DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 



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or pleasing or curious to us but not better fitted to survive in 

 nature. In fact, most of these artificially induced changes tend 

 to unfit the animal for success in life unaided by man; they are 

 mostly degenerative changes. The loss of flight, the shortening 

 of legs, the over-development of fat, the production of crests 

 and plumes and ruffs, the loss of horns, the sluggishness and 

 helplessness that characterize the domestic animals of different 



FIG. 137. Assyrian hunters with great dogs; from an Assyrian wall 

 relief of 668 B.C., now in the British Museum. (After Keller.) 



kinds, are all characters and conditions of degeneration. As 

 an outcome of the modern great interest and activity in the 

 methods and results of producing new races and types of 

 domesticated animals, the history of the origin of many of the 

 more widespread and useful of these animal races has been 

 unravelled. The following paragraphs give in briefest possible 

 form some interesting facts about the origin of our more 

 familiar animal companions. 



