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Domestication of Animals
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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
