nee 
» ait haat oa 
| Feb. 13, 1873] 
amusing fertility of imagination, the disjecta membra of 
birds, beasts, and fishes, being worked up together in a 
variety of fantastic forms which it would puzzle Mr. 
Darwin or Professor Owen to classify. The plates are 
accompanied by short descriptions, also by Mr. Cooke, 
and intended, he says, “as a key to aid the unintiated 
in animal lore.” We give our readers the following 
descriptions as a sample :—“ Plate v. No. 1. An odd 
fish—Platax—with dress of a bivalve shell, Pectcx 
Gibbosus. The feet of a sprat-loon, Colymbus Stel- 
Jatus, and tail of Beroe. No. 2. Eucrinus entrocha, 
a Lily-encrinite, wears the head-dress of a porpita, one 
of the Acalephz. Her dress being of Flustra, her right 
arm is a Pentelasmis, her left a species of Serpula. 
No. 3. This pig-faced lady, whose body is ‘ Pavasmilia 
centralis, has wings of Avicula cygnipes (both species 
from the chalk), and limbs of a bird (species unknown). 
.- Platex. No. 1. This scaly creature, capped by Cepha- 
laspis, has the feet of a Brazilian porcupine, the hetero- 
cercal tail of a Paleozoic fish, and the lower jaw and 
tusks of Dinotherium wherewith to scratch himself. . . Plate 
xiii. No, 3. This ancient spinster, truly Palzozoic, has the 
triturating teeth of a fish, Cestracion Philipi ; her cap is 
an Argonauta, her body that of the Port Jackson shark, 
her fan (Spanish, of course) a Renilla. Jsés hifpuris fur- 
nishes her arms... Plate xviii. No. 1. This hollow cha- 
racter, formed of the lower jaw of the hippopotamus, has 
very diverse arms, the right being an Ancyloceras, the left 
Hamites attenuatus. His head-gear is well got up with 
hide, horns, and the beak of a spoonbill!... Plate xx. 
4 No, 1, thanks to Monte Bolca and its elevated strata of 
dried fish, we have Semiophorus vellifer (a fish of the 
_ Eocene.) With Scutes on his neck, and the claws of a 
lion, he walks his chalks; an upper cretaceous shell, 
Plagiostoma spinosum, defends his body.” Many of the 
plates remind us of the gambols of the crustacez and 
other marine animals in adil and Bijou, and we have 
no doubt that Mr. Boucicault, in his next attempt to “im- 
piove the British Drama,” will find in this volume an 
endless variety of suggestions for humorous stage effects. 
We must not omit to mention the admirable manner in 
which the drawings have been reproduced by Mr. Sawyer 
of the Autotype Fine Art Company, the plates being 
___ exact facsimiles of the drawings. We anticipate an ex- 
tensive circulation for this beautifully-executed and enter- 
taining work. Giolek..C. 
Abstract of the Reports of the Surveys and other Geo- 
graphical Operations in India for 1870-71. 
WE learn from these reports that during the season of 
1870-71, the Great Trigonometrical Survey has been pro- 
ceeded with on six series, and the complete work is repre- 
sented by 11,203 square miles of principal, and 10,076 of 
secondary triangulation. The total area surveyed up to 
1871 by the Topographical Surveys which do not in- 
clude the Topographical work of the Trigonometrical 
Survey, is 665,909 square miles, three times the area of 
France. The Geological Survey has been going on more 
briskly than in previous years, and the Geological Sur- 
veyors are gradually building up the materials which will 
enable a geological map of India to be prepared. The 
tidal observations, from which much was expected, and 
for which gauges were made and sent out to India more 
than two years ago, were not gone on with on account of 
the financial difficulties of the Indian government. The 
government has finally adopted Mr. Hunter’s plan for the 
spelling of Indian names; it is as near an approach to 
what is known as the “ scientific system,” as the public in 
the present state of education are able to endure. The 
“scientific system” consists in scrupulously rendering 
letter for letter, without any particular care to preserve 
the pronunciation. Uniformity in the spelling of geo- 
graphical names is a great matter, no matter on what 
principle.it may be based. 
——— 
SO NATORE 
281 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 
by his correspondents, No notice is taken of anonymous 
communications. | 
Inherited Instinct 
THE following le‘ter seems to me so valuable, and the 
accuracy of the statements vouched for by So high an authority, 
that I have obtained permission from Dr. Huggins to send it 
for publication. No one who has attended to animals either 
in a state of nature or domestication will doubt that many 
special fears, tastes, &c., which must have been acquired at a 
remote period, are now strictly inherited. This has been clearly 
proved to be the case by Mr. Spalding with chickens and 
turkeys just born, in his admirable article recently published 
in AMacmillan’s Magazine. Tt is probable that most in- 
herited or instinctive feelings were originally acquired Ly 
slow degrees through habit and the experience of their utility ; 
for instance the fear of man, which as I showed many 
years ago, is gained very slowly by birds on oceanic islands. 
It is, however, almost certain that many of the most wonderful 
instincts have been acquired independently of habit, through the 
preservation of useful variations of pre-existing instincts. Other 
instincts may have arisen suddenly in an individual and then 
been transmitted to its offspring, independently both of selection 
and serviceable experience, though subsequently strengthened 
by habit. The tumbler-pigeon is a case in point, for no one 
would have thought of teaching a pigeon to turn head over 
heels in the air ; and until some bird exhibited a tendency in this 
direction, there could have been no selection. In the following 
case we see a specialised feeling of antipathy transmitted through 
three generations of dogs, as well as to some collateral members 
of the same family, and which must have been acquired within a 
very recent period. Unfortunately it is not known how the feel- 
ing first arose in the grandfather of Dr. Huggins’s dog. We 
may suspect that it was due to some ill-treatment ; but it may 
have originated without any assignable cause, as with certain 
animals in the Zoological Gardens, which, as I am assured by 
Mr. Bartlett, have taken a strong hatred to him and others with- 
out any provocation. As far as it can be ascertained, the great- 
grandfather of Dr. Huggins’s dog did not evince the feeling of 
antipathy, described in the following letter. 
CHARLES DARWIN 
‘*T wish to communicate to you a curious case of an inherited 
mental peculiaiity. I possess an English mastiff, by name 
Kepler, a son of the celebrated Turk out of Venus. I brought 
the dog, when six weeks old, from the stable in which he was 
born. The firsttime I took him out he started back in alarm 
at the first butcher’s shop he had ever seen. I soon found he 
had a violent antipathy to butchers and butchers’ shops. When 
six months old, a servant took him with her on an errand. At 
ashort distance before coming to the house, she had toy pass a 
butcher’s shop ; the dog threw himself down (being led with a 
string), and neither coaxing nor threats would make him pass 
the shop. The dog was too heavy to be carried ; and as a 
crowd collected, the servant had to return with the dog more 
than a mile, and then go without him. This occurred about 
two years ago. The antipathy still continues, but the dog will 
pass nearer to a shop than he formerly would. About 
two months ago, in a little book on dogs published by 
Dean, I discovered that the same strange antipathy is 
shown by the father, Turk. I then wrote to Mr. Nichols, the 
former owner of Turk, to ask him for any information he might 
have on the point. He replied—‘I can say that the same anti- 
pathy exists in King, the sire of Turk, in Turk, in Punch (son of 
Turk, out of Meg) and in Paris (son of Turk, out of Juno). 
Paris has the greatest antipathy, as he would hardly go into a 
street where a butcher’s shop is, and would run away after passing 
