Domesticated animal

“ The ordinary farmer has to enter into more or less sympathetic relations with half a score of animal species and many kinds of plants. His life, indeed, is devoted to ceaseless friendly relations with these creatures which live or die at his will. In this task his ancient savage impulses are slowly worn away, and in their place comes the enduring kindliness of cultivated men. When we compare the state of mind of the hunter with that of the care-taking soil-tiller, we see the vast scope and influence which this work of domestication has effected in our kind. ”

“ There are now as many as a hundred different kinds of domesticated animals, and there is scarcely one of these animals that has not been profoundly changed in character during the period of its domestication. ”

“ The answer depends on whether the dog is descended from jackal or wolf. In either case it is unlikely that the most tremendous task of domestication was the first.
Not everywhere has man domesticated animals, though we may be sure that he took them everywhere with him after he had domesticated them. If man walked on dry land across the Atlantic as 91some enthusiastic students of sub-oceanic geography now believe that he did, he led no sheep, no horses, no dogs. In America, when it was discovered, there was only one domestic animal, and in Australia there was none. ”

“ yet, they can show that any existing species—animal or vegetable—when placed under conditions different from its previous ones, immediately begins to undergo certain changes fitting it for the new conditions. They can show that in successive generations these changes continue; until, ultimately, the new conditions become the natural ones. They can show that in cultivated plants, in domesticated animals, and in the several races of men, such alterations have taken place. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Domesticated Animals.— When man emerged from his savage state on the earth, one of the first signs of the beginning of civilization was the domestication of animals. The dog, the cow, sheep, and especially the horse, mark epochs in the advance of civilization. Beasts of burden are used the world over, horses almost all over the world, certain cattle, as the water buffalo, in tropical Malaysia; camels, goats, and the llama are also used as draft animals in some other countries. ”

“ The dog was probably the first animal to be domesticated, but the sheep, the ox, the camel and the horse were doubtless added in relatively rapid succession, so soon as the idea that captive animals could be of service had been clearly conceived. Man now became a herdsman, no longer dependent for food upon the precarious chase of wild animals. ”

“ In the first place, each creature which is adopted into the household or the fields usually brings as its tribute a substantial contribution to the resources which tend to make the society commercially successful. When we consider the enlargements of resources and the diversification of indus [3] tries which rest upon the adoption of any one of these animals—as, for instance, the horse—we see in a way what the possession of domesticated animals and plants really means, and are in a position to conceive, though at best but dimly, what the scores of these captive species have done for us. ”

“ For a long time men procured their food by hunting, trapping, and fishing. During this time they began to capture and tame the young of some of the wild animals. Probably the dog was the first domestic animal. The cow was also domesticated at a very early period. Man used her meat and milk for food and her skin for clothing. He made tools and implements out of her bones and horns. No other animal has been more useful to him. The goat and the sheep, the hog and the ass, and later the horse, were tamed by early men long before real history began. ”

“ In the long catalogue of human qualities which characterize our thoroughly domesticated dogs, we must not fail to take account of their sense of property. In this the creature differs from all other of our domesticated animals. It is a common characteristic of mammals, both in their wild and tame state, that they feel a motive of ownership in the food which they have captured or in the den which they have made their lair ”

“ In the condition of savagery people are without permanent homes, do not attempt agriculture or even horticulture, have no domesticated animals except perhaps the dog, and subsist on fish and game, including molluscs, small mammals, and reptiles, and such seeds, fruits, nuts, etc., as wild plants supply. ”

“ We have seen in the earlier chapters, that some of our domesticated animals, such as dogs, cattle, pigs, &c., are almost certainly descended from more than one species, or wild race, if any one prefers to apply this latter term to forms which were enabled to keep distinct in a state of nature. ”

“ STERILITY OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS FROM CHANGED CONDITIONS. With respect to domesticated animals, as their domestication mainly depends on the accident of their breeding freely under captivity, we ought not to expect that their reproductive system would be affected by any moderate degree of change. Those orders of quadrupeds and birds, of which the wild species breed most readily in our menageries, have afforded us the greatest number of domesticated productions. ”

“ In our domesticated animals we know this to be the case, and it is by means of the continual selection of such slight varieties to breed from that all our extremely different domestic breeds have been produced. ”

“ It is not very easy to draw a line between domesticated animals and animals that are often bred in partial or complete captivity. Such antelopes as elands, fallow-deer, roe-deer, and the ostriches of ostrich farms are on the border-line of being domesticated. ”

“ The first animal domesticated is believed to have been the dog, and this animal is still used, as everyone knows, as a beast of burden in the far North, and in some European cities, particularly in those of Germany. ”

“ It is worth while to notice the fact that the European domesticated animals have without exception prospered on American soil. The seven really domesticated mammals and the half-dozen birds of our barnyards have remained essentially unchanged in their proportions, longevity, and fitness for the uses of man. ”

