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Essay ofi the Domestication of Mammiferous Aiiimals^ with 

 some introdtictory cansideratiovis on the variozis states m 

 ivhich we may study their actions. By M. Frederick 

 CuviEK. Continued from former Volume, p. 318. 



jl\S our means of goocl treatment are various, and as the effect 

 of each of them differs, according to the different nature of the 

 animals on which they are made to act ; the choice of them 

 is far from being a matter of indifference, and they require to 

 be accurately appropriated to the object in view. 



To satisfy the natural wants of animals would be a means 

 which eventually might bring about their submission, especially 

 if applied to very young animals. The habit of constantly re- 

 ceiving their food from our hand would familiarise them, and 

 render them attached to us ; but, unless the employment of this 

 means were continued for a very long time, the bonds which it 

 would form would be feeble. The good which, in this manner, 

 an animal would have received from us, would have been pro- 

 cured by itself, had it possessed the power of acting conforma- 

 bly to its natural disposition. It would also, perhaps, return to 

 its original independence, the moment we might wish to employ 

 it in any service ; for it would find, in this state, more than an 

 equivalent for all that it received from us, namely, the faculty 

 of giving itself up to all its impressions. To attach animals, 

 therefore, itwould not probably be enough to satisfy their wants; 

 more is necessary ; and it is, in fact, by increasing their wants, 

 or by creating new ones, that we attach them to us, and, so to 

 speak, render the society of man necessary to them. 



Hunger is one of the most powerful of the means which are 

 at our disposal for captivating animals ; and as the extent of a 

 benefit is always in proportion to the necessity which is expe- 

 rienced of it, the gratitude of the animal is so much the more 

 intense, the more necessary the food which we give it has be- 

 come to it. It is applicable to all the mammifera, without ex- 

 ception ; and if, on the one hand, it may give rise to an affec- 

 tionate feehng, it produces, on the other, a physical debility, 

 which re-acts upon the will to weaken it also. It is in this man- 

 ner that the training of horses, which have passed their first 

 yeai's in a state of entire independence, usually commences. 



