ive instinct, in the same manner as we have seen that the red plumage
of the _Gallus bankiva_ is sometimes reacquired by crossed and purely-bred
fowls of various kinds as they grow old.

The parents of all our domesticated animals were of course aboriginally
wild in disposition; and when a domesticated species is crossed with a
distinct species, whether this is a domesticated or only tamed animal, the
hybrids are often wild {45} to such a degree, that the fact is intelligible
only on the principle that the cross has caused a partial return to the
primitive disposition.

The Earl of Powis formerly imported some thoroughly domesticated humped
cattle from India, and crossed them with English breeds, which belong to a
distinct species; and his agent remarked to me, without any question having
been asked, how oddly wild the cross-bred animals were. The European wild
boar and the Chinese domesticated pig are almost certainly specifically
distinct: Sir F. Darwin crossed a sow of the latter breed with a wild
Alpine boar which had become extremely tame, but the young, though having
half-domesticated blood in their veins, were "extremely wild in
confinement, and would not eat swill like common English pigs." Mr. Hewitt,
who has had great experience in crossing tame cock-pheasants with fowls
belonging to five breeds, gives as the character of all "extraordinary
wildness;"[105] but I have myself seen one exception to this rule. Mr.
S. J. Salter,[106] who raised a large number of hybrids from a bantam-hen
by _Gallus Sonneratii_, states that "all were exceedingly wild." Mr.
Waterton[107] bred some wild ducks from eggs hatched under a common duck,
and the young were allowed to cross freely both amongst themselves and with
the tame ducks; they were "half wild and half tame; they came to the
windows to be fed, but still they had a wariness about them quite
remarkable."

On the other hand, mules from the horse and ass are certainly not in the
least wild, yet they are notorious for obstinacy and vice. Mr. Brent, who
has crossed canary-birds with many kinds of finches, has not observed, as
he informs me, that the hybrids were in any way remarkably wild. Hybrids
are often raised between the common and musk duck, and I have been assured
by three persons, who have kept these crossed birds, that they were not
wild; but Mr. Garnett[108] observed that his female hybrids exhibited
"migratory propensities," of which there is not a vestige in the