INTRODUCTION. xxxi 



lowed, for the insect food it afforded them, without betraying 

 any appearance of distrust. Need we any further proof of 

 the capacity for change of disposition than that which has so 

 long operated upon our domestic poultry? — "those victims," 

 as Buffon slightingly remarks, ''which are multiplied without 

 trouble, and sacrificed without regret." How different the hab- 

 its of our Goose and Duck in their wild and tame condition ! 

 Instead of that excessive and timid cautiousness, so peculiar 

 to their savage nature, they keep company with the domestic 

 cattle, and hardly shuffle out of our path. Nay, the Gander 

 is a very ban-dog, — noisy, gabbling, and vociferous, he gives 

 notice of the stranger's approach, is often the terror of the 

 meddling school-boy, in defence of his fostered brood ; and it 

 is reported of antiquity, that by their usual garrulity and watch- 

 fulness they once saved the Roman capitol. Not only is the 

 disposition of these birds changed by domestication, but even 

 their strong instinct to migration, or wandering longings, are 

 wholly annihilated. Instead of joining the airy phalanx which 

 wing their way to distant regions, they grovel contented in the 

 perpetual abundance attendant on their willing slavery. If 

 instinct can thus be destroyed or merged in artificial circum- 

 stances, need we wonder that this protecting and innate intelli- 

 gence is capable also of another change by improvement, 

 adapted to new habits and unnatural restraints ? Even without 

 undergoing the slavery of domestication, many birds become 

 fully sensible of immunities and protection ; and in the same 

 aquatic and rude family of birds already mentioned we may 

 quote the tame habits of the Eider Ducks. In Iceland and 

 other countries, where they breed in such numbers as to render 

 their valuable down an object of commerce, they are forbidden 

 to be killed under legal penalty ; and as if aware of this legisla- 

 tive security, they sit on their eggs undisturbed at the approach 

 of man, and are entirely as familiar, during this season of 

 breeding, as our tamed Ducks. Nor are they apparently aware 

 of the cheat habitually practised upon them of abstracting the 

 down with which they line their nests, though it is usually 

 repeated until they make the third attempt at incubation. If, 



