366 
MR. KNIGHT ON THE HEREDITARY INSTINCTIVE 
perienced parents. The woods in which I was accustomed to shoot did not contain 
Pheasants, nor much game of any other kind, and I therefore resolved never to shoot 
at anything except Woodcocks, conceiving that by so doing the hereditary propen- 
sities above-mentioned would become more obvious and decided in the young and 
untaught animals ; and I had the satisfaction, in more than one instance, to see some 
of those find as many Woodcocks, and give tongue as correctly, as the best of my 
older dogs. 
Woodcocks are driven in frosty weather, as is well known, to seek their food in 
springs and rills of unfrozen water, and I found that my old dogs knew about as 
well as I did the degree of frost which would drive the Woodcocks to such places ; 
and this knowledge proved very troublesome to me, for I could not sufficiently re- 
strain them. I therefore left the old experienced dogs at home, and took only the 
wholly inexperienced young dogs; but to my astonishment, some of these, in several 
instances, confined themselves as closely to the unfrozen grounds as their parents 
would have done. When I first observed this I suspected that Woodcocks might 
have been upon the unfrozen ground during the preceding night, but I could not 
discover (as I think I should have done had this been the case) any traces of their 
having been there ; and as I could not do so, I was led to conclude that the young 
dogs were guided by feelings and propensities similar to those of their parents. 
The subjects of my observation in these cases were all the offspring of well-in- 
structed parents, of five or six years old, or more ; and 1 thought it not improbable 
that instinctive hereditary propensities might be stronger in these than in the offspring 
of very young and inexperienced parents. Experience proved this opinion to be well- 
founded, and led me to believe that these propensities might be made to cease to 
exist, and others be given ; and that the same breed of dogs which displayed so 
strongly an hereditary disposition to hunt after Woodcocks, might be made ultimately 
to display a similar propensity to hunt after Trufles ; and it may, I think, be reason- 
ably doubted whether any dog having the habits and propensities of the Springing 
Spaniel would ever have been known, if the art of shooting birds on wing had not 
been acquired. 
I possessed one young Spaniel, of which the male parent, apparently a well-bred 
Springing Spaniel, had been taught to do a great number of very extraordinary tricks 
(some of which I previously thought it impossible that a dog could be made to learn), 
and of which the female parent was a well-taught Springing Spaniel ; and the puppy 
had been taught, before it came into my possession, a part of the accomplishments of its 
male parent. This animal possessed a very singular degree of acuteness and cunning, 
and in some cases appeared to be guided by something more nearly allied to reason 
than I have ever witnessed in any of the inferior animals. In one instance I had 
walked out with my gun and a servant, without any dog, and having seen a Wood- 
cock, I sent for the dog above-mentioned, which the servant brought to me. A month 
afterwards I sent my servant for it again, under similar circumstances, when it acted 
