THE DOMESTICATION OF WILD ANIMALS 41 



kindred by possessing a coat of wool instead of hair, 

 must have taken hundreds, if not thousands of years. 

 And it is obvious that no newly domesticated species can 

 by any possibility assail the established supremacy of the 

 sheep. Again, it was attempted during the early decades 

 of the last century to domesticate in England the South 

 African eland, which it was thought might vie with the 

 ox as a beef-producer, the experiment being carried out 

 by a former Earl of Derby at Knowsley Park. But the 

 experiment was a total failure, as these animals breed 

 comparatively slowly, are long in coming to maturity, and 

 bear no sort of comparison with shorthorns in capacity 

 for rapidly putting on flesh. 



Although, as noticed later on, there is a large field for 

 the advocates of acclimatisation in introducing new species 

 of animals into European parks and coverts, either for 

 ornament or for sport, it seems to be tolerably evident 

 that, in England, at any rate, the introduction and acclima- 

 tisation of new kinds of domesticated animals is not at 

 all likely to be attended with successful results. Possibly, 

 indeed, something of this kind may be accomplished in 

 France, where the habits of the peasantry are different 

 from those which obtain in England. But, so far as 

 economical considerations are concerned, the chances of 

 success in domestication are probably more hopeful in 

 Africa than anywhere else. There • the experimentalists 

 have before them the grand opportunity of taming the 

 African elephant, which, if its disposition is at all similar 

 (and the individuals who carry loads of our young friends 

 along the gravel paths of the London " Zoo " seem to 

 indicate that it is) to that of its Indian cousin, ought to 

 be invaluable as a means of transport. And they have a 

 second scope for their ingenuity in producing a tsetse-proof 



