484 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



practiced in southern Europe. The native fauna gave way very 

 slowly but steadily. 



It is not my desire to discuss all phases of this process, which ex- 

 tends back into ancient, yes, even into prehistoric times. I omit a 

 consideration of changes in the native fauna and will confine myself 

 entirely to the introduction of domesticated animals, so far as we 

 can at present determine the individual phases of this process in 

 Europe. The solution of this problem has been attempted at various 

 times, but the result has until very recently been incomplete. We 

 shall attempt to demonstrate here what constitutes autochthonous 

 derivation and what has been added from foreign sources. 



It is evident that the phylogenetic relationships had to be estab- 

 lished before these tangled problems could be approached. Half a 

 century ago the task seemed hopeless. It is sufficiently significant 

 that the celebrated and venerable master of biology, Charles Darwin, 

 as late as 1859, in the first chapter of his path-breaking work, "Origin 

 of Species," gave utterance to the statement that ''The origin of most 

 of our domestic animals will probably forever remain vague." This 

 really sounded pessimistic, almost like a scientific "Lasciate ogni 

 speranza!" 



To-day we no longer worship this pessimism, for bit by bit, though 

 not without much effort, we have had many surprising glimpses into 

 the history of the domesticated animals of Europe. 



In the same year, 1859, a French investigator, Isidore Geoff roy 

 St. Hilair&, approached these problems in a decidedly optimistic 

 manner. He tried to determine the time of appearance and the 

 geographic derivation of our domesticated animals. The Orient and 

 particularly Asia, seemed to him to be the original home of most of 

 these animals, especially those which were attached to the home in 

 the most remote times, that is, the dog, horse, ass, pig, camel, goat, 

 sheep, cow, pigeon, and the hen. It is true, he approaches the sub- 

 ject rather one-sidedly, since he bases his deductions chiefly upon 

 cultural history and does not permit the necessary analytic compara- 

 tive anatomy to assume its proper place. He later received con- 

 siderable aid from Victor Hehn who followed, entirely one-sided, 

 linguistic methods. His well-known work, " Kulturpflanzen und 

 Haustiere in ihrem Ubergang aus Asien nach Grichenland und 

 Italien," which received an altogether undeserved attention, has not 

 always been accorded favorable criticism from the scientific side, 

 and even after its careful revision by Sclirader it may be looked upon 

 as out of date. 



In 1862 Ludwig Riitimeyer's classic "Fauna der Pf alilbauten " 

 appeared and formed the turning point in the investigations of the 

 history of European domestic animals. In this work, through pre- 

 historic and comparative anatomic methods, facts were adduced in a 



