CATS THAT HAVE LOST AVERSION TO WADING AND SWIMMING. 67 



be coincident. It therefore follows that in the lower forms of animal 

 life the partition and election is largely coincident, while in the case 

 of the higher animals, and especially with man, the powers of accom- 

 modation being the leading factors, the isolation and selection are 

 largely coincident. 



Industrial partition brings together, in the mining regions of Colo- 

 rado, a peculiar type of people, gathered together from many regions 

 where the opportunities for exercising their special training are not as 

 great as in this frontier mining region. But this industrial partition 

 introduces and determines industrial isolation, for it inevitably leads 

 to the segregate propagation of the peculiar type brought together in 

 these mining regions; and this industrial isolation thus produced is 

 an example of coincident isolation. 



Active (or endonomic) influences are due to the fact that the 

 species may use alternative methods. The number of alternative 

 methods of dealing with the environment rests upon the variety of 

 possible choices open to the different sections of a species ; and this is 

 determined by the variety of innate aptitudes and of acquired habi- 

 tudes, and of new discriminative experiments that the species can 

 furnish. 



Coincident influences are due to the fact that adaptive variations 

 and accommodations may cooperate in dealing with conditions in 

 a harmonious way. When variation with adaptation prepares the 

 way for and controls innovation with accommodation, we have 

 coincident partition and election. When innovation with accommo- 

 dation prepares the way for and controls variation with adaptation, 

 we have coincident isolation and selection. 



13 A Colony of Cats that have lost Aversion to Wading and Swimming. 



The interaction of the principles of segregation is illustrated by the 

 Tarpon Island cats. One of the most decided instincts of the ordinary 

 cat is to avoid immersion in water or any other liquid. His inherited 

 nature leads him to dislike to wet even his feet ; but there may arise 

 conditions under which he will use his paws in drawing food out of the 

 water. More than one has learned to help himself to cream placed in 

 an open jar by thrusting his paw into the liquid and then licking off 

 what adheres. Some have learned to skim pans of milk in a similar 

 way, and others have become adepts in fishing for goldfish kept in 

 glass globes or aquaria. These undoubted examples of the partial 

 overcoming of their natural aversion renders it easier to believe the 

 following account of a complete change of habits in a certain isolated 

 group of cats. 



