The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-02-09
DARWlNlsM AND SWIMMING.
Why Is It That Every Other Animal EE-
cept Man Can Swim Naturally.

| OAHWlNtSM ANU SWiMMIN0.
Why Is It That Every other Animal Ez-
cept Man Can Swim Naturally.
Nan is almost the only animal that
has no instructive knowledge of swim
| ming, which is remarkable. consider
! ing the vast period of time throughout
| which this accomplishment has been
| nearly essential to him. There is every
! evidence that man has almost always
lived in proximity to water. Among
the fuvial drift are found the ancient
stone implements, and where relics Of
human handiwork are discovered along
with the remains of extinct animals,
| it is almost always in riverside caverns.
Men have, therefore, always been
swimmers, just as all savages are at
the present day. And yet, notwith-
standing this long experience, man
kind has not acquired an instructive,
an hereditary knowledge of swim
ming. That ingenious writer, DIR.
Louis uRobinson, makes this fact the
subject Of a paper in the Nineteegth
Century.
He considers that the inability Of
man to swim instinctively is a proof of
his descent from apes. DR.. Robinson
<hus explains the ability Of animals to
swim as soon as they are thrown in the
water: A dog or horse is able to
swim, not because he has an intuitive
knowledge of the art of swimming, but
because it SO happens that his usual
terrestrial method of locomotion, when
kept up in the water, will keep him
af1oat 1t is natural for an animal,
when under a strong state of excite.
ment. to employ its usual methods of
locomotion. For instance, if we pick
up rabbit, and it is frightened, it will
immediately begin to work its legs as
in the act Of running. Or if we hold
bird in our hands, it will flap its
wings as in the act of flying.
Now, an animal, when it finds it.
self in the water for the first time
is no doubt in an excited state of
mind, and it Immediately begins to
employ its ordinary methods of loco
motion. 1t SO happens that these are
Of the kind to keep it afloat, and the
animal thus has at once the accom-
plishment of swimming. This seems
more plausible explanation of the
swimming of animals than that tho
animal, so soon as he finds himself in
the water, should reflect, $50 to, I
shall now SWIM Animals like the
cat and donkey, which have decided
antipathy to water, nevertheless swim
as soon as they find themselves in that
element.
A man, too, when he finds himself in
the water without knowledge of
swimming, immediately begins to put
forth his natural method of locomo-
ton. But it SO happens that that
method is not of the kind to keep him
afioat. He reverts to the arboreal
habits of his ancestors, the apes. He
proceeds to climb. This he does both
with his arms and legs. He gets his
arms out of the water and his head is
immersed. He grasps at a floating
twig with the instinct Of his arboreal
ancestor when he was running upward
frightened by the apparition of snake
on the ground. OF course. any man
knows that he ought to keep his hands
down when in the water, but ninety
nine men out of a hundred who have
not learned to swim well, when they
find themselves in the water, do pre-
cisely the opposite OF this. In spite of
their knowledge that such an action
is fatal, they revert, as DR.. Robinson
would have US believe, to the instinct
of their arboreal ancestors. There was
indeed time when mems ancestors
were quadrupeds and ran away from an
enemy on the ground on all tours, but
that was long ago, as long as the close
OF the secondary epoch. Since then has
the vast period of his arbo-
real existence, which anatomy and ge-
ology show in the opinion Of men of sol
ence to have been much longer than
his existence as biped.
But the question at once occurs, Are
apes and monkeys unable to swim?
Upon this point DIR. Robinson does not
appear to have very exhaustive infor-
nation. Balloons can swim, but bah
oons have a quadrupedal mode of pro-
erosion. even when climbing tree.
A mans gait in mounting ladder is
said to DO much moro like that Of
true arboreal animal than the gait Of
a be boon. Alfred Russell Wallace says
that south American monkeys seldom
or never cross streams, rivers being
the boundary lines between allied
species. DR.. Robinson claims that there
is strong presumption that the more
bulky ones, like the gorilla and the |
are as helpless in the
water as q man. II is an interesting
question, and one which could, we |
should suppose, be very easily decided |
BY experiment Y. Tribune.
rS> Kyn~ MeAfa HE