The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-01-24
ANIMAL INSTINCT.

How much instruction does an ami
NAL receive from its parents? How
much does an animal know without any
instruction from its parents
These are questions which many of
our field naturalists are trying to an
swer at the present time, and on which
some of them have taken very decided
stands. Personally, I am inclined to
believe that the experiments which
nave been made to date are not suffi-
GENTLY exhaustive to warrant the posi-
tive statements which are made by GER
tain ofour well-known writer's Some
theories are so very interesting that
enthusiastic young naturalists are
tempted to prove their correctness by
facts sorted and cut out to fit. This is
! all mistake. If there is any fitting to
be done the theory should be made to
fit the facts whatever they may be; no
theory is of any value unless it does I
have done little thinking on this sub
ject myself, and / have tried few eX-
periments. the results of which, whough
by no means conclusive, tend, I think
to prove that many animals, at least,
can and do get along very nicely with
out any instruction from their parents.
Leaving out the lowest forms Of ami
NAL life. we know that, In the case of
many insects, the young never even see
the parents as the latter die long be-
! fore their eggs are Matched; yet so far
as We can tell. these young know just
as much, and go through life just as
| comfortably, as did their fathers and
grandfathers. Practically the same is
true of many of the reptiles which. af-
| ter depositing their eggs, give their
progeny no further care. In young tur-
ties, many hereditary tendencies are
strongly developed long before they are
| Matched. Embryo swapping turtles
snap while still in the shell, and some
embryo painted turtles, which l re-
moved from the eggs weeks before the
date of Matching could not only swim,
but when laid on their backs thrust out
their head and attempted to turn over
! by the very same method adopted by
adult turtles. Young aIligators re-
moved from their shells, in the same
way, snap their toothless jaws vicious
| ly. Even in the case of viviperous rep
| tiles, it is doubtful if the young receive
any instruction which they would not
get along very nicely without.
| Last autumn I caught a large water
snake and took her home, and in four
hours she gave birth to nineteen young.
| The mother paid not the slightest at
| tention to her family. yet the little ras-
Gals would coil and spring, open
mouthed, at my hand, as soon as they
were born, and when dropped into
| pail of water few minutes later,
swan with the greatest ease
| Certain birds belonging to very low
orders do not incubate their eggs, but
leave them to be Matched by the
warmth of the decaying vegetation in
which they are laid; yet the young of
such birds, which have never seen their
, parents or others Of their kind, swim,
| dive and exhibit other family charac-
! teristics which must, Of necessity, be
| inherited in the case of birds which
| hatch and rear their young, it is diff
| cult to say which traits are the result
| of education and which OF heredity, UNI
| til we know positively at what ages
| different birds are capable of receiving
instruction. However, we do know that
any family trait exhibited by young
birds Matched in an incubator and
reared in a brooder, cannot be the re-
suit of instruction received from the pa
! rent, and l doubt very much whether
| any naturalist could distinguish incu-
bator- Matched ducks and hens from
those Matched in the natural way, by
reason of the superior education Of the
latter. AS for birds Matched and reared
| by their parents, it would seem fair to
assume that some Of their accomplish
ments. al any rate, are not taught them
as they lie helpless i'll the nest. 1t
would hardly be reasonable to suppose