HEREDITARY TRAITS 219 



plexing of all the phenomena of heredity. The less striking 

 the habit, the more remarkable, perhaps, is its persistence as 

 an inherited trait. Giron de Buzareingues states that he 

 knew a man who, when he lay on his back, was wont to 

 throw his right leg across the left ; one of this person's 

 daughters had the same habit from her birth, constantly 

 assuming that position in the cradle, notwithstanding the 

 resistance offered by the swaddling bands. 1 Darwin mentions 

 another case in his Variation of Animals and Plants under 

 Domestication : A child had the odd habit of setting its 

 fingers in rapid motion whenever it was particularly pleased 

 with anything. When greatly excited, the same child would 

 raise the hand on both sides as high as the eyes, with the 

 fingers in rapid motion as before. Even in old age he 

 experienced a difficulty in refraining from these gestures. 

 He had eight children, one of whom, a little girl, when four 



1 While penning the above lines I have been reminded of an 

 experience of my own, which I had never before thought of as 

 connected with the subject of heredity ; yet it seems not unlikely that 

 it may be regarded as a case in point. During the infancy of my eldest 

 son it so chanced that the question of rest at night, and consequently 

 the question of finding some convenient way of keeping the child quiet, 

 became one of considerable interest to me. Cradle-rocking was 

 effective but carried on in the usual way prevented my own sleep, 

 though causing the child to sleep. I devised, however, a way of 

 rocking the cradle with the foot, which could be carried on in my sleep, 

 after a few nights' practice. Now it is an odd coincidence (only, per- 

 haps) that the writer's next child, a girl, had while still an infant a irick 

 which I have noticed in no other case. She would rock herself in 

 the cradle by throwing the right leg over the left at regular intervals, 

 the swing of the cradle being steadily kept up for many minutes, and 

 being quite as wide in range as a nurse could have given. It was 

 often continued when the child was asleep. 



Since writing the above, I have learned from my eldest daugh- 

 ter, the girl who as a child had the habit described, that a recent little 

 brother of hers, one of twins, and remarkably like her, had the same 

 habit, rocking his own cradle so vigorously as to disturb her in the 

 next room with the noise. These two only of twelve children have had 

 this curious habit ; but as this child is thirteen years younger than she 

 is, the force of the coincidence in point of time is to some degree impaired. 



