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-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, I think, 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.
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