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. When
the first tendency 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 at
work, as each man tries to procure, without intending to improve the
breed, dogs which will stand and hunt best. On the other hand, habit
alone in some cases has sufficed; no 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 do not suppose that domestic
rabbits have ever been selected for tameness; and I presume that we
must attribute the whole of the inherited change from extreme wildness
to extreme tameness, simply 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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