482 



NATURE 



[March 26, 1896 



He jocularly adds in a short note sent a few days 

 after — 



Frank says you ought to keep an idiot, a deaf mute, a monkey, 

 and a baby in your house. 



To which Romanes rejoins— 



Frank's idea of "a happy family " is a very good one ; but I 

 think my mother would begin to wish that my scientific inquiries 

 had taken some other direction. 



The baby^too, I fear, would stand a poor chance of showing 

 itself the fittest in the struggle for existence. 



And two years afterwards the joke is continued (the 

 baby having in the meantime put in an appearance). 



I have now got a monkey. Sclater let me choose one from the 

 Zoo, and it is a very intelligent, affectionate little animal. I 

 wanted to keep it in the nursery for purposes of comparison, but 

 the proposal met with so much opposition that I had to give 

 way. I am afraid to suggest the idiot, lest I should be told to 

 occupy the nursery myself 



The following postscript to a letter from Darwin, dated 

 September 14, 1880, will be of interest. 



We went to the Lakes for three weeks to Coniston, and the 

 scenery gave me more pleasure than I thought my soul, or what- 

 ever remains of it, was capable of feeling. We saw Ruskin 

 several times and he was uncommonly 



The postscript to another of Darwin's letters (dated 

 January 24, 1881) is the following parable : — 



N.B. Once on a time a fool said to himself that at an ancient 

 period small soft crabs or other creatures stuck to certain fishes ; 

 these struggled violently, and in doing so discharged electricity, 

 which annoyed the parasites, so that they often wriggled away. 

 The fish was very glad, and some of its children gradually 

 profited in a higher degree and in various ways by discharging 

 more electricity and by not struggling. The fool who thought 

 thus persuaded another fool to try an eel in Scotland, and lo 

 and behold electricity was discharged when it struggled violently. 

 He then placed in contact with the fish, or near it, a small 

 medusa or other animal which he cleverly knew was sensitive to 

 electricity, and when the eel struggled violently, the little 

 animals in contact showed by their movements that they felt a 

 slight shock. Ever afterwards men said that the two fools were 

 not such big fools as they seemed to be. 



About this time Romanes began to consult Darwin con- 

 cerning experiments as to the relative effect of flashing and 

 continuous light upon seedlings. These experiments were 

 pursued at intervals during the next ten years, and the 

 results were published in a paper read before the Royal 

 Society in 1892. He tells also of a curious experiment 

 on the sense of direction in cats. 



I have got a lot of cats waiting for me at different houses 

 round Wimbledon Common, and some day next week shall sur- 

 prise our coachman by making a round of calls upon the cats, 

 drive them several miles into the country, and then let them out 

 of their respective bags. If any return, I shall try them again in 

 other directions before finally trying the rotation experiment. 



Not one cat, however, did return ! Romanes used to 

 describe with much amusement the ludicrous nature of the 

 experiment as seen by passers-by. 



Darwin was engaged just now (1881) upon his book on 

 earthworms, and writes regarding it : 



Your letter on intelligence was very useful to me, and I tore 

 up and rewrote what I sent you. I have not attempted to 

 define intelligence, but have quoted your remarks on experience, 

 and have shown how far they apply to worms. It seems to me, 

 that they must be said to work with some intelligence, anyhow, 

 they are not guided by a blind instinct. 



The following interesting remarks occur in the same 

 letter :— 



NO. 1378, VOL. 53] 



Dr. Roux has sent me a book just published by him, " Der 

 Kampf der Theile," &c., 1881 (240 pages in length). He is 

 manifestly a well-read physiologist and pathologist, and from his 

 position a good anatomist. It is full of reasoning, and this in 

 German is very difificult to me, so that I have only skimmed 

 through each page, here and there reading with a little more 

 care. As far as I can imperfectly judge, it is the most important 

 book on evolution which has appeared for some time. 



I do not know whether you will discuss in your book on the 

 " Mind of Animals" any of the more complex and wonderful 

 instincts. It is unsatisfactory work, as there can be no fossilised 

 instincts, and the sole guide is their state in other members of 

 the same order and mere probability. But if you do discuss any 

 (and it will perhaps be expected of you), I should think that you 

 could not select a better case than that of the sand wasps, which 

 paralyse their prey, as formerly described by Fabre in his 

 wonderful paper in Annates des Sciences, and since amplified in 

 his admirable " Souvenirs." Whilst reading this latter book, I 

 speculated a little on the subject. Astonishing nonsense is often 

 spoken of the sand-wasp's knowledge of anatomy. Now will 

 any one say that the Gauchos on the plains of La Plata have 

 such knowledge, yet I have often seen them prick a struggling 

 and lassoed cow on the ground with unerring skill, which no 

 mere anatomist could imitate. The pointed knife was infallibly 

 driven in between the vertebras by a single slight thrust. I pre- 

 sume that the art was first discovered by chance, and that each 

 young Gaucho sees exactly how the others do it, and then with 

 a very little practice learning the art. Now I suppose that the 

 sand-wasps originally merely killed their prey by stinging them 

 in many places (see p. 129 of Fabre, " Souvenirs," and p. 241), 

 on the lower and softer side of the body, and that to sting a 

 certain segment was found by far the most successful method, 

 and was inherited, like the tendency of a bull-dog to pin the 

 nose of a bull, or of a ferret to bite the cerebellum. 



Darwin's attitude on the subject of vivisection is very 

 manifest in several of the letters. As all the world 

 knows, he did not himself practise vivisection, and the 

 probability is that his gentle nature caused him to regard 

 with more than ordinary dislike the necessity for experi- 

 ments upon animals which might involve pain. But he 

 saw so clearly that no real advance can be made in 

 science without experiment, that he was ready even to 

 come forward as a champion of the cause of physiology. 

 In 1877, when the first antivivisection agitation was at its 

 height, he writes : 



I am inclined to think that writing against the bigots about 

 vivisection is as hopeless as stemming a torrent with a reed. . . . 

 It seems to me the Physiologists are now in the position of a 

 persecuted religious sect, and they must grin and bear the 

 persecution, however cruel and unjust, as well as they can. 



And in 1881 — 



Do you read the Times? As I had a fair opportunity, I sent 

 a letter to the Times on Vivisection, which is printed to-day. I 

 thought it fair to bear my share of the abuse poured in so 

 atrocious a manner on all physiologists. 



Darwin's regard for physiologists was reciprocated ; 

 he and Sharpey were the first honorary oi embers elected 

 by the Physiological Society (of which Romanes was one 

 of the first secretaries), a " mark of sympathy " with, 

 which he expresses himself as being " very much grati- 

 fied." Needless to say Darwin's death was an untold 

 loss to Romanes. 



Even the death of my own father — though I loved him deeply, 

 and though it was more sudden — did not leave a desolation so> 

 terrible. Half the interest of my life seems to have gone when 

 I cannot look forward any more to his dear voice of welcome, 

 or to the letters that were my greatest happiness. . . . And 

 when I think how grand and generous his kindness was to me, 

 grief is no word for my loss. 



In the words of his biographer — "Thus closed a very 

 significant and important chapter in his hfe." 



Of Romanes' other scientific correspondence, the 



I 



