30 



It is clear that between the latter class and the ordinary 

 tenants of menageries, there is every possible link, and it is 

 highly characteristic of the animals exhibited in Zoological 

 Gardens, that very few species reproduce in captivity, and 

 even in those rare cases in which young are produced, but 

 few are reared, and a much smaller number reproduce in the 

 second generation, and still more rarely in the third. I have 

 myself often observed the most promising cases of fecundity 

 in newly imported specimens, ending in the sterility of the 

 offspring in the second or at most the third generation. 



The fact appears to be that of all the functions; that of 

 reproduction is the most highly specialized and the most 

 easily disturbed. 



It is those only who have had great experience with 

 wild animals in captivity know what difficulty there is 

 in keeping in life and health those that have been born in the 

 menagerie, as compared with those captured wild, subjected 

 as the latter have been to all the vicissitudes of their journey 

 to this country, often thousands of miles ; no doubt numbers 

 die on the road and the weakest are eliminated. 



I have had a bird bred in captivity die in a few hours, 

 simply as the result of a change of cage, and I have known 

 a Giraffe bred in England die of fright when an unguent was 

 applied. 



I do not in this paper propose to deal with others than 

 Domestic Mammalia. 



On the threshold of my subject it is startling to find 

 that out of the many hundreds of species so very few are 

 domestic. 



Taking Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace's Geographical Distri- 

 bution of Animals as my guide, I find that he enumerates the 

 species of Mammalia as 2,668, of these but 23 are domestic, 

 even when three useless pets are included, this is not one per 

 cent, of the known species. • 



This restriction of the number must be qualified in one 

 sense, that it is almost certain that many domestic animals 

 are hybrids, but even when such is the case it is probable that 



