Habits and Instincts of the Pairing Season. 227 



placed in our second proposition that the definiteness is 

 due to an agreement so to express the overflowing joyous- 

 ness begotten of vitality in full flood. But, if we do not 

 take the suggestion seriously, how is the definiteness to be 

 accounted for? In the case of plumes and symmetrical 

 markings, no matter how splendid or how delicate, we can, 

 perhaps, in our ignorance, fall back on " laws of growth " 

 and a tendency to symmetrical synthesis. But the jacana 

 dance, or the performances of the prairie hen, can hardly 

 be attributed to any such inherent " laws " or " tendencies." 

 To what, then, can the definiteness be due ? 



Presumably, the most true and modest, if not the most 

 satisfactory and comfortable, answer to this question is 

 that we do not know. But there can be no harm in a little 

 guessing, so long as our guesses are not regarded as 

 more than suggestive. It is possible that imitation, and 

 what Mr. Hudson has himself so well described under 

 the head of tradition, may be regarded as a means, if not 

 of developing, at least of maintaining, the definiteness of 

 performance. The young birds are born into a society in 

 which certain habits of dance, song, or other modes of 

 activity, are already organized. By that sub-conscious and 

 half-aware imitation which seems to be a trait of animal 

 life (a sort of extended sheep-through-the-gap-ishness), they 

 fall into the habits of their elders, as their elders did before 

 them when they too were young and plastic. Their ways 

 are moulded to those of the community in the heart of 

 which they are reared. They have neither the wit nor 

 the will to modify the family traditions by new-fangled 

 innovations. And if they had, and proceeded to exercise 

 their originality, they would, by so doing, place themselves 

 outside the social life, and would probably die unmated. 

 Moreover, it is not improbable that a certain amount of 

 natural selection through elimination would accompany 



