There is again the frequently-quoted instance of the young pointer, ‘which, untrained, and without any example which might have been imitated, pointed at a lizard in a subtropical jungle, just as many of its forefathers had pointed at partridges on the plain of St. Denis,’ and which, without knowing the effect of a shot, sprang forward barking, at the first discharge, to bring in the game. This conduct must not be attributed to the inheritance of any mental picture, such as the effect of a shot, but to the inheritance of a certain reflex mechanism. The young pointer does not spring forward at the shot because he has inherited from his forefathers a certain association of ideas,—shot and game,—but because he has inherited a reflex mechanism, which impels him to start forward on hearing a report. We cannot yet determine without more experiments how such an impulse due to perception (‘Wahrnehmungstrieb,’ Schneider) has arisen; but, in my opinion, it is almost inconceivable that artificial breeding has had nothing to do with it; and that we are here concerned—not with the inheritance of the effects of training—but with some predisposition on the part of the germ, which has been increased by artificial selection. The necessity for extreme caution in appealing to the supposed hereditary effects of use, is well shown in the case of those numerous instincts, which only come into play once in a lifetime, and which do not therefore admit of improvement by practice. The queen-bee takes her nuptial flight only once, and yet how many and complex are the instincts and the reflex mechanisms which come into play on that occasion. Again, in many insects the deposition of eggs occurs but once in a life-time, and yet such insects always fulfil the necessary conditions with unfailing accuracy, either simply dropping the eggs into water, or carefully fixing them on the surface of the earth beneath some stone, or laying them on a particular part of a certain species of plant; and in all these cases the most complicated actions are performed. It is indeed astonishing to watch one of the _Cynipidae_ (_Rhodites rosae_) depositing her eggs in the tissue of a young bud. She first carefully examines the bud on all sides, and feels it with her legs and antennae. Then she slowly inserts her long ovipositor between the closely-rolled leaves of the bud, but if it does not reach exactly the right spot, she will withdraw and re-insert it many times, until at length, when the proper place has been found, she will slowly bore deep into the very centre of the bud, so that the egg will reach the exact spot, where the necessary conditions for its development alone exist.