THE DOMESTICATION OF WILD ANIMALS 



Some time ago the Societe d'Acclimatation de France 

 published in its Bulletin an address delivered by Dr. E. 

 Trouessart at the Conference held on January I2th, 1900, 

 to discuss the question of the animals most suitable for 

 acclimatisation and domestication. The author commences 

 his address by stating that the present age is one of 

 machinery and electricity ; and that eventually the use of 

 these will result in the total consumption of all the stored 

 vegetable fuels, such as coal and petroleum, buried in the 

 crust of the earth. When such a time comes, he argues, 

 man will be compelled to rely once more exclusively on 

 the labour of animals, which derive their nutriment and 

 their power from the consumption of the living vegetable 

 products of the earth. It is, therefore, urged that it is 

 important to domesticate and acclimatise as many kinds of 

 wild animals as possible before they are finally extermi- 

 nated. And to support his argument for domesticating 

 animals other than those now commonly held in subjection, 

 Dr. Trouessart points out that while a certain area of 

 country is only capable of nourishing a definite limited 

 number of one kind of animal, such as oxen, it is perfectly 

 able to sustain in addition some of another description, 

 such as sheep, which are able to pasture on ground over 

 which cattle have already gone and eaten all they could 

 obtain. Pigs, again, have a totally different class of nutrj- 



39 



