16 SYLVAN SECRETS. 



enunciated. The neglect of an organ implies 

 that the organ is not needed, and that there- 

 fore it is not desired. On the other hand, if 

 the need for an organ increase, the desire for 

 it will strengthen apace, and the organ will 

 be modified in accordance with this natural 

 desire. The trouble about fully comprehend- 

 ing this law lies in our proneness to confining 

 our idea of its operation within the space of 

 a few years, as compared with the almost 

 immeasurable ages of geologic time through- 

 out which the law has operated with the 

 effects we now observe. If we can force our 

 minds to consider a million years, for in- 

 stance, as the minimum space of time requi- 

 site to effect the elimination of a useless organ 

 by the operation of natural desire, transmit- 

 ted by heredity, we shall begin to feel the 

 perfect reasonableness of our proposition. 



Going a step farther, I think there is much 

 evidence tending to prove that birds are en- 

 dowed with what may be called hereditary 

 memory and hereditary desire. It seems that 

 if ever man possessed this hereditament he 

 has lost it in the over-development of his 

 higher mental powers. 



I have noted the following facts : 



A bird, when reared in captivity and far 

 from any of its kind, will utter exactly the 

 notes of its ancestors. It will also build a nest 

 after the fashion prescribed by ancestral hab- 

 it. It will feed its young in accordance with 

 hereditary custom. It will migrate, or not, 

 as ancestral influence directs. It will capture 

 its food after the style and by the same means 

 established in its tribe by immemorial usage. 

 It will seek the habitat always haunted by its 

 kind. 



I knew a boy who took a pair of unfledged 



