With regard to these fatal weaknesses in birds, mammals and reptiles, which we see are confined to certain species, they always strike us as out of the order of nature, or as abnormal, if the word may be used in such a connection. Perhaps it can be properly used. I remember that Herodotus, in his _History of Egypt_, relates that when a fire broke out in any city in that country, the people did not concern themselves about extinguishing it; their whole anxiety was to prevent the cats from rushing into the flames and destroying themselves. To this end the people would occupy all the approaches to the burning building, forming a cordon, as it were, to keep the cats back; but in spite of all they could do, some of them would get through, and rush into the flames and die. The omniscient learned person may tell me that Herodotus is the Father of Lies, if he likes, and is anxious to say something witty and original; but I believe this story of the cats, since not Herodotus, nor any Egyptian who was his informant, would or could have invented such a tale. Believing it, I can only explain it on the assumption that this Egyptian race of cats had become subject to a fatal weakness, a hypnotic effect caused by the sight of a great blaze. In like manner, if our chaffinch gets too much excited and finally comes down to be destroyed by a weasel, when he catches sight of that small red animal, or sees him going through that strange antic performance which I witnessed, it does not follow that the { 100} weakness or abnormality is universal in the species. It may be only in a race.
Again, with regard to rabbits: when hunted by a stoat they endeavour to fly, but cannot, and are destroyed owing to that strange--one might almost say unnatural--weakness; but I can believe that if a colony of British rabbits were to inhabit, for a good many generations, some distant country where there are no stoats, this weakness would be outgrown. It is probable that, even in this stoat-infested country, not all individuals are subject to such a failing, and that, in those which have it, it differs in degree. If it is a weakness, a something inimical, then it is reasonable to believe that nature works to eliminate it, whether by natural selection or some other means.