FROM SAVAGE TO CIVILIZED LIFE. 107 



subsequent remark, that no new animals had been added to the number of do- 

 mesticated species then known in the space of 450 years, is likewise consonant 

 to what I hold to be the truth. For it is a singular fact, and borne out by all ob- 

 servation, that no new species of domestic animal of any consequence has been 

 added to those which have been the property of man from the first times. The 

 animals at present domesticated have been so from the earliest period of human 

 history ; in all man's wanderings, they have accompanied his progress ; and it is 

 only in regard to America, the first settlers in which Continent may have been 

 driven from then* native shores by a thousand ways which may easily be con- 

 ceived, that the migrations of the race seem to have been without the cattle 

 of the Old Continent. 



It is, besides, incumbent on those who support the poetical and philosophical 

 theory, to point out, in the course of ages, a single instance of an important ani- 

 mal having been added to the stock of the domesticated races. All the ani- 

 mals now known as the property of man the goat, the sheep, the ox, the dog, 

 the horse, the ass, the hog, &c. were the companions of man from the earliest 

 times. The arts of Greece and Rome, the reasonings of philosophers, or the songs 

 of poets, have not enabled them to seduce or charm one animal more from the 

 wilds, or to add one individual to the domesticated races, though Africa and Asia 

 were ransacked for animals to exhibit in the shows of the Roman people, and 

 forms, never seen in Europe before, were displayed in numbers to the Roman 

 citizens. The camel, from its limited geographical range, is only known in do- 

 mesticity ; and all the reputed wild animals of the domesticated species have ori- 

 ginated from them alone. Surely if the training of animals has been progressive, 

 as alleged, some of the reputed savages of the ancient world might have left one 

 or two useful creatures untamed by them, for the benefit of modern philosophers, 

 and to illustrate their theories. Let the adherents of the theory of taming, and 

 domestication, and gradual change, make an experiment upon the fox, said by 

 JOHN HUNTER* to be one of the progenitors of the dog, let us see foxes protecting 

 in place of pillaging the poultry yard, and this not in the case of an individual 

 fox, but of the whole race of foxes in the country, and then there will be some 

 shew of reason for supposing that the domesticated animals were thus subjected 

 to the service of Man. 



M. BUREAU DE LA MALLE concludes the paper to which allusion has been 

 made, with the announcement of the result to which, he says, he has been led by 

 his researches, and that is, that he believes it may be affirmed that the greater 

 portion of our domestic species of animals is originally from Asia, and have been 

 transported to Western Europe by early wanderers from the first habitations of 

 man. 



As to what some authors say of the original types of the races of cattle being 



Phil. Trans. 1787, p. 253. 







VOL. XV. PAET I. 3 G 



