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SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[May 25, 18 



A mound erected near the junction of the Wisconsin 

 and the Mississippi represents so faithfully the form and 

 the proportions of the mastodon that the builders must 

 have known this animal at the very least by recent tradi- 

 tion. The tusks, however, were wanting, being perhaps 

 too difficult to imitate. 



The Great Serpent, on a hill overlooking Brush Creek 

 (Adam's County, Ohio), in the midst of a park recently 

 purchased for the Peabody Museum, is a mound in the 

 form of a great serpent. Its coils extend over the length 

 °f ii399 feet; the head is 76 feet in width; the jaws, 

 open to the width of 30 to 40 feet, seem about to seize 

 a mound, the major axis of which is not less than 160 

 feet. This latter mound has been supposed to represent 

 an egg, and it has been connected with the Egyptian 

 saga of the god Omeph. 



The serpent plays a great part in American mythology. 

 It is constantly found engraved upon the earthenware 

 and the ornaments preserved in the Peabody Museum. 



In the National Museum, Washington, there is a pipe 

 which represents a man carrying a serpent, coiled round 

 his neck. In the Museum of Mexico is a vase remark- 

 able for the elegance of its proportions, in which serpents 

 form the handles. It is easy to multiply such instances. 

 Serpent-mounds have been lately discovered in Minnesota. 

 The petticoat of Miquitzli, the hideous goddess of death, 

 was formed of interlaced rattle-snakes. 



At Mexico, over one of the gates of the Dominican 

 convent, is a bas-relief of great antiquity, in which may 

 be distinguished a serpent crushing a human victim in its 

 folds. Of course, unless this bas-relief is of an earlier 

 date than the Spanish conquest, this relic is of no im- 

 portance. 



At Chichen-Itza colossal serpents are painted and 

 sculptured on the walls of the palace. At Jalapa, in the 

 province ot Mexico, may be seen a serpent 15 feet in 

 length engraved upon a rock. The same serpent is 

 found in the bas-reliefs of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli, 

 which dates back to the times of the grandeur of the 

 Aztecs. 



The serpent had certainly among the ancient popula- 

 tions of America a mythological meaning which has 

 hitherto escaped us. Was this meaning the same among 

 nations so distinct in their origin and in their manner of 

 life ? To this question no precise answer can be 

 given . 



The neighbourhood of the serpent-mounds was evi- 

 dently in request as a place of burial, and explorations 

 undertaken by M. Putnam have brought to light a 

 number of skeletons belonging apparently to very different 

 epochs. Some of these skeletons rested on layers of 

 charcoal, mixed up with large tree trunks entirely car- 

 bonised. Around others were found numerous frag- 

 ments of earthenware and flakes of flint. None of these 

 copper ornaments, so numerous in burial-mounds, 

 appear to have been found here. 



To what date can the serpent-mound and the other 

 tumuli representing animals belong ? To what race are 

 they due ? The answer is doubtful, and the controversies 

 which have been raised are far from being concluded. 

 According to some authorities they are of very high 

 antiquity, and belong to a race which has passed away 

 and emigrated to other regions. Others ascribe to them 

 an origin comparatively modern, and maintain that they 

 are due to the forefathers of the present Red Indians. 

 Neither of these hypotheses is free from serious diffi- 

 culties. — La Nature. 



THOUGHTS ON INSTINCT.— I. 



"They also reason not contemptibly." — Milton. 

 T ET us take any routine specimen of the educated 

 J — ' classes of the day — or, perhaps, rather of yester- 

 day — and ask him what is the distinction between man 

 and his so-called "poor relations." In nine cases out of 

 ten our educated man will put on an air, half-puzzled 

 and half-consequential, and reply — " well, you see a man 

 has reason and brutes have only instinct." But if we 

 go on to inquire what is instinct, and wherein does it 

 differ from reason, our friend is at a loss, and if disposed 

 to be candid, confesses that "instinct" is a cabahstic word 

 which we use to cover our want of knowledge. 



Now, as instinct in its old sense is one of the 

 characteristic and favourite notions of the Old School of 

 Natural History, it will not be time lost if we inquire a 

 little further into the matter. 



It is, of course, admitted that all animated beings, at 

 least when mature, show a practical acquaintance with 

 the natural functions of their own voluntary organs. 

 Certain writers, from time to time, profess a very gra- 

 tuitous wonder that a herring never tries to fly or to 

 burrow in the ground. We should feel much more sur- 

 prised if the fish in question did make an attempt so out 

 of keeping with the structure and the habits which it has 

 inherited from its ancestors. It is granted on all hands 

 that animals perform certain actions primarily needful 

 for the well-being of the individual or the species. These 

 actions are termed by some (G. H. Lewes) " organic," 

 and by others " instinctive." It is next assumed by 

 authors, though scarcely upon sufficient grounds, that in 

 the lower animals such actions are executed without any 

 previous knowledge, training, or experience ; without re- 

 flection ; without any prevision of the results ; without 

 any necessary reason orconsciousness; and without evinc- 

 ing a " designed adaptation " of means to ends. An 

 additional step is then taken, and we group together all 

 these sections and imagine them as being prompted and 

 guided by some mysterious unitary power or faculty 

 called " instinct " — differing from reason, and yet capable 

 to some extent, of serving as its substitute. Some of the- 

 phrenologists even profess to have discovered in the 

 brains of the lower animals an " organ of instinct," not 

 existing in man ! 



The generahty of authors, if they stumble upon this 

 subject, assert that brutes have no reason and man no 

 instincts. Others, like the late Dr. Carpenter, uphold, at 

 any rate, the total absence of reason in all invertebrate 

 animals, " whose whole nervous system may," in their 

 opinion, " be regarded as ministering entirely to auto- 

 matic action." 



Certain questions, therefore, arise here. We must 

 ask firstly for a definition, or in default, for at least an 

 explanation of the term instinct. We then demand by 

 what tests instinctive actions may be recognised and 

 clearly distinguished from such actions as are performed 

 under the control of reason ? Admitting, further, the 

 existence of instincts, we ask are they peculiar to the 

 lower animals, or are they shared by the human 

 species ? 



Definitions of instinct have been attempted, though 

 with no very decided success. A recent writer proclaims 

 that he should "no more willingly attempt to define 

 ' instinct,' than to give an exact definition of insanity." 

 It has been interpreted as : " disposition operating with- 

 out the aid of instruction or experience ; " " mental 



