INSTINCT 355 



may be doubted whether any one would have thought of 

 training a dog to point, had not some one dog naturally 

 shown a tendency in this line; and this is known occa- 

 sionally to happen, as I once saw, in a pure terrier: tiae 

 act of pointing is probably, as many have thought, only 

 the exaggerated pause of an animal preparing to spring 

 on its prey. When the first tendency to point was once 

 I displayed, methodical selection and the inherited effects of 

 compulsory training in each successive generation would 

 r soon complete the work; and unconscious selection is still 

 in progress, as each man tries to procure, without intend- 

 ing to improve the breed, dogs which stand and hunt 

 best. On the other hand, habit alone in some cases has 

 sufficed; hardly any animal is more difficult to tame than 

 the young of the wild rabbit; scarcely any animal is 

 iamer than the young of the tame rabbit; but I can 

 lardly suppose that domestic rabbits have often been 

 5elected for tameness alone; so that we must attribute 

 it least the greater part of the inherited change from 

 'ixtreme wildness to extreme tameness to habit and long- 

 ontinued close confinement. 



! Natural instincts are lost under domestication: a re- 

 larkable instance of this is seen in those breeds of fowls 

 hich very rarely or never become "broody," that is 

 ever wish to sit on their eggs. Familiarity alone pre- 

 ents our seeing how largely and how permanently the 

 linds of our domestic animals have been modified. It 

 scarcely possible to doubt that the love of man has 

 3come instinctive in the dog. All wolves, foxes, jack- 

 s, and species of the cat genus, when kept tame, are 

 ost eager to attack poultry, sheep, and pigs; and this 

 ijBndency has been found incurable in dogs which have 



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