192 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 
word “nomadism” loses in value if it is laxly 
applied, as some investigators have done, to com- 
mercial travelers, peddlers, missionaries, fugitives 
from justice, crusaders, and Sioux Indians! When 
Herbert Spencer was thirteen he ran away from his 
uncle’s house and made for home, walking 48 
miles on the first day, 47 miles on the second, and 
we do not know how many on the third. But there 
is not any reason to think of the young philoso- 
pher as a nomad; it is enough to know that he was 
home-sick, and that he was moved by a sense of 
having been unjustly treated. 
The first question is as to the reality of a well- 
defined idiosyncrasy which may be called a roving 
bent. Is it a “unit character,” like great mathe- 
matical or musical ability, or can the illustrations 
of it be analyzed into a number of component 
factors, such as curiosity, pique, dislike of hum- 
drum work, antipathy to particular people, un- 
willingness to face the consequences of misdeeds, 
and so on? It appears to be the general opinion of 
alienists that there are quite specific “nomadic” 
sports or variations, and this is supported by 
Dr. Davenport’s evidence of the recurrence of 
“nomadic” traits generation after generation in a 
hundred family histories. He regards nomadism as 
probably a sex-linked recessive character. “ Sons 
are nomadic only when their mothers belong to no- 
madic stock. Daughters are nomadic only when 
the mother belongs to such stock and the father is 
actually nomadic. When both parents are nomadic 
