REVERSION TO WILD STATE IN DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 125 



by judicious selection, may fix varieties of all these domesticated 

 animals with persistent characteristics, but immediately his 

 supervising care is withdrawn all these peculiarities disappear. 



Of the birds, perhaps the Peacock resists the influence of 

 domestication with the most persistence, though the Guinea-fowl 

 undergoes no perceptible change from generation to generation, 

 with rare exceptions. 



While all have had opportunity to observe the changes which 

 have been wrought in our domesticated animals by human care 

 and supervision, opportunities have not been so general for 

 observing the effects upon our domesticated animals when 

 allowed to return to the wild state. My observations lead me 

 to the conclusion that the tendency is not only to return to the 

 wild habit, but to the original form and colouring of the remote 

 wild ancestor. That there is some law governing this reversion 

 we may well believe, though we may not be able to fully under- 

 stand it yet. 



My own observations tend to show not only a tendency, at 

 least in some species, to revert to the original form and colour of 

 the wild ancestor, but they also suggest the possibility that this 

 tendency is the strongest in those cases where the domesticated 

 animal has most recently been reclaimed from the wild state, or 

 in those cases where the change produced by domestication was 

 the most rapid. 



I have had the best opportunities for studying this subject in 

 the Hawaiian Islands. With the exception of the Goose and the 

 Duck, nearly all the animals which have been introduced into 

 those islands since their discovery, as well as those which were 

 then held in domestication,* have reverted to the wild state. 

 Among these I may mention the Ox, the Horse, the Goat, the 

 Sheep, the Hog, the Dog, the Cat, the Turkey, the Peacock, and 

 the Barn -yard Fowl. Where I had not the opportunity of studying 

 these personally, I spared no pains to gather the facts from the 

 most reliable sources. 



The greatest physical degeneracy was observed in the Wild 

 Horse and the Wild Sheep. The Ox was introduced by Van- 

 couver, less than a century since, upon the island of Kauai, from 

 California, whence it was introduced upon the other islands. At 



* They bad the Hog and Common Fowl when discovered by Cook. 



