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Domestication of Animals
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hardly part with them for any remuneration; they would never sell their
handsomest beasts.
One of the ways in which the value of tamed beasts would be soon
appreciated would be that of giving milk to children. It is marvellous how
soon goats find out children and tempt them to suckle. I have had the milk
of my goats, when encamping for the night in African travels, drained dry
by small black children, who had not the strength to do more than crawl
about, but nevertheless came to some secret understanding with the goats
and fed themselves. The records of many nations have legends like that of
Romulus and Remus, who are stated to have been suckled by wild beasts.
These are surprisingly confirmed by General Sleeman’s narrative of six
cases where children were nurtured for many years by wolves in Oude.
(Journey through Oude in 1849—50, 1. 206.)
Breeding freely.—Domestic animals must breed freely under
confinement. This necessity limits very narrowly the number of species
which might otherwise have been domesticated. It is one of the most
important of all the conditions that have to be satisfied. The North
American turkey, reared from the eggs of the wild bird, is stated to be
unknown in the third generation, in captivity. Our turkey comes from
Mexico, and was abundantly domesticated by the ancient Mexicans.
The Indians of the Upper Amazon took turtle and placed them in
lagoons for use in seasons of scarcity. The Spaniards who first saw them
called these turtle “Indian cattle.” They would certainly have become
domesticated like cattle, if they had been able to breed in captivity.
Easy to tend.—They must be tended easily. When animals reared in the
house are suffered to run about in the companionship of others like
themselves, they naturally revert to much of their original wildness. It is
therefore essential to domestication that they should possess some quality
by which large numbers of them may be controlled by a few herdsmen.
The instinct of gregariousness is such a quality. The herdsman of a vast
troop of oxen grazing in a forest, so long as he is able to see one of them,
knows pretty surely that they are all within reach. If oxen are frightened
and gallop off, they do not scatter, but remain in
