n8 Habit and Instinct. 



older if not accustomed to ' badger,' as the result of 

 keeping bad company." 



There can be no doubt that the mode of response 

 — the opening of the mouth, the guttural hiss, followed, 

 if the disturbance is yet stronger, by an explosive 

 " spitting " — when the kitten is startled or affected by a 

 strongly disturbing stimulus is congenital and eminently 

 characteristic. That it is called forth in a kitten when 

 it is a few weeks old (and accompanied by an equally 

 characteristic arching of the back and raising of the fur) 

 on sight of a dog, especially one approaching her, is 

 a matter of familiar observation. But I have seen the 

 same response to a large rabbit. In kittens of this 

 age — say three weeks to a month — I have not found 

 that the smell of the hand, after fondling a dog and 

 getting the dog to lick it, evokes more than a curious 

 sniffing. Even if the smell of a dog call forth instinctive 

 behaviour, accompanied by emotional disturbance, this 

 must be regarded as an organic response, accompanied, 

 indeed, by certain conscious states affording data to ex- 

 perience, but not reviving those purely mythical states of 

 consciousness spoken of as ancestral memories. To say 

 that through smell a kitten " knows its enemy even before 

 it is able to see him," is to put the matter picturesquely, 

 but not satisfactorily from the point of view of scientific 

 interpretation. At most there is a congenital response 

 of a useful kind, at once anticipating the results of ex- 

 perience and affording a basis for experience to work 

 upon. 



In any observations on instinctive antipathy, all 

 influence of the parent must be excluded. I once carried 

 a blind puppy to a litter of kittens to see if they would 

 show signs of such antipathy, the cat being away. Not 

 getting any response, much to my surprise at that time, 



