

DOMESTICATED RACES 



19 



both cattle and horses, as truly wild in temperament as any 

 species that ever ranged the natural pastures. 



Such descendants of escaped domesticated races, however, 

 are called "feral," to distinguish them from a truly aboriginal 

 stock, like the buffalo, that ranged our plains with our feral 

 horses. Many cultivated plants also freely revert to the wild in 

 unoccupied lands, but they are spoken of as having " escaped " 

 from cultivation, so that the term "feral " is limited to animals. 



Feral animals have most of the characters and appearance of 

 the domestic forms from which they spring, except in respect to 

 temperament, which is that of the truly wild, all of which consti- 

 tutes an additional argument for their origin in the wild. 1 



The next step is to see how it was that animals and plants 

 came to be domesticated and taken out of the wild for the 

 benefit of man. 



Summary. Domesticated animals and cultivated plants originated and 

 existed for indefinite generations as wild, from which state they have been 

 taken by man to meet his needs, and cultivated in order to insure a suf- 

 ficient and unfailing supply. Some of these races were domesticated ages 

 ago, some within the lifetime of men yet living, and all have been more or 

 less modified from what they were in the wild state. 



Exercises. 1. What wild animals or plants in your vicinity are, in your 

 opinion, related to domesticated or cultivated forms ? 



2. What animals or plants that have never been domesticated would, in 

 your opinion, prove valuable to man ? 



3. Make a list of the wild fruits and nuts native to your vicinity. 



4. Make an exhaustive list of the cat tribe of wild animals, with notes 

 on the character and habitat of each. 



5. Make the same sort of study of the dog tribe, including wolves, foxes, 

 and jackals. 



References. 1. " Wild White Cattle of Great Britain." Storer. 



2. The zoology and the botany in use in the local school. • 



3. Any good cyclopedia, or, better, a special treatise such as Lydekker's 

 Library of Natural History (6 vols.) 



1 In this connection read Jack London's " Call of the Wild," one of the 

 strongest pictures of this reversion that has ever been drawn, and an excellent 

 dog story withal. 



