Let us expand the transmissionist position a little further. An extremist, of the type presented by Eimer, would perhaps urge that the lapwing reasons thus: “If I pretend to be wounded, trail my wing, and flutter along the ground, instead of flying off, I shall draw upon myself the intruder’s attention, and lead him to suppose that I shall be easily caught; and if I thus entice him away, my little ones will be saved, and my end gained.” Thus, it may be said, might the bird argue, and then give practical effect to its reasoning. But are we not here attributing to the lapwing powers of ratiocination beyond the capacity of the most intelligent of birds? Are we not assuming a histrionic power, and a realization of the effects on others of its display, which many a human actor might well covet? “But may not the bird,” it may be urged in reply, “have found by experience, without any elaborate process of abstract reasoning, that the trick is effectual?” In any case it would be experience perilously acquired. Granting that the bird has the wit to try the trick, a little over-acting, a little too much lameness of wing, and she is herself seized and killed; a little under-acting, and the trick fails--her brood is found and destroyed. Does it not seem probable that such experience would be dearly bought, that failure would mean either death to the parent or death to the offspring? And is it not clear that natural selection is thus introduced in any case? And may not the selectionist pertinently ask: “If natural selection is thus introduced as a factor, why halt midway between two hypotheses? Why not take the further step--one by which all the difficulties attending the intelligent acquisition and the biological transmission are alike avoided--of allowing that natural selection exercises, throughout, its influence on congenital variations, and not on acquired modifications of behaviour?”