Mammiferous Animals. 73 



more intense, the more necessary the food which we give it has 

 become to it. It is in this manner that the training of horses, 

 which have passed their first years in a state of entire inde- 

 pendence, usually commences. After they have been caught, 

 a small quantity only of food is given to them, and at long in- 

 tervals ; and this suffices to familiarise them to those who take 

 care of them, and inspire a certain degree of affection, which 

 the latter may turn to their advantage, by increasing their 

 authority. 



If, to the influence of hunger, there be added that of a se- 

 lected food, the power which the benefit possesses may be con- 

 siderably increased. In fact, it is principally by means of 

 real dainties, and especially sugar, that we manage those her- 

 bivorous animals, which we see submitting to the extraordinary 

 exercises of which our public, circuses sometimes afford us the 

 opportunity of witnessing. 



There is one pleasure which we have transformed into a want 

 in some of our domestic animals, which seems to be altogether 

 artificial, and not to address itself to any particular sense; it is 

 the pleasure of being caressed. I believe that there is no wild 

 animal that does not ask caresses of the other individuals of its 

 species. 



But these feelings are never expressed in a striking degree ; 

 and it is but in few instances that they are accompanied with 

 reciprocal caresses. This kind of testimony, in which the 

 pleasure received is doubled by that given, belongs, perhaps, 

 exclusively to man. It is from him alone that the animals have 

 acquired the want; it is also for him alone that they experience 

 it: with him only that they satisfy it. 



All domestic animals are not, by any means, equally accessi- 

 ble to the influence of caresses, as they are to the influence of 

 food, whenever they are pressed by hunger. The ruminantia 

 appear to be little affected by them ; the horse, on the contrary „ 

 seems to relish them in a very high degree, as do many of the 

 pachydermala also, and especially the elephant. The cat is not 

 indifferent to them; it might even be said that it sometimes 

 seeks them with a sort of fury ; but it is without dispute in the 

 dog, that they produce the most marked effects; and what de- 

 serves attention, is, that all the species of the genus which I 

 have had an opportunity of observing, are similarly affected by 

 them. There was once a she wolf in the Royal Menagerie, on 

 which the caresses of the hand and voice produced 60 powerful 

 an effect, that she seemed to experience an actual delirium, 

 and her joy was not less vividly expressed by her cries than by 

 her motions. A jackal, from Senegal, was affected precisely 

 in the same manner ; and a common fox was so strongly agi- 



