636 
Recent Studies in 
(November, 
decisive. Such a dog may never have seen his parents 
point at birds, and may never have received any training 
from man ; yet when brought for the first time into a stubble 
field he aCts as if he had received such instruction. This 
case is the more important since it shows us not merely the 
growth of an instinCt by hereditary transmission, but the 
extinction of a prior instinCt of all dogs — that of rushing at 
any birds or small beasts which make their appearance. 
Why need we then affeCt to wonder at the nest-building of 
a bird or inseCt ? We may even fairly contend that in a 
creature entirely devoid of intelligence these instincts could 
never have arisen. 
Mr. Romanes, in the work before us, takes the animal 
kingdom in review from the lowest to the highest forms, and 
traces everywhere a something which to candid readers 
must appear to differ from the human mind merely in degree. 
Of course it is open to the advocates of the old way of re- 
garding the actions of animals to pronounce the capital 
instances brought forward exaggerations, mis-observations, 
or even pure inventions. Such a plea is somewhat curious 
when urged by persons who in other respeCts are not free 
from credulity, and who as a body have rarely, if ever, de- 
voted themselves to a close and prolonged study of the 
habits of animals. They urge that if birds and beasts were 
rational we should find proofs thereof in their general con- 
duct. But uniform rationality cannot be traced in the 
actions of mankind : how, then, can we fairly expeCt to trace 
it in the doings of the ape or the dog ? 
The first case given by Mr. Romanes brings into promi- 
nence a principle of no small importance. According to a 
passage quoted from an unpublished MS. of the late Charles 
Darwin, “ Even the headless oyster seems to profit by ex- 
perience. Dicquemase (“ Journal de Physique,” xxviii., p. 
244) records that oysters taken from a depth never uncovered 
by the sea open their shells, lose the water within, and 
perish ; but oysters taken from the same place and depth, if 
kept in reservoirs where they are occasionally left uncovered 
for a short time, and are otherwise incommoded, learn to 
keep their shells shut, and then live for a much longer time 
when taken out of the water.” According to Bingley 
(“ Animal Biography,” vol. iii., p. 454) this faCt is turned to 
practical account in the “oyster-schools” of France:— 
“ The distance from the coast to Paris being too great for 
the newly-dredged oysters to travel without opening their 
shells, they are first taught in the schools to bear a longer 
exposure to the air without gaping, and when their education 
