4 MENTAL QUALITIES OF THE HORSE. 



sciousness and association of ideas among the lowest 

 forms of animal life, if we prove it,- as we can amply do, 

 among the higher animals. 



While giving full weight to the respective influences 

 of the principle of the survival of the fittest, and that 

 of selection, I think we must admit that instinct may 

 become greatly modified through generations by the in- 

 fluence of the association of ideas. Thus, there have been 

 frequent instances of the wild birds of recently-discovered 

 islands evincing extremely little fear of man on his first 

 appearance ; although they gradually acquired it as an 

 instinct under new influences later on. The Samoan 

 tooth-billed pigeon, which, before that island was brought 

 under the influence of Western civilization, used to sleep 

 and breed on or close to the ground, has, by the presence 

 of its imported enemies, acquired the habit of taking 

 refuge in trees, in which it now possesses the instinct of 

 roosting and building its nest. The fear of man, which 

 we have made instinctive in many animals, may by disuse 

 be rendered so slight as not to merit the title of an instinct, 

 as we may see by the difference in tameness between the 

 young of our domestic animals and the offspring of their 

 respective wild representatives of common ancestry. The 

 influence of use and selection on instinct gives us, in the 

 dog, members of the same species with such widely differ- 

 ing instincts as those of the foxhound, greyhound, pointer, 

 collie, and retriever, for example. The progeny of wild 

 horses, taken up young and reared under civilised con- 

 ditions, are far more difficult to break in and render far 

 less willing and less intelligent service than the offspring 

 of horses which have been bred for many generations in 

 close companionship with man. The semi- wild ponies of 

 the Himalayas (Spiti, for instance) being constantly ex- 

 posed, when grazing, to injury from falling snow, ice, stones 



