THE NATURAL SCIENCE JOURNAL. 
3 
Department of Hutbropologp. 
J. S. SILVIA, Editor. 
Acushnet, Mass. 
Tlie Editor is desirous of keeping in close alliance with 
all interested in this department. All correspondence 
concerning Anthropology, especially anything relating to 
new finds and explorations will be gladly received. 
PERSISTEIJOE 11!^ EAOE TEAITS. 
Percy M. Van Epps. 
OW persistently linger many of the 
ancient traits in man and beast 
Eveiy now and then some remindei' of 
these ancient ways crop out in man ; 
ideas and notions, unwittingly expressed, 
reminiscences of ancestral habits, cus¬ 
toms, and superstitions. As the dog to¬ 
day inYoliintarily turns before lying 
down, to beat down the wild grass or 
reeds of the jungle in which his ances¬ 
tors slept; so man does sometimes un¬ 
consciously betray by word or action cer¬ 
tain inherited tendencies to actions or 
customs common to his predecessors. 
Did you ever notice how carefully a 
flock of sheep will avoid a dense forest 
or a woods choked with undergrowth? 
A low-branched thicket of small area 
they will indeed resort to for shade and 
shelter; but only if its extent and sur¬ 
face configuration will allow them to see 
through and under to the open beyond. 
But they will instinctively shun a heavy 
forest, or even its borders, and it is only 
with considerable difficulty that they can 
be driven into such a growth. If this, 
be necessary, and done, how curiously 
they will huddle together, and how tim¬ 
idly they will proceed. Ceniuries of 
domestication have not effaced this in¬ 
nate fear of the deep forest from the 
mind of the sheep. In the great forests 
lurked her ancient enemies, the w^olf and 
other animals who were her constant foes. 
Conversation held not long ago with 
an old lady living near me, born in the 
woods, her mother an Indian of the 
Stockbridge branch of the Mohicans, 
brought most forcibly to my notice a 
curious and interesting case of an ances¬ 
tral trait cropping forth. This interest¬ 
ing character, though her infancy’s days 
were passed in the forest, where she was 
born about 1810, was reared among the 
white peoples’ families of the neighbor¬ 
hood. So it is very evident that any 
aural or visual impressions acquired in 
these few months of early childhood are 
not to be taken account of in classing 
the trait recorded as an inherited tend¬ 
ency, but that the mental process verb¬ 
ally expressed was purely intuitive or 
ancestral, an inherited idea of the ways 
and customs of her people. 
This old lad 3 ^ who can truly, and of¬ 
ten does, boast of her American ances¬ 
tors, has for a grandson an obstreperous 
lusty youth full of mischief and as fond 
of the weapons of Nimrod as was his 
dusky progenitors in the days when the 
streams ran even, and as yet the woestina 
was unbroken by the settler’s clearing. 
The boy, whose father resides in New 
York city, came for two or three con¬ 
secutive seasons to pass the summer 
months with his grandparents up coun- 
try. 
It was just before one of these annual 
visits that his grandmother approached 
me with the information that her grand¬ 
son John was coming to pass the sum¬ 
mer, “ And you know,” said she, “what 
a time he had last summer with his guns 
and pistols; how he frightened the peo¬ 
ple of the neighborhood with his reckless 
shooting, and how finally his fire-arms 
were taken from him and locked up.” 
After expressing apprehension lest at his 
