Domestication of Animals 175
choice of careers for animals, and by analogy for those of men.
My argument will be this :—All savages maintain pet animals, many tribes have sacred ones, and kings of ancient states have imported captive animals on a vast scale, for purposes of show, from neighbouring countries. I infer that every animal, of any pretensions, has been tamed over and over again, and has had numerous opportunities of becoming domesticated. But the ‘ cases are rare in which these opportunities have led to any result. No animal is. fitted for domestication unless it fulfils certain stringent conditions, which I will endeavour to state and to discuss. My conclusion is, that all domesticable animals of any note have long ago fallen under the yoke of man. In short, that the animal creation has been pretty thoroughly, though half unconsciously, explored, by the every-day habits of rude races and simple civilisations.
It is a fact familiar to all travellers, that savages frequently capture young animals of various kinds, and rear them as favourites; and sell or present them as curiosities. Human nature is generally akin: savages may be brutal, but’ they are not on that account devoid of our taste for taming and caressing young animals; nay, it is not improbable that some races may possess it in a more marked’ degree than ourselves, because it is a childish taste with us; and the motives of an adult barbarian are very similar to those of a. civilised child.
In proving this assertion, I feel embarrassed with the’ multiplicity of my facts. I have only space to submit a few typical instances, and must, therefore, beg it will be borne in mind that the following list could be largely reinforced. Yet even if I inserted all I have thus far been able to collect, I believe insufficient justice would be done to the real truth of the case. Captive animals do not commonly fall within the observation of travellers, who mostly confine’ themselves to their own encampments, and abstain from. entering the dirty dwellings of the natives; neither do the majority of travellers think tamed animals worthy of detailed’ mention. Consequently the anecdotes of their existence are scattered sparingly among a large number of volumes. It is
