132 
F. M. CAMPBELL-ON" INSTINCT. 
is a common means of expression, and especially of impatience, 
with dogs, horses, bears, sheep, and most quadrupeds, and one can 
well conceive how an intelligent animal, having originally pawed 
at a floating substance, observed that it came within its reach, and 
adopted the practice in future. 
These actions on the part of the eagle or the bear which originally 
performed them might be so often repeated that they might become 
instinctive in posterity, some of which might fail to inherit them. 
Thus the whole species would not be similarly gifted. There is no 
reason why habits of the lower animals should not skip some of 
their descendants any more than in the case of mankind; and again 
we see the caution required in ascribing to intelligence actions 
which are not common to a species, and which at first sight may 
appear to be due to individual adaptation. It may, however, be said 
that in suggesting the above lines of development I am carrying 
the analogy between mankind and the lower animals too far; but it 
may well be remarked that if we lay claim to interpret their actions, 
they likewise show that they understand ours, and even those from 
which they obtain no advantage. I have a Persian cat, “ Hough,” 
which is a great pet in the nursery. She is much attached to my 
youngest nephew. "When in trouble he sometimes rolls on the 
ground crying, and “ Hough ” will go to him and lick his hair. It 
is difficult to explain this in any other way than that she does so 
out of sympathy, and is as fully alive that he is not at ease as if he 
were her kitten ; while the place which she licks would appear to 
be selected as having the nearest resemblance to the fur of her 
progeny. 
Instincts which abe injurious to the Individual. 
I have as yet only referred to actions, as advantageous or pleasur¬ 
able to the individual performing them, but there are others 
detrimental not only to the individual but also to the species, and 
which are sometimes called “ instinctive.” In all probability these 
injurious actions are due to the mis-direction of some habit which 
under most circumstances is beneficial, and they show that a species 
requires time to be adapted to new conditions. If for instance 
Australia were to become more fully populated, the male bower- 
bird would either have to cease building an ornamental bower to 
attract the female, or the species would become extinct. 
The “ cock up ” of the male pheasant on going to roost may 
attract the attention of the poacher, as Darwin suggests in the 
“Posthumous Essay on Instinct,” appended to ‘Mental Evolution in 
Animals.’ Yet the habit is beneficial to the species, for this call 
of the cock-pheasant draws some of the hens to him, and should he 
be aware of the presence of a fox, he will give the note of alarm. 
And again the cackle of a fowl leads to the seizure of the egg which 
has just been laid, but in all probability it attracts the polygamous 
male, and the fertilisation of each egg is thereby the more secured. 
Moths and other insects frequently fly through flame. How, as 
Homanes remarks, “ flame in nature is an exceedingly rare pheno- 
