BREAKING AND HANDLING. 211 



training; but such cases are extremely rare. Even in point- 

 ing, the dog usually needs several opportunities before he 

 will point, and several more before he can do it intelligently. 

 Those who have watched puppies at play in the fields must 

 have noticed that backing gradually developed with expe- 

 perience. The puppies gallop about, stopping to a point 

 betimes on little birds. At first they point and chase to- 

 gether, then by degrees they learn to point or back alter- 

 nately with more or less steadiness. The common expta- 

 nation is that what was a matter of education' through many 

 generations in the past became fixed in the dog's nature, 

 and became an instinct. There is no proof whatever that 

 it was regularly a matter of education, nevertheless, that 

 does not for a moment detract from the positiveness and 

 assurance of the assertion. In the chapter on instinct, in 

 the Origin of Species, Darwin remarks : " Domestic instincts 

 are sometimes spoken of as actions which have become inher- 

 ited solely from long continued and compulsory habit; but 

 this is not true." 



Matters which are purely educational, and which are to 

 subserve the purposes of man, do not become instinctive 

 however long repeated, as may be observed in the case 

 of the horse which has been uniformly educated, gen- 

 eration after generation for centuries, either to the har- 

 ness or saddle, or both; yet he is not apparently benefited 

 thereby, so far as educational instinct is concerned. Un- 

 doubtedly, education improves the intelligence of the ani- 

 mal; but in respect to the dog, the field education is trifling 

 compared to that which man unconsciously gives by asso- 

 ciation to each individual under domestication every day in 

 succession, therefore it is more reasonable to suppose that 

 all knowledge appertaining to domestication would become 

 instinctive sooner than a few details of field work. It also 

 is astonishing that if backing, by education through a long 



