stance the
good and ill temper of different stocks of bees and of horses,--the
pugnacity and courage of game fowls,--the pertinacity of certain dogs,
as bull-dogs, and the sagacity of others,--for restlessness and
suspicion compare a wild rabbit reared with the greatest care from its
earliest age with the extreme tameness of the domestic breed of the same
animal. The offspring of the domestic dogs which have run wild in
Cuba{273}, though caught quite young, are most difficult to tame,
probably nearly as much so as the original parent-stock from which the
domestic dog descended. The habitual "_periods_" of different families
of the same species differ, for instance, in the time of year of
reproduction, and the period of life when the capacity is acquired, and
the hour of roosting (in Malay fowls), &c., &c. These periodical habits
are perhaps essentially corporeal, and may be compared to nearly similar
habits in plants, which are known to vary extremely. Consensual
movements (as called by Mueller) vary and are inherited,--such as the
cantering and ambling paces in horses, the tumbling of pigeons, and
perhaps the handwriting, which is sometimes so similar between father
and sons, may be ranked in this class. _Manners_, and even tricks which
perhaps are only _peculiar_ manners, according to W. Hunter and my
father, are distinctly inherited in cases where children have lost their
parent in early infancy. The inheritance of expression, which often
reveals the finest shades of character, is familiar to everyone.

{271} A similar proviso occurs in the chapter on instinct in
_Origin_, Ed. i. p. 207, vi. p. 319.

{272} The discussion occurs later in Chapter VII of the _Origin_,
Ed. i. than in the present Essay, where moreover it is fuller in
some respects.

{273} In the margin occurs the name of Poeppig. In _Var. under
Dom._, Ed. ii. vol. I. p. 28, the reference to Poeppig on the Cuban
dogs contains no mention of the wildness of their offspring.

Again the tastes and pleasures of different breeds vary, thus the
shepherd-dog delights in chasing the sheep, but has no wish to kill
them,--the terrier (see Knight) delights in killing vermin, and the
spaniel in finding game. But it is impossible to separate their mental
peculiarities in the way I have done: the tumbling of pigeons, which I
have instanced as a consensual movement, might be called a trick and is
associated with a taste for flyi