INSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY. 211 



As soon as we have grasped the notion, that instinct 

 is only the epitome of past experience, revised, cor- 

 rected, made perfect, and learnt by rote, we no longer 

 find any desire to separate "instinct" from "mental 

 dispositions, which have evidently been acquired and 

 fixed by heredity," for the simple reason that they are 

 one and the same thing. 



A few more examples are all that my limits will 

 allow they abound on every side, and the difficulty 

 lies only in selecting M. Eibot being to hand, I will 

 venture to lay him under still further contributions. 



On page 19 we find : 



"Knight has shown experimentally the truth of 

 the proverb, ' a good hound is bred so,' he took every 

 care that when the pups were first taken into the field, 

 they should receive no guidance from older dogs ; yet 

 the very first day, one of the pups stood trembling with 

 anxiety, having his eyes fixed and all his muscles 

 strained at the partridges which their parents had been 

 trained to point. A spaniel belonging to a breed which 

 had been trained to woodcock-shooting, knew perfectly 

 well from the first how to act like an old dog, avoiding 

 places where the ground was frozen, and where it was, 

 therefore, useless to seek the game, as there was no 

 scent. Finally, a young polecat terrier was thrown into 

 a state of great excitement the first time he ever saw 

 one of these animals, while a spaniel remained perfectly 

 calm. 



" In South America, according to Eoulin, dogs belong- 

 ing to a breed that has long been trained to the danger- 

 ous chase of the peccary, when taken for the first time 