“ It is notorious how greatly the mental disposition, tastes, habits, consensual movements, loquacity or silence, and the tone of voice have varied and been inherited with our domesticated animals. The dog offers the most striking instance of changed mental attributes, and these differences cannot be accounted for by descent from distinct wild types. New mental characters have certainly often been acquired, and natural ones lost, under domestication. ”

“ Although no discreet person will venture to determine the relative weight which should be given to the influences which have made for civilization, there can be no doubt that the care of domesticated animals has been one of the most potent of these agents. ”

“ That proves that the animal can be domesticated. It is considered a very fierce animal, but it is not so fierce. It has fine ivory and a fine skin. It is easily domesticated. They start at the wrong end ”

“ With most of our domesticated animals, some breeds are kept on account of their curiosity or beauty; but the horse is valued almost solely for its utility. Hence semi-monstrous breeds are not preserved; and probably all the existing breeds have been slowly formed either by the direct action of the conditions of life, or through the selection of individual differences. ”

“ Naturalists are much divided in opinion in all that relates to the origin of our ancient and common domesticated animals; and this for the reason that the longer a creature has been subjected to the change-bringing conditions of our fields and households, the further it has departed from the parent stock. ”

“ There are three different types of changes due to domestication which must be clearly distinguished. On the one hand, the bodies of domesticated animals undergo 67considerable transformations, owing to the change in nutrition and use of the body. On the other hand, selection and crossing have played an important part in the development of races of domesticated animals. ”

“ Moreover, the use of domesticated animals of the better sort enabled the more vigorous and care-taking races to gain the strength which led to their advancement in power to a point where they were able to displace the lower and feebler tribes. In other words, the system of domestication has provided a method by which those peoples who were fitted to develop the qualities which make for civilization could advance ”

“ Compare the many animals and plants which are displayed at our exhibitions with their parent-forms when these are known, or consult old historical records with respect to their former state. Almost all our domesticated animals have given rise to numerous and distinct races, excepting those which cannot be easily subjected to selection—such as cats, the cochineal insect, and the hive-bee,—and excepting those animals which are not much valued. ”

“ It is needless to say that all the various domesticated animals have been tremendously changed in a similar manner since civilized man has come to live on the earth. When we realize the very great amount of money invested in domesticated animals; that there are over 60,000,000 each of sheep, cattle, and swine and over 20,000,000 horses owned in this country, then we may see how very important a part the domestic animals play in our lives. ”

“ As animals are not used for milk, draught, or food, and there are no pasture lands, both the country and the farm-yards have a singular silence and an inanimate look; a mean-looking dog and a few fowls being the only representatives of domestic animal life. ”

“ In view of the present condition of the life of these noble beasts, it seems in a high measure desirable that a thorough-going effort should be made to extend the domestication to the point where the form will not only be won from the wilds, but will be a permanent element in our civilization, in the manner of our common flocks and herds. ”

“ From the host of these feathered creatures men have from time to time selected species which grace their habitations by their beauty, their song, or by the sympathetic relations which they form with their captors. Our successes in these efforts toward domestication of these birds have been most eminent with those varieties which in their wilderness state have a well-developed social life, which abide in families or flocks, and have the pairing habit well affirmed. ”

“ Animal Breeding.—It has been pointed out that the domestication of wild animals, the horse, cattle, sheep, goats, and the dog, marked a great advance in civilization in the history of the earth's peoples. As the young of these animals came to be bred in captivity the peoples owning them would undoubtedly pick out the strongest and best of the offspring, killing off the others for food. ”

“ Has the little variability of the ass or Guinea-fowl, or the small power of endurance of warmth by the reindeer, or of cold by the common camel, prevented their domestication? I cannot doubt that if other animals and plants, equal in number to our domesticated productions, and belonging to equally diverse classes and countries, were taken from a state of nature, and could be made to breed for an equal number of generations under domestication, they would vary on an average as largely as the parent species of our existing domesticated productions have varied. ”

“ Domestication has, indeed, wrought wonderful changes and improvements in the breed of many creatures. Horses, oxen, sheep, pigs, dogs, and poultry of all sorts, are increased in bulk, tamed, ameliorated in habit and disposition. ”

“ There is not much difference, as we have already shown and shall immediately further see, in habits between the domestic dogs of the North American Indians and the wolves of that country, or between the Eastern pariah dogs and jackals, or between the dogs which have run wild in various countries and the several natural species of the family. The habit of barking, however, which is almost universal with domesticated dogs, and which does not characterise a single natural species of the family, seems an exception ”

“ Although many of the free-flying birds of the land are or have been kept captive because of the pleasure which men have found from their songs, their grace, or their quaint ways, only one of these has really been gained to domestication. ”

“ With our true domestic animals, on the other hand, fertility is perfect, and is very little affected by changed conditions. Thus, we see the common fowl, a native of tropical India, living and multiplying in almost every part of the world; and the same is the case with our cattle, sheep, and goats, our dogs and horses, and especially with domestic pigeons. It therefore seems probable, that this facility for breeding under changed conditions was an original property of the species which man has domesticated—a property which, more than any other, enabled him to domesticate them. ”