REPRODUCTION AND SEX 555 



out that the parent woodpeckers bring their young ones first the 

 seeds themselves, then partly opened cones, and finally intact ones. 

 "The method of preparing the family dinner is at least as much a 

 tradition as an instinct." It is the outcome of both teaching and 

 learning. 



Among mammals the instruction is almost always on the mother's 

 part. The carnivore often brings a living captive to the den and sets 

 it free in presence of the young ones. This serves as a liberating 

 stimulus to instinctive capacities, but it also affords some training. 

 In many cases, e.g. foxes and stoats, the mother takes her offspring 

 with her on her hunting expeditions, and they gradually learn their 

 business. The instinctive basis is of course present, but its exercise 

 under maternal control may continue for months. Tregarthen 

 describes circumstantially the detailed instruction given by the 

 mother otter to her cubs. It includes the long alphabet of country- 

 sounds, the fit and proper ways of diving and lying perdu, the 

 methods of capturing different kinds of booty, and the recognised 

 ways of eating trout, eel, and frog. It may be safely said that too 

 little attention has been given to the factor of education in developing 

 animal behaviour. 



Different Forms of Family. — ^There are various forms of 

 family life among animals, all of them of interest to man. In many 

 cases, of course, although there is an abundant progeny, there is 

 no family. This is evidently the case with those fishes that spawn 

 somewhat fortuitously in the water, and have not even a beginning 

 of parental care. Similarly in frogs, the spawn in the ditch is left to 

 itself, and the tadpoles that hatch out from a clump of eggs do not 

 remain together in any systematic way. If they did, it would be the 

 beginning of a filial, though not of a parental family. In general it 

 may be said that animals which illustrate the spawning method of 

 multiplication do not show any family life. The starfish Luidia, 

 which is credited with producing 200,000,000 of eggs in a year, could 

 hardly be expected to have a family circle, and yet we have seen 

 Mliller's starfish [Asterias muelleri) with the young ones clambering 

 about on the body of the mother. This marks a stage in the formation 

 of a parental family. 



The typical parental family is that in which both parents remain 

 for some time in helpful company with their offspring. One of the 

 highest expressions is seen, according to Reichenow's observations, 

 in a band of twenty or thirty gorillas, where there may be five 

 families — each of father and mother and a number of children. 

 A pretty case among birds is that of the common wren, where both 

 parents share in the family duties, and may utilise the old nest as a 

 shelter in the winter nights, not for themselves alone, but for a 

 number of their offspring as well. In spite of Seebohm's vigorous 



