The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1890-07-26
LOST INSTINCTS.
Sounds. Sights and Colors Known to AMI
mails and Not to Man.

Sounds. Sights and Coiors Known to AMI
mails and Not to Man.
If the doctrine be true that mall is
really the heir of all the various species
and genera of the animal kingdom it
seems a little hard upon us that, even
by way of exception, we inherit none
of the more marvellous Instincts OF
those species and genera, and hive to
be content with those greater but pure
ly human faculties by which the most
wonderful of animal instincts have
been extinguished. Sir John Lubbock
maintains there are insects, and very
likely even higher animals, which per
eeive colors OF which we have no
glimpses and hear sounds which to us
are inaudiblc. Yet we never hear Of a
human retina that includes in its vision
those colors depending on vibrations of
the ether which are too slow or too
rapid for our ordinary eyes, nor of q
human eur which is entranced with
music that to the great majority of our
species is absolutely inaudible.
Again, we never hear of n human be-
ing who could perform the feat of which
we were told only recently of blood
hound In dark night it followed UP
for three miles the trail of n thief with
whom the bloodhound could never
have been in contact Che had just pur-
Joined some rolls of tan from the tan
yard in which the dog was chained up,
and finally sat down under the tree in
which the man had taken refuge.
Why, we wonder arc those finer powers
for discriminating and following the
track of the scent, which So many of
the lower animals possess, entirely ex-
:lnguished in man, if man be the real
heir of all the various genera Which
show powers inferior to his own'
We see no trace in animals of that
high enjoyment of tho finer scents
which make the poisoning of the
spring flowers so great delight to
human beings, and yet men are entirely
destitute of that almost unerring power
of tracking the path of an odor which
seems to be one of the principal gifts OF
many quadrupeds and some birds It
is the same with the power of a dog or
cat to find its way back to q home to
which it is attached, but from which It
Inns been taken by Il route that 1t cam
not possibly follow on its return, even
if it had the power of observing that
route, which usually it has not. Nothing
could be more convenient than such q
power to a lost child But none ever
heard of child who possessed it.
Still more cnviable is that instinct
possessed by so many birds of crossing
great tracts of land and sea without ap-
parently any landmark or seamarks to
guide them, and of reaching Il quarter
of the globe which many of them have
never visited before, while those who
have visited it before have not visited
it often enough to learn the way.
The migratory birds must possess
either senses or instincts entirely be-
yond the range of human Imagination,
and vet no one ever heard of the sur
vival of such a sense or instinct in any
member of our race. 1t may be said,
indeed, that men have either inherited
DR. some way reproduced the slave max
ing instinct of some % the military
ants; but this only enhances the irony
of our destiny If we do indeed in any
sense inherit from these insect aristoc
races one of the most disastrous in
stincts Of the audacious but INDECENT
creatures which fight so much better
than they work. What is still more
curious is that even where human be
ings have wholly exceptional and IN.
heard of powers they betray no traces
of the exceptional and unheard of pow
ers of the races whose vital organiza'
lion we are said TO inherit.
The occasional appearance of very
rare mathematical powers, for instance,
so far from being in any sense expli-
cable from below, looks much more
like inspiration from above. The cal
eulating boy, who could not even give
any account of the process whereby he
arrived at correct results which the ed.
ucatcd mathematician took some time
to verify, certainly was not reviving in
himself any Of the rare powers of the
lower tribes of animals. Nor do the
prodigies in music who show such mar
velous power in infancy recall to us
any instinct of the bird, the only mu-
steal creature except ourselves. Still
less, of course, does great moral genius,
the genius of Howard or Clarkson,
suggest any Renaissance of lower an
imal life.-American Analyst.