INSTINCT. 399 



yond its usual term of a year or a j^ear and a half. But the 

 instinct itself is transient, in the sense that if, for any rea- 

 son, the child be fed by spoon during the first few days of 

 its life and not put to the breast, it may be no easy matter 

 after that to make it suck at all. So of calves. If their 

 mother die, or be dry, or refuse to let them suck for a day 

 or two, so that they are fed by hand, it becomes hard to 

 get them to suck at all when a new nurse is provided. The 

 ease with which sucking creatures are weaned, by simply 

 breaking the habit and giving them food in a new way, 

 shows that the instinct, purely as such, must be entirely 

 extinct. 



Assuredly the simple fact that instincts are transient, 

 and that the effect of later ones may be altered by the 

 habits which earlier ones have left behind, is a far more 

 philosophical explanation than the notion of an instinctive 

 constitution vaguely 'deranged' or 'thrown out of gear.' 



I have observed a Scotch terrier, born on the floor of a 

 stable in December, and transferred six weeks later to a 

 carpeted house, make, when he was less than four months 

 old, a very elaborate pretence of burying things, such as 

 gloves, etc., with which he had played till he was tired. 

 He scratched the carpet with his forefeet, dropped the ob- 

 ject from his mouth upon the spot, and then scratched all 

 about it (with both fore- and hind-feet, if I remember 

 rightly), and finally went away and let it lie. Of course, the 

 act was entirely useless. I saw him perform it at that age, 

 some four or five times, and never again in his life. The 

 conditions were not present to fix a habit which should last 

 when the prompting instinct died away. But suppose 

 meat instead of a glove, earth instead of a carpet, hunger- 

 pangs instead of a fresh supper a few hours later, and it is 

 easy to see how this dog might have got into a habit of 

 burying superfluous food, which might have lasted all his 

 life. Who can swear that the strictly instructive part of 

 the food-burying propensity in the wild Canidce may not be 

 as short-lived as it was in this terrier ? 



A similar instance is given by Dr. H. D. Schmidt * of 

 New Orleans: 



* Transactions of American Neurological Association, vol. i. p. 129 

 (1875). 



