THE BUILDING OF REFLEX ARCS 255 



ages I have found the claws of the hind foot more like the blunt 

 claws of a dog than the familiar sharp claws of the Fehd». bo m 

 the violent scratching referred to there mav be a double reason 

 associated in the process. As to the difference m the sharpness , rf 

 the fore and hind claws it would appear to be remarkably like a 

 transmitted bit of adaptation initiated and kept m being by use 

 and habit in progression, for the hind foot in n*™ **"^ 

 cat has a larger snare in this action tnan the fore foot But here 

 it is difficult as so often to assign to selection its possible share of 



thG ctt" or but persistent reflexes may be briefly mentioned 

 in support of this side of the evolutionary process In the dog and 

 cat as^e know them, the action of the muscles of the tail by which 

 it i's elevated during the act of deflation is very suggestive of a 

 reflex acquired bv a very small degree of physical comfort and 

 repeated in countless individuals, wild and domesticated. I have 

 seen not only this but a few small scratches made by a cat before 

 defecation in a kitten as young as three weeks old. It is also 

 Mentioned in illustration of a vestigial character that a hot* *mU 

 paw the ground *ith no immediate apparent object, the act bemg 

 derived from ancestors which thus cleared away snow from the 

 ground. This is claimed, doubtfully I think, as a vestige of a 

 Lmexly useful habit but seems more probably to be one of these 

 inherit reflexes connected with comfort than with survival- 



^ It will be observed that in this branch of the case for 

 Lamarck v. Weismann the indirect evidence from inference far 

 exceeds in amount that of direct experimental evidence, but 

 from the nature of the problem under consideration this could 



^ K%^lTagain look back in thought over the long series 

 of animals, from man downwards, we shall V^re ^ose^ 

 spinal level striving (with apologies for the use of an antiiropo 

 morphic word) to reach the sensory level and finding out th fact 

 Sew there be that enter therein. Again we see m vision the 

 higher creatures of the sensory level reaching ***^ *^ 

 uaths of primate existence, and again finding the difficulty of sell 

 Svancement that their predecessors found. We see the elect few 

 of Ihese by a happv combination of nature and nurture upreanng 

 to glo^'and honoTthe primate stock with its culmination in mam 

 A long^vista indeed and a vision, but assuredly no mere figment 

 of the imagination, as some of the slender facts and argument, 

 here would seem to show. With Professor Bateson we personify 



