Mammifcrous Animals. 81 



and docility, it would afford domestic races not less valuable 

 than those of the hog, and whose qualities would certainly be 

 different, for the nature of the tapir, notwithstanding' some 

 points of resemblance, is very different from that of the boar. 



All the species of solipeda are as capable of being domesti- 

 cated as the borse or the ass ; and the education of the zebra, 

 the quagga, the dauw*, and the hemionus, would prove useful 

 to society, and lucrative to those who might undertake it. 



Almost all the ruminantia live in herds, and most of the 

 species of this numerous family are of a nature that qualifie3 

 them for domestication. There is one, in particular, and per- 

 haps even two, that are already half domesticated, and which 

 Jt is matter of regret that we do not see among the number of 

 our domestic animals, for they would have two very valuable 

 qualifications, — they would answer as beasts of burthen, and 

 would furnish fleeces of excellent quality. The animals of 

 which I speak are the Alpaca and the vicugna. They are 

 double the size of our largest breeds of sheep; the qualities of 

 their fur are very different from those of wool, properly so 

 called, and might be manufactured into cloths, which would 

 partake of these qualities, and thus give rise to a new branch 

 of industry.f 



I shall now bring my observations upon domestication to a 

 conclusion. My object has been to show its true character, as 

 well as the relations of the domestic animals to man. It rests 

 upon the propensity which animals have to live together in 

 herds, and to attach themselves to one another. We obtain it 

 only by enticement, and principally by augmenting their wants 

 and satisfying them. But we could only produce domestic in- 

 dividuals and not races, without the concurrence of one of the 

 most general laws of life, the transmission of the organic or in- 

 tellectual modifications by generation. Here one of the most 

 astonishing phenomena of nature manifests itself to us, the 

 transformation of a fortuitous modification into a durable form, 

 of a fugitive want into a fundamental propensity, of an acci- 

 dental habit into an instinct. This subject is assuredly worthy 

 of exciting the attention of the most accurate observers, and of 

 occupying the meditations of the most profound thinkers. 



* The Equut montanus of BurcLell. 



+ The difference of climate has been elated as an insurmountable obstacle 

 to the naturalization of the animals of warm countries in our northern regions. 

 This error would hare been avoided, had the resources of nature and the ex- 

 tent of our means of acting upon animals been belter known. Uy a similar 

 error, the same difficulty has been opposed to the introduction of the alpaca 

 and vicugna into Europe, animals which lire only in very temperate regions ; 

 but it would not even be applicable to the tapir, although a native of the 

 manliest countries, 



