FEIGNING INJURY. 317 



paralyzed by fright), and then, in accordance with the general 

 principles of heredity, being inherited at an earlier age by the 

 progeny. 



It will thus be seen that Mr. Darwin was disposed to 

 attribute the instinct, both of the mother and young, to an 

 exclusively primary origin ; but I confess that the case does 

 appear to my mind one of difficulty, and I am rather inclined 

 to think that the instinct of the mother in the case of the 

 duck, peeweet, partridge, and all birds which present it, 

 must have originally been assisted by intelligence. It 

 must be admitted, from what we know of hens, that the 

 maternal feelings may be so strong as to lead to a readi- 

 ness to incur danger or death rather than that the brood 

 should do so. Therefore, when in the presence of a four- 

 footed enemy the mother bird begins alternately attack- 

 ing and retreating in the manner alluded to by Mr. Darwin, 

 if she were intelligent enough to observe that on retreating 

 without taking wing she was followed up, there can be no 

 doubt that she might with intentional purpose thus lure 

 away the enemy from her young. If so, those parents which 

 had sense enough to adopt this device would no doubt be 

 able to rear a greater number of broods than could the less 

 observant parents ; and the young broods of such intelligent 

 parents would inherit a tendency to adopt this device when 

 they themselves became mothers. Thus the originally intel- 

 ligent device would slowly become organized into an instinct, 

 and so be now performed with mechanical promptitude by 

 every individual partridge, plover, and duck. The greatest 

 difficulty is to account for the drooping of the wing, and this, 

 I think, can only be done by regarding it, with Mr. Darwin, 

 as of an unblended primary origin The case, however, is 

 unquestionably very remarkable. 



Such are the only instincts which have occurred to me as 

 likely to present any special difficulty to the foregoing theory 

 of the origin and development of instincts in general. Mr. 



Darwin in liis chapter on Instinct in the "Origin of Species," 

 has fully discussed several other instincts in this connection 

 (viz., the parasitic instinct of the cuckoo, the cell-making 

 instinct of bees, and the slave-making instinct of ants); but 

 as these do not present any real difficulty, I shall not wait 

 to go over the ground already so thoroughly traversed by 

 him. 



