Chap. VII. DOMESTIC INSTINCTS. 215 



selection is still at work, as each man tries to procure, 

 without intending to improve the breed, dogs which will 

 stand and hunt best. On the other hand, habit alone 

 in some cases has sufficed ; no animal is more difficult 

 to tame than the young of the wild rabbit; scarcely 

 any animal is tamer than the young of the tame rabbit ; 

 but I do not suppose that domestic rabbits have ever 

 been selected for tameness ; and I presume that we 

 must attribute the whole of the inherited change from 

 extreme wildness to extreme tameness, simply to habit 

 and long-continued close confinement. 



Natural instincts are lost under domestication : a re- 

 markable instance of this is seen in those breeds of 

 fowls which very rarely or never become "broody," 

 that is, never wish to sit on their eggs. Familiarity 

 alone prevents our seeing how universally and largely 

 the minds of our domestic animals have been modified 

 by domestication. It is scarcely possible to doubt that 

 the love of man has become instinctive in the dog. All 

 wolves, foxes, jackals, and species of the cat genus, when 

 kept tame, are most eager to attack poultry, sheep, and 

 pigs ; and this tendency has been found incurable in 

 dogs which have been brought home as puppies from 

 countries, such as Tierra del Fuego and Australia, where 

 the savages do not keep these domestic animals. How 

 rarely, on the other hand, do our civilised dogs, even 

 when quite young, require to be taught not to attack 

 poultry, sheep, and pigs! No doubt they occasionally 

 do make an attack, and are then beaten ; and if not 

 cured, they are destroyed; so that habit, with some 

 degree of selection, has probably concurred in civilising 

 by inheritance our dogs. On the other hand, young 

 chickens have lost, wholly by habit, that fear of the dog 

 and cat which no doubt was originally instinctive in 

 them, in the same way as it is so plainly instinctive in 



