304 



m 



VAEIATION OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. [Ch. XXXVL 



countries long settled is natural even to young birds, 

 whicli liave never received any injury. So in the Falkland 

 Islands, both, the birds and foxes are entirely without fear of 

 man ; whereas, in the adjoining mainland of South America, 

 many of the same species of birds are extremely wild; for 

 there they have for ages been persecuted by the natives.* 

 Dr. Eichardson informs us, in his able history of the 



! North American 

 mountains where 



retired 



trated, there is no difficult j in approaching the Rockj Moun- 

 tain sheep, which there exhibit the simplicity of character so 

 remarkable in the domestic species ; but where they have been 

 often fired at, they are exceedingly wild, alarm their com- 

 panions, on the approach of danger, by a hissing noise, and 

 scale the rocks with a speed and agility that baffle pursuit.'f 

 ^ Feral ' varieties do not revert to the exact likeness of the 

 original stock. — It is an old and received opinion that if any 

 domesticated animals or cultivated plants are abandoned by 

 man and allowed to run wild or become ^ feral,' they wiU 

 revert to the exact likeness of their aboriginal parent stock. 



seems to be onlv true to a limited 



It was 



animals 



acquired in a state 



compete with their leilows m the strug 

 most of the characters which they have 

 of domesticity. 



Our quickly fattening pigs, says Mr. Wallace, our short- 

 legged sheep, cattle without horns and pouter pigeons, would 

 soon be annihilated if man's protection was withheld from 

 them. In a few generations the boar when compelled to search 

 for food recovers his long tusks and the full exercise of all his 

 organs ; reverting in the general shape of his body, the length 



muz 



His reversion to the likeness of the parent stock, says 



Darwin, is probably more com 

 domesticated animals which run 



than that of other 



is no evi- 



dence to show that it is ever perfect. There are two mam 



domestic 



— one supposed to come 



* Darwin's Journ. in Voyage of H.M.S. 

 Beagle, p. 475. 



t Fauna Eoreali Americana, p. 273. 



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