Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/361

Rh to procreate their kind and maintain the tradition. Let it once be granted that there is an innate capacity to retain in later phases of routine the experience gained in earlier phases, and it is difficult to see how traditional guidance can be refused recognition as a factor in the developing situation. But only a factor, and by no means the most important one; for observation has shown that the young are capable of performing the return journey without guidance. Something therefore is inherited, some impulse which comes into functional activity at a specified time, and leads the bird to set forth in a given direction.

There are no grounds for supposing that the experience of one generation forms any part of the hereditary equipment of subsequent generations. In what direction then are we to look for the congenital factor? What is given is an inherited tendency to co-operation and mutual help, and an innate capacity to make use of the results of experience. The inherited tendency, as we have seen, leads on the one hand to the formation of new areas of association, whilst on the other, since it is the means of bringing isolated individuals into contact, it leads to experience being handed on from generation to generation, which, in its turn, results in a certain amount of backward movement along the line of expansion. It forms part of the hereditary equipment of many species, and is serviceable in promoting the welfare of the individual. Moreover, there is