268 WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 



many domestic mammals, — that is, they were 

 captured when young and helpless and brought 

 up in the dwelHngs of their owners. Many 

 savages, such as the Indians of Northern Brazil, 

 often tame young parrots and other birds, and 

 allow them to roam about freely among their 

 dwellings. 



In the common fowl certain instincts proper 

 to the wild state seem to have become curiously 

 altered by association with man. Thus, although 

 it is plain that the custom of cackling after laying 

 is a habit not acquired during captivity, since its 

 deeply rooted and universal character shows it 

 to be extremely ancient, its primary utility is 

 altogether lost. We now take the spasmodic 

 outcry of a hen as a kindly intimation that it is 

 worth while to visit the fowl-house. But what 

 could a wild hen possibly gain by proclaiming 

 to a hostile and hungry world the fact that she 

 had laid an egg ? Nature seems to have pro- 

 vided so carefully for the concealment of nests 

 and young that this habit of the domestic fowl, 

 which apparently operates in exactly the opposite 

 direction, seems very strange and anomalous. 



Were we unable to get information about the 

 natural history of birds of this order which are 



