the species, give rise, through natural selection, to quite new
instincts. But I am well aware that these general statements, without
facts given in detail, can produce but a feeble effect on the reader s
mind. I can only repeat my assurance, that I do not speak without good
evidence.
The possibility, or even probability, of inherited variations of
instinct in a state of nature will be strengthened by briefly
considering a few cases under
domestication. We shall thus also be enabled to see the respective
parts which habit and the selection of so-called accidental variations
have played in modifying the mental qualities of our domestic animals.
A number of curious and authentic instances could be given of the
inheritance of all shades of disposition and tastes, and likewise of
the oddest tricks, associated with certain frames of mind or periods of
time. But let us look to the familiar case of the several breeds of
dogs: it cannot be doubted that young pointers (I have myself seen a
striking instance) will sometimes point and even back other dogs the
very first time that they are taken out; retrieving is certainly in
some degree inherited by retrievers; and a tendency to run round,
instead of at, a flock of sheep, by shepherd-dogs. I cannot see that
these actions, performed without experience by the young, and in nearly
the same manner by each individual, performed with eager delight by
each breed, and without the end being known, for the young pointer can
no more know that he points to aid his master, than the white butterfly
knows why she lays her eggs on the leaf of the cabbage, I cannot see
that these actions differ essentially from true instincts. If we were
to see one kind of wolf, when young and without any training, as soon
as it scented its prey, stand motionless like a statue, and then slowly
crawl forward with a peculiar gait; and another kind of wolf rushing
round, instead of at, a herd of deer, and driving them to a distant
point, we should assuredly call these actions instinctive. Domestic
instincts, as they may be called, are certainly far less fixed or
invariable than natural instincts; but they have been acted on by far
less rigorous selection, and have been transmitted for an incomparably
shorter period, under less fixed conditions of life.
How strongly these domestic instincts, habits, and dispositions
are inherited, and how curiously they become mingled, is well shown
when different breeds of dogs are crossed. Thus it is known that a
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