164. SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



subtle as well as thorough. " One twin, A, who 

 happened to be in a town in Scotland, bought a set 

 of champagne glasses which caught his attention, 

 as a surprise for his brother B; while, at the same 

 time, B, being in England, bought a similar set of 

 precisely the same pattern as a surprise for A." 

 The price paid was doubtless precisely the same. 

 The question which particularly interested Mr. 

 Gal ton was how far diversity of environment and 

 occupation affected twins who showed, to begin 

 with, very close similarity. In some cases " the 

 resemblance of body and mind continued unaltered 

 up to old age, notwithstanding very different con- 

 ditions of life "; in other cases there was divergence 

 usually traced to some form of illness affecting one 

 of the twins, and this may have implied an initial 

 difference which escaped detection. Nature is 

 stronger than nurture. On the other hand, Mr. 

 Gal ton found that twins which ' did not at first 

 show " close similarity " did not become any liker 

 one another after prolonged influence of similar 

 nurture. " There is no escape from the conclusion 

 that nature prevails enormously over nurture when 

 the differences of nurture do not exceed what is 

 commonly to be found among persons of the same 

 rank of society and in the same country." The 

 cuckoo's note is not affected by its early instruction 

 in the language of its foster-parents. It should be 

 carefully noticed, however, that some very striking 

 cases are on record e.g., in the late Mr. Benjamin 

 Kidd's Science of Power (1918) of birds and 



