320 The Naturalist in La Plata. 



enced by the animal at a period when its curious 

 instinct first took form and crystallized ; these 

 would be painful sensations that threatened life; 

 a,nd freedom from them, and safety to the animal, 

 would only exist in a certain well-remembered spot. 

 Further, we might assume that it was at first only 

 the memory of a few individuals that caused the 

 animals to seek the place of safety; that a habit 

 was thus formed ; that in time this traditional habit 

 became instinctive, so that the animals, old and 

 young, made their way unerringly to the place of 

 refuge whenever the old danger returned. And 

 such an instiiict, slowly matured and made perfect 

 to enable this animal to escape extinction during 

 periods of great danger to mammalian life, lasting 

 hundreds or even thousands of years, and destruc- 

 tive of numberless other species less hardy and 

 adaptive than the generalized huanaco, might well 

 continue to exist, to be occasionally called into life 

 by a false stimulus, for many centuries after it had 

 ceased to be of any advantage. 



Once we accept this explanation as probable — • 

 namely, that the huanaco, in withdrawing from the 

 herd to drop down and die in the ancient dying 

 ground, is in reality only seeking an historically 

 remembei'ed place of refuge, and not of death — the 

 action of the animal loses much of its mysterious 

 character ; we come on to firm ground, and find 

 that we are no longer considering an instinct abso- 

 lutely unique, with no action or instinct in any 

 other animal leading up or suggesting any family 

 likeness to it, as I said before. We find, in fact, 

 that there is at least one very important and very 



