674 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to a savage and primitive life in a stone age, if he has not com- 

 mand of domestic animals and cultivated plants ; from the begin- 

 ning of human progress comfort of living has "borne a relation 

 to the number of domesticated species ; and it was by importing 

 their animals and plants, or by acclimata'tion, that advanced 

 peoples made conquests and colonizations in lands occupied by 

 primitive man. In such cases the natives generally give way be- 

 fore the conquerors. 



To the nine animals primarily acclimated in Europe, . there 

 were added in the age of the Greeks, by domestication, the goose, 

 bee, and pigeon, and by acclimatation the peacock and the 

 guinea-fowl. In the Roman period the rabbit and duck were 

 domesticated, and the ferret was introduced. After that there 

 were no additions to the domestic fauna till the sixteenth century, 

 when the guinea-pig, American duck, and turkey were acclimated 

 from America. Notwithstanding the small number of acquisi- 

 tions in this long period, the domestic animals and cultivated 

 plants of Europe were the prime cause of a considerable gradual 

 augmentation in the comfort of the population. They have been 

 brought to a high degree of perfection, corresponding with the 

 growing extent of our wants, and have been subjected to some 

 remarkable modifications, under the new science of zootechnics ; 

 a process of transformation which is still continuous and will 

 never be completed. Species have been divided up to meet 

 the requirements of varied wants, so that one has been made 

 competent to give the service that might be demanded of two, 

 three, and four species. Thus, in horses, we have the riding 

 horse, which can walk, pace, trot, or gallop ; the cart horse, which 

 can pull a heavy load at a walk ; the stage horse, drawing a 

 lighter load, with a fair degree of speed ; and the carriage horse, 

 which travels with speed and elegance of gait. Could the horse 

 have rendered us such a variety of services if he had been left in 

 a wild state ? This question is not a gratuitous supposition. 

 The half -wild horses imported* a few years ago from the Argen- 

 tine Republic were of little value, because they had not been 

 fitted, by ancestral training, to perform the various duties re- 

 quired of them. 



Instead of increasing the number of species, we have devel- 

 oped varieties within the species, each adapted to a special work. 

 The Laplander has one reindeer, that clothes, feeds, and draws 

 him ; we have four or five horses, for the purposes of transporta- 

 tion alone. We have also got animals intermediate between two 

 species. 



It is thus found that the material comfort of a people depends 

 much on the animal and vegetable products it possesses, on their 

 variety as well as on their abundance. The variety of animal 



