29 



DOMESTIC ANIMALS, 



BY 



J. JENNER WEIR, Esq, F.L.S, F.Z.S. 



idth DECEMBER, 1885. 



Part I.— Mammalia. 

 For more than half a century I have been familiar with 

 animals m captivity, and have had not less than a hundred 

 species under my personal care, often as many as thirty 

 species at one time, with this experience I have permitted 

 myself to speculate on the subject of Domestic Animals. 



A clear distinction must be drawn between domestic and 

 merely domesticated animals, to the first category, as I define 

 It the Ox, Horse, Dog, and Cat belong, to the latter, the 

 Elephant, Cheetah, Mongooz and others. 



The distinction drawn between the two classes is, that 

 a domestic animal is one that has been tamed by man and 

 adapts Itself so thoroughly to the altered conditions of i^s 

 environment, that its fertility in confinement is in no way 

 decreased, but on the contrary is in most instances very 

 much increased, thus, such animals having been for ages 

 subjected to man, and having had all their wants supplied 

 have in most instances lost many of the instincts of their 

 wild progenitors, and even their forms and constitutions 

 have undergone such changes, that, if liberated they would 

 be unable to survive in the struggle for existence necessitated 

 by a feral life. 



On the other hand, those I define as Domesticated 

 Animals are simply wild animals tamed, subjected to man 

 sometimes for an useful purpose, as the Elephant ; sometimes 

 to be used in the chase, as the Cheetah, Otter, or Falcons 

 and often merely as pets, as Monkeys, Squirrels, Dormice' 

 and most cage birds. ' 



