BY THE PRESIDENT. 45 



hardly have been contented to remain in their humble position, and 

 some of them at least would have remedied their natural defects. 

 The sloth cannot walk on the surface of the earth ; some birds are 

 incapable of flight ; the crocodile is devoid of a tongue, and is be- 

 holden to a little bird of the Trochilus order for picking its teeth, 

 its mouth swarms with leeches, and the little bird runs in and out 

 and picks them off. 



I may now refer to the assumption, which Darwin takes as 

 absolutely unassailable, and on which many of his arguments rest, 

 that all tame animals originated from their wild congeners. This 

 too I look upon as a fallacy. No doubt all tame animals have 

 their wild types, but that those wild animals were the progenitors 

 of the domesticated breeds I greatly doubt. Take any one you 

 please — the sheep for instance. The earliest records speak of 

 sheep as subservient to, and the property of man. Not to mention 

 allusions in the New Testament, the Psalms of David are full of 

 references to the flocks and their keepers. It is 3600 years 

 since Jacob arrived in "the land of the people of the East" in 

 search of a wife, and saw a well with three flocks of sheep lying by 

 it. Moses 300 years later kept the flock of Jethro. The very 

 number of Job's sheep is recorded, he had 7000. Abel was a 

 keeper of sheep. Who tamed those sheep? The " moufilou " 

 and the "aouda," the wild sheep still existing, are, like the goats, 

 active beyond expression, utterly untameable, their dwelling is on 

 inaccessible rocks, they laugh at all attempts to bring them under 

 the "care and protection and regular government of man." How 

 then, in the earliest days, were they tamed, brought to know and 

 to follow their shepherd, and submit themselves to be shorn and 

 slaughtered? Then there is the cat, the harmless, necessary cat. 

 The wild cat, amongst savage beasts, is pre-eminently savage. 

 The few specimens in the Zoological Gardens have been, of 

 necessity, relegated to the most retired and unvisited portions of 

 the Gardens. They will not endure even the presence of the 

 keeper who daily ministers to their wants, but after months and 

 years of kindness and attention, would meet his advances with savage 

 snarls and signs of unmitigated ferocity. Their very anatomy, too, 

 is different, not only externally but internally, the simple straight 

 and short intestine being that of the Carnivora, totally different 

 from the complicated intestines of the tame animal. Who, I ask, 

 tamed the wild cat ? You must not mistake the cat which has left 

 its home, and run wild in the woods, for a " wild cat." The 

 difference is manifest, and, in fact, proves the position I take. 

 Find the lair of such a cat as this, take the young, and, though 



