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-grandfather was a wolf, and this dog showed a trace of its wild
parentage only in one way, by not coming in a straight line to his master,
when called.

Domestic instincts are sometimes spoken of as actions which have become
inherited solely from long-continued and compulsory habit, but this is not
true. No one would ever have thought of teaching, or probably could have
taught, the tumbler-pigeon to tumble--an action which, as I have witnessed,
is performed by young birds, that have never seen a pigeon tumble. We may
believe that some one pigeon showed a slight tendency to this strange
habit, and that the long-continued selection of the best individuals in
successive generations made tumblers what they now are; and near Glasgow
there are house-tumblers, as I hear from Mr. 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