vicious toad was found dead, with jaws tightly closed, still
hanging to the dead horse. Perhaps they are sometimes
incapable of letting go at will, and like honey bees, destroy themselves in these savage attacks.
CHAPTER V.
FEAR IN BIRDS.
THE statement that birds instinctively fear man is frequently met with in zoological works written since the Origin of Species appeared; but almost the only reason--absolutely the only plausible reason, all the rest being mere supposition--given in support of such a notion is that birds in desert islands show at first no fear of man, but afterwards, finding him a dangerous neighbour, they become wild; and their young also grow up wild. It is thus assumed that the habit acquired by the former has become hereditary in the latter--or, at all events, that in time it becomes hereditary. Instincts, which are few in number in any species, and practically endure for ever, are not, presumably, acquired with such extraordinary facility.
Birds become shy where persecuted, and the young, even when not disturbed, learn a shy habit from the parents, and from other adults they associate with. I have found small birds shyer in desert places, where the human form was altogether strange to them, than in thickly-settled districts. Large birds are actually shyer than the small ones, although, to the civilized or shooting man they seem astonishingly tame where they have never been
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