1835.1 



FEAR, AN ACQUIRED INSTINCT. 



401 



with regard to man, is a particular instinct directed against him, 

 and not dependent on any general degree of caution arising from 

 other sources of danger ; secondly, that it is not acquired by in- 

 dividual birds in a short time, even when much persecuted ; but 

 that in the course of successive generations it becomes hereditary. 

 With domesticated animals we are accustomed to see new mental 

 habits or instincts acquired and rendered hereditary; but with 

 animals in a state of nature, it must always be most difficult to 

 discover instances of acquired hereditary knowledge. In regard 

 to the wildness of birds towards man, there is no way of account- 

 ing for it, except as an inherited habit : comparatively few young 

 birds, in any one year, have been injured by man in England, 

 yet almost all, even nestlings, are afraid of him ; many indivi- 

 duals, on the other hand, both at the Galapagos and at the Fal In- 

 lands, have been pursued and injured by man, but yet have not 

 learned a salutary dread of him. We may infer from these facts, 

 what havoc the introduction of any new beast of prey must cause 

 in a country, before the instincts of the indigenous inhabitants 

 have become adapted to the stranger's craft or power. 



