54 ARE THE EFFECTS OF USE INHERITED ? 



result in a certain amount of deterioration, inde- 

 pendently even of the principle of economy. 1 I 

 think that this cessation of a previous selective 

 process will account for the drooping but not 

 diminished ears of various domesticated animals 

 (human preference and increased weight evidently 

 aiding), and also for the inferior instincts seen in 

 them and in artificially- fed caterpillars of the silk- 

 moth, which now " often commit the strange mis- 

 take of devouring the base of the leaf on which 

 they are feeding, and consequently fall down." 

 Anyhow, I fail to see that anything is proved by 

 this latter case, except thatjj natural instinct may 

 be perverted or aborted under unnatural condi- 

 tions and a changed method of selection which 

 abolishes the powerful corrective formerly supplied 

 by natural selection. 



1 Contemporary Revieiv, December 1875, pp. 89, 93. 



