260 
confirmed. But we are told that this peculiarity only 
applies to one particular breed or strain. In order to 
understand the precise significancy of the difference, it 
would be necessary to know what the peculiar breed was, 
and what had been the antecedents of its immediate 
ancestry; and the problem would then no doubt be 
solved. 
The implication is that the young duck takes instinct 
ively to the water; and that the natural instinct is lost in 
the case under consideration. But do the facts of the case 
bear out this hypothesis ? According to Dr. Stiebeling, of 
New York, “if young ducks are brought to a pond they 
will go and drink, but they will not go in.” It is asserted 
by Mr. Thwaits that when forcibly placed in a tub of water 
they are quite alarmed, and have to be taken quickly out, or 
they would drown in their struggling. But Dr. Stiebeling 
says : “ If they are placed in deep water they try to get out 
of it as quickly as possible, and therefore make active 
movements with their legs which necessarily propel them ; 
and as an animal cannot sink, look like the movements of 
swimming.” “ If the ducklings be hatched under a hen 
they take much longer before they become used to the 
water than if hatched under a duck ; for the latter, like 
all water birds, takes her young on her back and swim 
ming out she shakes them off into the water. When the 
ducklings reach dry land again they shake themselves 
and try to clean the water off.”f So that in point of fact 
the hurrying out of the water is the first stage in learning 
the art of swimming. 
Even if there were an instinctive tendency, under 
ordinary conditions, which led the recently hatched duck 
lings to seek the water, it is conceivable that it might be 
t Apud Buchner. Mind in Animals, pp. 25-6.