INSTINCTS OF NEW FLEDGED BIRDS. 1 9 



any kind to suppose that an organ which we now find 

 rudimentary in any given animal was ever at any 

 time in the progenitors of that animal other than 

 rudimentary. An animal in possession of wings 

 fitting it to fly will fly. The young bird when 

 fledged will essay its wings like as the young frog I 

 have mentioned does its legs in jumping on emerg- 

 ing from the water, being impelled thereto by the 

 internal feeling which the possession of wings imparts. 

 ' The new fledged offspring ' requires not to be 

 ' tempted to the skies ' by the old bird. Ducklings 

 hatched by a common hen do not imitate their foster- 

 mother, but in obedience to their own instincts, which 

 depend on their whole organisation, rush to the water 

 and swim. 



If, it may here be remarked, one organ could, by 

 disuse and natural selection, become rudimentary, as 

 Mr. Darwin assumes, all the organs of animals one 

 after another might by chance of circumstances and 

 in the course of time become more and more rudi- 

 mentary, so that the descendants of organisms of 

 high development might, thereby, become eventually 

 reduced to the protozoon-state, whence they are 

 alleged to have been originally evolved ! 



Dexterity in the exercise of the function of an 

 organ has been often attributed exclusively to in- 

 creased power of the organ itself from practice, 

 whereas animals, as we have seen, make use of their 



c 2 



