dfather was a wolf, and this dog
showed a trace of its wild parentage only in one way, by not coming in a
straight line to his master when called.

Domestic instincts are sometimes spoken of as actions which have become
inherited solely from long-continued and compulsory habit, but this,
I think, is not true. No one would ever have thought of teaching, or
probably could have taught, the tumbler-pigeon to tumble,--an action
which, as I have witnessed, is performed by young birds, that have
never seen a pigeon tumble. We may believe that some one pigeon showed
a slight tendency to this strange habit, and that the long-continued
selection of the best individuals in successive generations made
tumblers what they now are; and near Glasgow there are house-tumblers,
as I hear from Mr. Brent, which cannot fly eighteen inches high without
going head over heels. It may be doubted whether any one would have
thought of training a dog to point, had not some one dog naturally shown
a tendency in this line; and this is known occasionally to happen, as I
once saw in a pure terrier. When the first tendency was once displayed,
methodical selection and the inherited effects of compulsory training in
each successive generation would soon complete the work; and unconscious
selection is still at work, as each man tries to procure, without
intending to improve the breed, dogs which will stand and hunt best.
On the other hand, habit alone in some cases has sufficed; no animal is
more difficult to tame than the young of the wild rabbit; scarcely any
animal is tamer than the young of the tame rabbit; but I do not suppose
that domestic rabbits have ever been selected for tameness; and I
presume that we must attribute the whole of the inherited change from
extreme wildness to extreme tameness, simply to habit and long-continued
close confinement.

Natural instincts are lost under domestication: a remarkable instance of
this is seen in those breeds of fowls which very rarely or never become
"broody," that is, never wish to sit on their eggs. Familiarity alone
prevents our seeing how universally and largely the minds of our
domestic animals have been modified by domestication. It is scarcely
possible to doubt that the love of man has become instinctive in the
dog. All wolves, foxes, jackals, and species of the cat genus, when
kept tame, are most eager to attack poultry, sheep, and pigs; and this
tendency has been found incurable in dogs which have