respective parts which habit and the selection of
so-called accidental variations have played in modifying the mental
qualities of our domestic animals. A number of curious and authentic
instances could be given of the inheritance of all shades of disposition
and tastes, and likewise of the oddest tricks, associated with certain
frames of mind or periods of time. But let us look to the familiar case
of the several breeds of dogs: it cannot be doubted that young pointers
(I have myself seen a striking instance) will sometimes point and even
back other dogs the very first time that they are taken out; retrieving
is certainly in some degree inherited by retrievers; and a tendency to
run round, instead of at, a flock of sheep, by shepherd-dogs. I cannot
see that these actions, performed without experience by the young,
and in nearly the same manner by each individual, performed with eager
delight by each breed, and without the end being known,--for the young
pointer can no more know that he points to aid his master, than
the white butterfly knows why she lays her eggs on the leaf of the
cabbage,--I cannot see that these actions differ essentially from true
instincts. If we were to see one kind of wolf, when young and without
any training, as soon as it scented its prey, stand motionless like a
statue, and then slowly crawl forward with a peculiar gait; and another
kind of wolf rushing round, instead of at, a herd of deer, and driving
them to a distant point, we should assuredly call these actions
instinctive. Domestic instincts, as they may be called, are certainly
far less fixed or invariable than natural instincts; but they have been
acted on by far less rigorous selection, and have been transmitted for
an incomparably shorter period, under less fixed conditions of life.

How strongly these domestic instincts, habits, and dispositions are
inherited, and how curiously they become mingled, is well shown when
different breeds of dogs are crossed. Thus it is known that a cross with
a bull-dog has affected for many generations the courage and obstinacy
of greyhounds; and a cross with a greyhound has given to a whole family
of shepherd-dogs a tendency to hunt hares. These domestic instincts,
when thus tested by crossing, resemble natural instincts, which in a
like manner become curiously blended together, and for a long period
exhibit traces of the instincts of either parent: for example, Le Roy
describes a dog, whose great-gran