1 1 2 Habit and Instinct. 



Prof. Preyer's experiments seem to show that young 

 guinea-pigs both taste and smell at a very early age — 

 counted by hours rather than days. With its eyes 

 bandaged, the little animal avoided oil of thyme and 

 camphor, and licked at sugar, but not at glass or wood. 

 Dr. Mills also found that a guinea-pig, on its first day, 

 sucked at a feather dipped in sugar-solution, but 

 turned away from one dipped in aloes. A couple of them 

 were put in a box with some brown sugar, peppermint rock, 

 salt, and camphor. They licked at the salt only once ; 

 but they went again and again to the sugar. In the 

 rabbit taste and smell seemed to be well developed by the 

 seventh day. In the dog and cat, Dr. Mills is not pre- 

 pared either to affirm or deny that taste and smell are 

 present at birth, but if they do exist he is sure that they 

 are of the feeblest, are of very little use to the animal, 

 and play but a very subordinate part in its life during the 

 blind period. Still his kitten, on the second day of life, 

 sniffed and became uneasy when Dr. Mills rubbed his 

 hands well on a St. Bernard and then placed them near 

 the little cat's nose. By the twentieth day smell had 

 become of great suggestive value in the dog. 



The rabbit, kitten, and puppy are born with the eyes 

 closed, so that sight is impossible. In the rabbit the 

 eyes open on the tenth, eleventh, or twelfth day ; in 

 the kitten, on the eighth or ninth day ; and in the 

 puppy, on about the eleventh to the thirteenth day, 

 there being well-marked individual differences. The 

 eyes of the guinea-pig are open at birth ; and at 

 the end of seventeen hours these precocious animals 

 see well and exhibit the winking reflex. This reflex is 

 seen feebly in the kitten on the eleventh day, in the rabbit 

 on the fourteenth day, and in the puppy on the fifteenth 

 day; in each case, that is to say, two or three days 



