cure her. I will give one instance 

 which has fallen under my own observation, and which is 

 curious from being a trick associated with a peculiar state 

 of mind, namely, pleasurable emotion. A boy had the 

 singular habit, when pleased, of rapidly moving his fin- 

 gers parallel to each other, and, when much excited, of 

 raising both hands, with the fingers still moving, to the 

 sides of his face on a level with the eyes : when this boy 

 was almost an old man, he could still hardly resist this 

 trick when much pleased, but from its absurdity concealed 

 it. He had eight children. Of these, a girl, when 

 pleased, at the age of four and a half years, moved her 

 fingers in exactly the same way, and, what is still odder, 

 when much excited, she raised both her hands, with her 

 fingers still moving, to the sides of her face, in exactly 

 the same manner as her father had done, and sometimes 



I even still continued to do so when alone. I never heard 

 of any one, excepting this one man and his little daugh- 



