INTRODUCTION. 
XXXV 
lowed, for the insect food it afforded them, without betraying 
any appearance of distrust. Need we any further proof of 
the capacity for change of disposition than that which has so 
long operated upon our domestic poultry? — “those victims,” 
as Buffon slightingly remarks, “which are multiplied without 
trouble, and sacrificed without regret.” How different the hab- 
its of our Goose and Duck in their wild and tame condition ! 
Instead of that excessive and timid cautiousness, so peculiar 
to their savage nature, they keep company with the domestic 
cattle, and hardly shuffle out of our path. Nay, the Gander 
is a very ban- dog, — noisy, gabbling, and vociferous, he gives 
notice of the stranger’s approach, is often the terror of the 
meddling school-boy, in defence of his fostered brood ; and it 
is reported of antiquity, that by their usual garrulity and watch- 
fulness they once saved the Roman capitol. Not only is the 
disposition of these birds changed by domestication, but even 
their strong instinct to migration, or wandering longings, are 
wholly annihilated. Instead of joining the airy phalanx which 
wing their way to distant regions, they grovel contented in the 
perpetual abundance attendant on their willing slavery. If 
instinct can thus be destroyed or merged in artificial circum- 
stances, need we wonder that this protecting and innate intelli- 
gence is capable also of another change by improvement, 
adapted to new habits and unnatural restraints ? Even without 
undergoing the slavery of domestication, many birds become 
fully sensible of immunities and protection ; and in the same 
aquatic and rude family of birds already mentioned we may 
quote the tame habits of the Eider Ducks. In Iceland and 
other countries, where they breed in such numbers as to render 
their valuable down an object of commerce, they are forbidden 
to be killed under legal penalty ; and as if aware of this legisla- 
tive security, they sit on their eggs undisturbed at the approach 
of man, and are entirely as familiar, during this season of 
breeding, as our tamed Ducks. Nor are they apparently aware 
of the cheat habitually practised upon them of abstracting the 
down with which they line their nests, though it is usually 
repeated until they make the third attempt at incubation. If, 
