Contributions to the theory of natural selection. A series of essays ... By Alfred Russel Wallace ...

ON I1NSTINCOT IN MAN AND ANIMALS. 209
region is known to him, as well as all the great features of the vegetation. As he approaches any tract ol
country he has been in or near before, many minute
indications guide him, but he observes them so cautiously that his white companions cannot perceive by
what he has directed his course. Every now and
then he slightly changes his direction, but he is never
confused, never loses himself, for he always feels at
home; till at last he arrives at a well-known Country,
and directs his course so as to reach the exact spot
desired. To the Europeans whom he guides, he seems
to have come without trouble, without any special observation, and in a nearly straight unchanging course.
They are astonished, and ask if he has ever been the
same route before, and when he answers "No%," conclude that some unerring instinct could alone have
guided him. But take this same man into another
country very similar to his own, but with other streams
and hills, another kind of soil, with a somewhat different vegetation andc animal life; and after bringing
him by a circuitous route to a given point, ask him to
return to his starting place, by a straight line of fifty
miles through the forest, and he will certainly decline
to attempt it, or, attempting it, will more or less completely fail. His supposed instinct does not act out of
his own country.
A savage, even in a new country, has, however,
undoubted advantages, from his familiarity with forest
life, his entire fearlessness of being lost, his accurate
perception of direction and of distance, and he is thus
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