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Show 44 MODIFICATIONS OF INSTINCTS [Ch. III. herd, is a domestic animal. It might even be said that from the moment when such an animal admits man as a member of its society, it is domesticated, as man could not enter into such a society without becoming the chief of it :Y.'." But the in<Tenious author whose observations we have here 0 cited, admits that the obedience which the individuals of many domestic species yield indifferently to every person is without analogy in any state of things which could exist previously to their subjugation by man. Each troop of wild horses, it is true, has some stallion for its chief, who draws after him aU the individuals of which the herd is composed; but when a domesticated horse has passed from hand to hand, and has served several masters, he becomes equally docile towards any person, and is subjected to the whole human race. It seems fair to presume, that the capability in the instinct of the horse to be thus modified, was given to enable the species to render greater services to man; and, perhaps, the facility with which many other acquired characters become hereditary in various races of the horse, may be explicable only on a like supposition. The amble, for example, a pace to which the domestic races in Spanish America are exclusively trained, has, in the course of several generations, become hereditary, and is assumed by all the young colts before they are broken in *. It seems also reasonable to conclude, that the power bestowed on the horse, the dog, the ox, the sheep, the cat, and many species of domestic fowls, of supporting almost every climate, was given expressly to enable them to follow man throughout all parts of the globe-in order that we might obtain their services, and they our protection. If it be objected that the elephant, which, by the union of strength, intelligence, and docility, can render the greatest services to mankind, is incapable of living ~n any but the warmest latitudes, we may observe, that the quantity of vegetable food required by this .c< Mem. c.lu Mus. d' Hi~t. Nat. t Dureau de la Malle, Ann. des Sci. Nat., tom. xxi. p. 58. Ch. 111.] PRODUCED BY DOMESTICATION. 45 quadruped w.ould render its maintenance, in the temperate zone, too costly, and in the arctic impossible. Among the changes superinduced by man, none appear, at £rst sight, more remarkable than the perfect tameness of certain domestic races. It is well known, that at however early an age we obtain possession of the young of many unreclaimed races, they will retain, throughout life, a considerable timidity and apprehensiveness of danger; whereas, after one or two generations, the descendants of the same will habitually place the most implicit confidence in man. There is good reason, however, to suspect that such changes are not without analogy in a state of nature, or, to speak more correct] y, in situations where man has not interfered. Thus Dr. Richardson informs us, in his able history of the habits of North American animals, that '(in the retired parts of the mountains, where the hunters had seldom penetrated, there is no difficulty in approaching the Rocky Mountain sheep, which there exhibit the simplicity of cha·racte·r so 'remarkable in the domestic species; but where they have been often fired at, they are exceedingly wild, alarm their companions, on the approach of danger, by a hissing noise, and scale the rocks with a speed and agility that baffles pursuit * ." It is probable, therefore, that as man, in diffusing himself over the globe, has tamed many wild races, so also he has made many tame races wild. Had some of the larger carnivorous beasts, capable of scaling the rocks, made their way into the North American mountains before our hunters, a similar alteration in the instincts of the sheep would doubtless have been brought about. No animal affords a more striking illustration of the principal points we have been endeavouring to establish than the elephant. For in the first place, the wonderful sagacity with which he accommodates himself to the society of man, and the new habits which he contracts are not the result of time nor of modifications produced in the course of many generations . * Fauna Borcali-Americana, page 273. |