Brent, which cannot fly
eighteen inches high without going head over heels. It may be doubted
whether any one would have thought of training a dog to point, had not some
one dog naturally shown a tendency in this line; and this is known
occasionally to happen, as I once saw, in a pure terrier: the act of
pointing is probably, as many have thought, only the exaggerated pause of
an animal preparing to spring on its prey. When the first tendency to
point was once displayed, methodical selection and the inherited effects of
compulsory training in each successive generation would soon complete the
work; and unconscious selection is still in progress, as each man tries to
procure, without intending to improve the breed, dogs which stand and hunt
best. On the other hand, habit alone in some cases has sufficed; hardly
any 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 can
hardly suppose that domestic rabbits have often been selected for tameness
alone; so that we must attribute at least the greater part of the inherited
change from extreme wildness to extreme tameness, to habit and
long-continued close confinement.
Natural instincts are lost under domestication: a remarkable 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.
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