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MR. DARWIN'S posthumous paper on "Instinct" leaves a remarkable problem pretty much where it was. What is the difference, if any, between instinct and reason? Mr. Darwin, with his customary patience and impartiality, has accumulated a number of illustrations of the peculiarities of instinct in birds and animals. Why do swallows migrate? One explanation is that they do it because their ancestors, when the land and sea were very differently apportioned, and gradually changing, were obliged to change their quarters. Certainly, if birds always acted like this on a regular system, it would be simple to conclude that this instinct was wholly unreasoning. But the Labrador seagulls have ceased to build their nests in the rocks, and now build them on trees. There are many other instances of a complete change of habit on the part of birds and animals. Mr. Darwin held the theory that instincts was invariably hereditary and that its modification did not affect this principle, but the cases in which a complete transformation of habits occur then to place considerable difficulties in the way of this assumption. Professor Huxley has expressed his regret that Mr. Darwin's paper should have been made public, on account of its being an immature performance, and containing no special novelty of illustration or reasoning, and Mr. Romanes, who was responsible for the presentation of the paper to the Linnean Society, admitted that he ought to have modified many of the details. This is a somewhat unfortunate method of conducting a scientific investigation.