Habits of Animals Transmitted to Offspring

Abstract

BREEDING many horses yearly on my station, I notice, as a matter of course, some of their peculiar habits. In a semi-wild state on a run horses graze together in large or small companies, which “station hands” call “mobs;” these mobs wander at will over a large area of country, finding abundance of good natural pasture and water. Some years since a mare became solitary in her habits, always seeking one particular creek ; whenever released from work she made off to her favourite feeding ground by herself ; if “rounded up with a mob” she would take the earliest chance that presented itself of reaching her usual haunt. One of her progeny some years after showed a similar liking for solitude ; he was placed among several other horses (many of them he had known for years) on a small run intersected with bushy gullies, more or less rocky. He was soon missing, and search was made for him for some time without success ; he was supposed to have come to grief in the bush ; at length he was found, most unexpectedly, on a small patch of pasture between two rocky gullies thickly bushed ; this spot was so difficult of access that a slight track had to be cut to get the horse back. Having been brought from a large station where he was bred and reared, he no longer enjoyed a great range by which he could place any long distance between his companions and himself ; he displayed much tact and judgment in the way he secured the indulgence of hereditary habit, by discovering and reaching with difficulty an almost inaccessible solitude. One of the best and fleetest stock mares for the fast and hard work of “cutting out”¹ was a beautiful creature notorious as an incorrigible kicker ; she has most faithfully transmitted this vice to her offspring.