_Reversion in Animals and Plants which have run wild._--In the cases hitherto considered, the reverting animals and plants have not been exposed to any great or abrupt change in their conditions of life which could have induced this tendency; but it is very different with animals and plants which have become feral or run wild. It has been repeatedly asserted in the most positive manner by various authors, that feral animals and plants invariably return to their primitive specific type. It is curious on what little evidence this belief rests. Many of our domesticated animals could not subsist in a wild state; thus, the more highly improved breeds of the pigeon will not "field" or search for their own food. Sheep have never become feral, and would be destroyed by almost every beast of prey. In several cases we do not know the aboriginal parent-species, and cannot possibly tell whether or not there has been any close degree of reversion. It is not known in any instance what variety was first turned out; several varieties have probably in some cases run wild, and their crossing alone would tend to obliterate their proper character. Our domesticated animals and plants, when they run wild, must always be exposed to new conditions of life, for, as Mr. Wallace[75] has well remarked, they have to obtain their own food, and are exposed to competition with the native productions. Under these circumstances, if our domesticated animals did not undergo change of some kind, the result would be quite opposed to the conclusions arrived at in this work. Nevertheless, I do not doubt that the simple fact of animals and plants becoming feral, does cause some tendency to reversion to the primitive state; though this tendency has been much exaggerated by some authors. {33}