SOCIAL HEREDITY 285 



watch what would happen. The mother bird 

 returned and alighted near by. The little ducks 

 rushed towards her as she called. I could observe 

 her. She was chattering with emotion. Every 

 feather was quivering with excitement. The Great 

 Terror of Man was upon her. After a short interval 

 I advanced towards the group again. The mother 

 bird flew away with a series of loud warning quacks. 

 The little ones scattered to cover, flapping their short 

 wing stumps, and with beaks wide open cheeping in 

 terror. With difficulty I found one of them again 

 in hiding. It was now a wild, transformed 

 creature trembling in panic which could not be 

 subdued. 



It is in this way, and under conditions of the 

 strongest emotion, that the accumulated experi- 

 ence of tens of thousands of generations of the 

 species is imposed on young birds. Once having 

 received it, within a few days, even within a few 

 hours, they pass into another world from which they 

 can never be reclaimed. In the numerous experi- 

 ments with wild ducks which I made, the following 

 conclusions stood out without any exception. The 

 little ducks, hatched out from the eggs taken from 

 the nest, or taken themselves from the nest the first 

 day after hatching, knew nothing of any fear of man, 

 and they never acquired it afterwards if brought up 



