HEREDITY. 309 



which has not in some country drooping ears; and the view 

 suggested by some authors, that the drooping is due to the 

 disuse of the muscles of the ear, from the animals not being 

 much alarmed by danger, seems probable." Again " The 

 eyes of moles and of some burrowing rodents are rudimentary 

 in size, and in some cases are quite covered up by skin and 

 fur. This state of the eyes is probably due to gradual 

 reduction from disuse, but aided perhaps by natural selec- 

 tion." . . . . " It is well known that several animals 

 belonging to the most different classes, which inhabit the 

 caves of Styria and of Kentucky, are blind. In some of the 

 crabs the footstalk of the eye remains, though the eye is 

 gone; the stand for the telescope is there, though the tele- 

 scope with its glasses has been lost. As it is difficult to 

 imagine that eyes, though useless, could be in any way 

 injurious to animals living in darkness, I attribute 

 their loss wholly to disuse." * The direct inheritance of an 

 acquired peculiarity is sometimes observable. Mr. Lewes 

 gives a case. He "had a puppy taken from its mother at 

 six weeks old, who, although never taught 'to beg' (an 

 accomplishment his mother had been taught), spontaneously 

 took to begging for everything he wanted when about seven 

 or eight months old: he would beg for food, beg to be let 

 out of the room, and one day was found opposite a rabbit 

 hutch begging for rabbits." Instances are on record, too, of 



* An instance here occurs of the way in which those who are averse to a 

 conclusion will assign the most flimsy reasons for rejecting it. Rather than 

 admit that the eyes of these creatures living in darkness have disappeared 

 from lack of use, some contend that such creatures would be liable to have 

 their eyes injured by collisions with objects, and that therefore natural selec- 

 tion would favour those individuals in which the eyes had somewhat dimin- 

 ished and were least liable to injury : the implication being that the immunity 

 from the inflammations due to injuries would be so important a factor in life 

 as to cause survival. And this is argued in presence of the fact that one of 

 the most conspicuous among these blind cave-animals is a cray-fish, and that 

 the cray-fish in its natural habitat is in the habit of burrowing in the banks 

 of rivers holes a foot or more deep, and has its eyes exposed to all those 

 possible blows and frictions which the burrowing involves ! 

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