290 WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 



markable influence on the characters of many 

 of our domestic birds. What greater contrast 

 can be imagined than that between the wild 

 goose, which the ablest sportsman finds so dif- 

 ficult to outwit, and the caclcling, waddling 

 fools of the farmyard whose name has become 

 a byword ? Doubtless in some degree this ap- 

 parent stupidity, like that evinced by the 

 donkey and the sheep, is due to the creatures 

 being compelled to live among surroundings 

 totally different from those for which nature 

 first adapted them, so that their natural intel- 

 ligence, which sufficed for all the emergencies 

 of their wild life, has no chance of displaying 

 itself But the lethargic disposition of such 

 birds as those we are discussing chiefly illus- 

 trates how ready nature is to dispense with 

 superfluities. We know how, when plants or 

 animals become parasitic, they quickly lose facul- 

 ties and organs which are no longer necessary. 



I confess I feel some little difficulty in ex- 

 plaining this readiness on the part of many 

 birds and animals to trust entirely in human 

 protection. For we must remember that 

 domestication means the introduction of some- 

 thing which is almost absolutely new to the 



