34 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



been at some former period used for food, it is probable 

 that their domestication in the first place was effected 

 with a view to the food-supply, though some are now 

 employed almost exclusively as beasts of burden. There 

 is abundant archaeological evidence that several of these 

 animals were in domestication amongst the rude inhabitants 

 of Europe and the temperate portions of Asia before 

 either the use of metal or the art of agriculture was known 

 within those regions/'' The Japanese furnish an example of 

 an agricultural people keeping cattle but making no use of 

 their milk. Miss Bird tells us : " We left Ichinono early on a 

 fine morning with three pack-cows, one of which I rode, 

 and their calves, very comely kine, with small noses, short 

 horns, straight spines, and deep bodies. I thought that I 

 might get some fresh milk, but the idea of anytliing but a 

 calf milking a cow was so new to the people that there 

 was a universal laugh, and Ito told me that they thought 

 it ' most disgusting,' and that the Japanese think it ' most 

 disgusting ' in foreigners to put anything ' with such a 

 strong smell and taste' into their tea." On this subject 

 Humboldt made the following important remarks: "The 

 cows yield milk plentifully enough in the lower regions of 

 the torrid zone, wherever good pasturage is found. I call 

 attention to this fact because local circumstances have spread 

 through the Indian Archipelago the prejudice of considering 

 hot climates as repugnant to the secretion of milk. We may 

 conceive the indifference of the inhabitants of the New World 

 for a milk diet, the country having been originally destitute of 

 animals capable of furnishing it ; but how can we avoid 

 being astonished at this indifference in the immense Chinese 

 population, living in great part beyond the tropics, and in 

 the same latitude with the nomad and pastoral tribes of 

 Central Asia? If the Chinese have ever been a pastoral 

 people, how have they lost the tastes and habits so inti- 

 mately connected with that state which precedes agricul- 

 tural institutions? These questions are interesting with 

 respect both to the history of the nations of oriental Asia 

 and to the ancient communications that are supposed to have 

 existed between that part of the world and the north of 

 Mexico." 



Throughout the greater portion of the civilized and partly- 

 civilized world the rearing of cattle and other ruminants for 

 the sake of their flesh and milk goes hand-in-hand with the 



♦"Antiquity of Man": Sir 0. Lyell. "Origin of the Aryans": 

 Isaac Taylor. " Origin of Civilisation " : Sir J. Ijubbock. " Unbeaten 

 Tracks in Japan " : Mrs. Bishop (Isabella Bird). " Personal Narrative 

 of Travels": Humboldt, Bonpland. " The Long White Mountain (Travels 

 in Manchuria)" : James. 



