232 CHANGES OF HABIT OR INSTINCT 



shades of disposition and of taste, and likewise of the oddest 

 tricks, associated with certain frames of minds or periods 

 of time, being inherited. But let us look to the familiar 

 case of the breeds of the dogs : it cannot be doubted that 

 young pointers (I have myself seen striking instances) 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 experi 

 ence 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 essen- 

 tially from true instincts. If we were to behold 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 than natural instincts; 

 but they have been acted on by far less rigorous selections, 

 and have been transmitted for an incomparably shorter 

 period, under less fixed conditions of life. 



How strongly these domestic instincts, habits, and dispo- 

 sitions are inherited, and how curiously they become mingled, 

 is well shown when different breeds of dogs are crossed. 

 Thus it is known that a cross with a bull-dog has affected 

 for many generations the courage and obstinacy of grey- 

 hounds ; and a cross with a greyhound has given to a whole 

 family of shepherd-dogs a tendency to hunt hares. These 

 domestic instincts, when thus tested by crossing, resemble 

 natural instincts, which in a like manner become curiously 

 blended together, and for a long period exhibit traces of the 

 instincts of either parent : for example, Le Roy describes a 

 dog, whose great-grandfather 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 

 $nd compulsory habit j but this is pot true. £To ope would 



