400 PSYCHOLOGY. 



" I may cite tbe example of a young squirrel which I had tamed, a 

 number of years ago, when serving in the army, and when I had suffi- 

 cient leisure and opportunity to study the habits of animals. In the 

 autumn, before the winter sets in, adult squirrels bury as many nuts 

 as they can collect, separately, in the ground. Holding the nut firmly 

 between their teeth, they first scratch a hole in the grond, and, after 

 pointing their ears in all directions to convince themselves that no 

 enemy is near, they ram — the head, with the nut still between the front 

 teeth, serving as a sledge-hammer — the nut into the ground, and then fill 

 up the hole by means of their paws. The whole process is executed with 

 great rapidity, and, as it appeared to me, always with exactly the same 

 movements ; in fact, it is done so well that I could never discover the 

 traces of the burial-ground. Now, as regards the young squirrel, which, 

 of course, never had been present at the burial of a nut, I observed that, 

 after having eaten a number of hickory-nuts to appease its appetite, it 

 would take one between its teeth, then sit upright and listen in all 

 directions. Finding all right, it would scratch upon the smooth blanket 

 on which I was playing with it as if to make a hole, then hammer with 

 the nut between its teeth upon the blanket, and finally perform all the 

 motions required to fill up a hole — in the air; after which it would 

 jump away, leaving the nut, of course, uncovered." 



The anecdote, of course, illustrates beautifully the close 

 relation of instinct to reflex action — a particular perception 

 calls forth particular movements, and that is all. Dr. 

 Schmidt writes me that the squirrel in question soon passed 

 away from his observation. It may fairly be presumed 

 that, if he had been long retained prisoner in a cage, he 

 would soon have forgotten his gesticulations over the hick- 

 ory-nuts. 



One might, indeed, go still further with safety, and ex- 

 pect that, if such a captive squirrel were then set free, he 

 would never afterwards acquire this peculiar instinct of his 

 tribe.* 



Leaving lower animals aside, and turning to human in- 

 stincts, we see the law of transiency corroborated on the 



* "Mr. Spalding," says Mr. Lewes (Problems of Life and Mind, prob. 

 I. chap. II. § 22, note), "tells me of a friend of his who reared a gosling 

 in the kitchen, away from all water; when this bird was some months 

 old, and was taken to a pond, it not only refused to go into the water, but 

 when thrown in scrambled out again, as a hen would have done. Here 

 was an instinct entirely suppressed." See a similar observation on duck- 

 lings in T. R. R. Stebbing : Essays on Darwinism (London, 1871), p. 73. 



