"
The innocent Sleep; Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care ;
The death of each day's life ; sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds ;
great Nature's second course ; Chief nourisher in life's feast."
The
manner in which babies are lulled off to sleep, by rocking in the arms,
or in a cradle, is, so Dr. L. Robinson has shown, very remarkable as an
instance of inheritance, from arboreal, or monkey-like ancestors ;
because the rocking is a reminder of the to-and-fro swaying of branches
; and such swaying would be the method of inducing sleep adopted by
arboreal dwellers. It is singular to find that our nursery ditties
embody ,a reference to matters arboreal in this instance, as if with a
lingering tradition of ancestors who lived in trees. Thus the English
mother, or nurse, in rocking her infant to sleep sings—
"
Hush-a-by, baby; on the tree top When the wind blows the cradle shall
rock ; When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, Down will come baby,
cradle, and all."
"
Another habit of children, which bears out this supposition,—and a
destructive habit too,—is that of picking at anything loose, (any
pieces of wall-paper especially), so as to tear it off. This habit is
probably the survival of a monkey-practice of picking off the bark from
trees, in order to search for insects. Any loose piece of bark
indicates an insect refuge suggesting live prey; so that with the
monkey an association is formed between loose bark and food. "With the
child this reason for the act has become lost; but the instinct to pick
remains as a vestigial survival."
Certain Magical attributes were credited to Zircon in the Middle Ages ; such as " procuring sleep, honour,
