192 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



word "nomadism" loses in value if it is laxly 

 applied, as some investigators have done, to com- 

 mercial travelers, peddlers, missionaries, fugitives 

 from justice, crusaders, and Sioux Indians ! When 

 Herbert Spencer was thirteen he ran away from his 

 uncle's house and made for home, walking 48 

 miles on the first day, 47 miles on the second, and 

 we do not know how many on the third. But there 

 is not any reason to think of the young philoso- 

 pher as a nomad; it is enough to know that he was 

 home-sick, and that he was moved by a sense of 

 having been unjustly treated. 



The first question is as to the reality of a well- 

 defined idiosyncrasy which may be called a roving 

 bent. Is it a " unit character/' like great mathe- 

 matical or musical ability, or can the illustrations 

 of it be analyzed into a number of component 

 factors, such as curiosity, pique, dislike of hum- 

 drum work, antipathy to particular people, un- 

 willingness to face the consequences of misdeeds, 

 and so on? It appears to be the general opinion of 

 alienists that there are quite specific "nomadic" 

 sports or variations, and this is supported by 

 Dr. Davenport's evidence of the recurrence of 

 " nomadic " traits generation after generation in a 

 hundred family histories. He regards nomadism as 

 probably a sex-linked recessive character. " Sons 

 are nomadic only when their mothers belong to no- 

 madic stock. Daughters are nomadic only when 

 the mother belongs to such stock and the father is 

 actually nomadic. When both parents are nomadic 



