With
domesticated animals we are accustomed to see new mental habits or
instincts acquired and rendered hereditary; but with animals in a
state of nature it must always be most difficult to discover
instances of acquired hereditary knowledge. In regard to the
wildness of birds towards man, there is no way of accounting for
it, except as an inherited habit: comparatively few young birds, in
any one year, have been injured by man in England, yet almost all,
even nestlings, are afraid of him; many individuals, on the other
hand, both at the Galapagos and at the Falklands, have been pursued
and injured by man, but yet have not learned a salutary dread of
him. We may infer from these facts, what havoc the introduction of
any new beast of prey must cause in a country, before the instincts
of the indigenous inhabitants have become adapted to the stranger's
craft or power.
(PLATE 83. OPUNTIA GALAPAGEIA, JAMES ISLAND. C. DARWIN'S SKETCH.
Stem 6 to 10 feet. Diameter 1 foot.)
CHAPTER XVIII.
(PLATE 84. AVA OR KAVA (Macropiper methysticum), TAHITI.)
TAHITI AND NEW ZEALAND.
Pass through the Low Archipelago.
Tahiti.
Aspect.
Vegetation on the mountains.
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