{283} <Note in original.> Give some definition of instinct, or at least give chief attributes. <In _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 207, vi. p. 319, Darwin refuses to define instinct.> The term instinct is often used in <a> sense which implies no more than that the animal does the action in question. Faculties and instincts may I think be imperfectly separated. The mole has the faculty of scratching burrows, and the instinct to apply it. The bird of passage has the faculty of finding its way and the instinct to put it in action at certain periods. It can hardly be said to have the faculty of knowing the time, for it can possess no means, without indeed it be some consciousness of passing sensations. Think over all habitual actions and see whether faculties and instincts can be separated. We have faculty of waking in the night, if an instinct prompted us to do something at certain hour of night or day. Savages finding their way. Wrangel's account--probably a faculty inexplicable by the possessor. There are besides faculties "_means_," as conversion of larvae into neuters and queens. I think all this generally implied, anyhow useful. <This discussion, which does not occur in the _Origin_, is a first draft of that which follows in the text, p. 123.> _Variation in the mental attributes of wild animals._ With respect to the variation{284} of the mental powers of animals in a wild state, we know that there is a considerable difference in the disposition of different individuals of the same species, as is recognised by all those who have had the charge of animals in a menagerie. With respect to the wildness of animals, that is fear directed particularly against man, which appears to be as true an instinct as the dread of a young mouse of a cat, we have excellent evidence that it is slowly acquired and becomes hereditary. It is also certain that, in a natural state, individuals of the same species lose or do not practice their migratory instincts--as woodcocks in Madeira. With respect to any variation in the more complicated instincts, it is obviously most difficult to detect, even more so than in the case of corporeal structure, of which it has been admitted the variation is exceedingly small, and perhaps scarcely any in the majority of species at any one period. Yet, to take one excellent case of instinct, namely the nests of birds, those who have paid most attention to the subject maintain that not only certain individuals <? species> seem to be able to build very imperfectly, but that a difference in skill may not unfrequently be detected between individuals{285}. Certain birds, moreover, adapt their nests to circumstances; the water-ouzel makes no vault when she builds under cover of a rock--the sparrow builds very differently when its nest is in a tree or in a hole, and the golden-crested wren sometimes suspends its nest below and sometimes