EFFECT OF NATURAL SELECTION 



91 



We should be glad to be rid of the sharp horn, the surly 

 disposition, and the fighting nature of bulls. We domesticated 

 the race for its milk and its meat, not for its fighting qualities, 

 but were forced to take these undesirable traits into the bar- 

 gain, like a job lot at auction, and they have made us no little 

 trouble ever since. We are beginning now to cut off these 

 emblems of savagery, these weapons 1 of the woods, and still 

 more sensibly to breed them off. The latter must, from the 

 nature of the case, be a somewhat gradual process, particularly 

 as our best breeds are so well fixed in other characteristics. 



Our standards often require much readjustment of domesti- 

 cated species. Having domesticated a species because of some 

 valuable natural quality, we often institute conditions of life quite 

 different from those under which the quality was developed and 

 under which the species has lived, all of which make necessary 

 the most radical readjustments on the part of the species in order 

 to meet the new conditions and still maintain its natural faculties, 

 not impaired, but improved if possible. 



The pig affords the most conspicuous example of this change 

 in conditions of life without change in our demands. We 

 domesticated him solely for his flesh, which is exceedingly rich 

 in fat. 2 In his wild state the pig lives an active woods life, sub- 

 sisting on roots, nuts, and a little flesh when he can get it. He 

 is, for example, an expert snake hunter, setting his feet on the 



1 The cruelty of cutting off horns has been greatly overrated. The horn is 

 comparable not to the bone but to the finger nail, being an outgrowth of the 

 skin merely. The practice of dehorning is mild as compared with the shock- 

 ing and useless barbarity of docking horses. Every horn that is cut off pre- 

 vents vastly more injury and misery than it causes. 



2 The ground hog or woodchuck during the summer lays on a great store 

 of fat and during winter hibernates, that is, sleeps almost continuously, main- 

 taining a low degree of vital activities at slight expense of food materials, which 

 is met from the store of fat under his skin, just as the turnip or the beet sends 

 up its seed stalk and ripens its crop from the food material stored in the root. 

 The pig, like the bear, is a kind of half hibernator, that is, with a good store 

 of fat he can endure long periods of scarcity and even go a considerable time 

 without food, as has been learned when pigs have been accidentally confined 

 under straw stacks for a number of weeks. 



