Are Acquired Habits inherited? 293 



which are taught to beg, how few would seem to transmit 

 the acquired habit to their offspring ! Or, at any rate, 

 how few are the recorded instances of such transmission ! 

 If the non-transmissionist has a difficulty in accounting 

 for them — has presumably to fall back upon the sug- 

 gestion that, if correctly observed and reported, they are 

 rare congenital variations — the transmissionist is, it would 

 seem, confronted by an equal difficulty in accounting for 

 the non-transmission in the great majority of instances. 

 In any case they seem but a slender basis on which to 

 rest a far-reaching theory of organic development. 



Eomanes, in support of the proposition that acquired 

 habits are inherited, gives, as an example, the fact that 

 in Norway the ponies are used without bridles, and are 

 trained to obey the voice. As a consequence, a race- 

 peculiarity has been established ; for Andrew Knight says, 

 " the horse-breakers complain, and certainly with very 

 good reason, that it is impossible to give them what is 

 called a mouth. They are, nevertheless, exceedingly docile, 

 and more than ordinarily obedient, when they understand 

 the commands of their masters." But here the selective 

 factor cannot be altogether excluded, though the trans- 

 missionist would no doubt contend that it must be quite 

 subordinate. Apart from this case and that of begging, 

 Eomanes can only adduce the hereditary wildness or 

 tameness of animals under changed conditions. But to 

 this class of examples I am not disposed to attach much 

 weight ; for in the first place selection undoubtedly plays 

 an important part ; and in the second place, as already 

 stated, my own observations show that even such shy 

 birds as the moorhen, wild duck, plover, and partridge, 

 when brought up by hand, are almost ridiculously tame. 

 It has before been mentioned that, while a young moorhen 

 was drinking, my fox terrier came up and lapped the 



