io8 Habit and Instinct. 



to get down from the chair without first getting on its feet, 

 it would merely slip off. Practical men to whom I have 

 spoken deprecate the use of the word ' leapt ' as totilly ► 

 inappropriate." When I suggested to a worthyHPa^rofer-'^ 

 that he should repeat the observation for me, his indirect 

 reply, " But who will pay for the pig ? " sufficiently in- 

 dicated what, in his opinion, would he the result of the 

 experiment. If any pig-breeder should read these pages, 

 he may perhaps be induced to try some such experiment. 



As control over the limbs is gradually acquired the 

 locomotor activities are perfected. But here constitutional 

 differences are shown. Both at the age of three months 

 and in adult life, the power of motor control in the cat, 

 and the delicacy and accuracy of co-ordination, are greater 

 than in the dog ; and in the adult dog they are greater 

 than in the adult rabbit. The control in the cat over the 

 fore limbs is especially marked in correlation with their 

 use in climbing and in seizing prey. The kitten finds it 

 easier to climb up than to descend. On its 101st day, 

 for example. Dr. Wesley Mills's kitten, taken by surprise, 

 climbed a tree just at hand to a height of some thirty feet. 

 But it feared to descend, and was, after a time, lowered 

 down at the end of a pole. A kitten in a tree, apparently 

 unable to come down, is not an unfamiliar sight. The 

 tendency to climb seems to be an innate proclivity in the 

 cat ; as does also its alertness in the dusk of evening. So, 

 too, in the rabbit, spasmodic, jerky, jumpy movements are 

 early seen ; scratching at the surface still earlier ; the 

 characteristic wiping of the face with the fore paws quite as 

 soon (second day) ; and at a later period (about the fifteenth 

 day) the squatting up on the hind legs, and the mode of 

 running characteristic of its kind. Quite different is the 

 scuttling run of the guinea-pig. Dr. Mills does not note 

 any instinctive tendency in the rabbit to burrow. But 



