318 General Notes. | March, 
the organism, namely, primordial automatic activity, which is 
almost invariable, and quite unconscious, although in the distant 
past it must have been accompanied by a rudiment of consciousness 
which later faded away, in proportion as coordination, growing 
more perfect, became organic in the species,” p. 38. e italics 
are our own.—Z. D. C. 
SAGACITY OF THE HorsE.—On my farm, one Sunday, the 
house was left in charge of one man, who sat in the porch reat 
ing. A mare, with her young foal, was grazing in the orchard 
near by. At length he saw the mare coming from a distant part 
of the orchard at full speed, making a loud outery—a sort of ut- 
natural whinney, but, as he says, more like a scream of distress 
than the natural voice of the horse. She came as near to the 
man as the fence would allow, and then turned back for a fw 
rods, and then returned, all the while keeping up the unna a 
outcry. So soon as he started to follow her she ran back in 
direction of a morass or miry place which had been left ungu r 
and only stopped on its very brink. The man hastened e 
spot with all speed, and found the colt mired in the soft mu 
water. It was already dead.— F. D. Caton. ʻi 
INDIVIDUAL IpIOsyNcRASY.—In an article contributed e ate 
entitled “ Idiosyncrasy,” Mr. Grant Allen contends thai 
psychical individuality or native character of each of us IS w ki 
but a sum of innumerable inherited tendencies co o i 
accidental or spontaneous variations of brain structu 
ground that the intricate structural relations involve | 
preciable improvement of cerebral functions could oticing t 
duced in this “accidental” way. Zhe Academy, m n ma A 
article, then goes on to say: “It. may, however, Oce ofp ey 
reader that the essayist is here soaring into the veg differe 
hypothetical physiology. For aught anybody api importa 
in the quality of the brain substance might ree ntaneoi 
psychical consequences ; and it is hard to see why a alitis 
variation’ should be able to modify ‘ indefinitely suc oo tis 
a plant or animal as ‘hardness of skin’ or ‘ wood a : 
and not be adequate to bring about changes 1n E sychical # 
nervous substance which may have well-marke ae) m 
companiments. However this may be, Mr. Allen in any 
ancestral tendencies somehow present in & la 
parents’ nervous organization, of that particular and 
elements which constitutes the original idiosyncrasy ort tott 
being so, it would seem that we must still have co 
factor of ‘accident.’ ” ae uiries i? : 
DOMESTICATION oF Animats.—Galton, in ee si poss 
Human Faculty,” remarks that the few animals o 
