ORIGIN OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 



235 



are the most terrible of all wild animals. It is also an open 

 question if the domestic cat has not lost his usefulness long 

 ago, if, indeed, he ever had any. He never was but half- 

 domesticated at best, and while he is a universal favorite with 

 children because of his furry coat and look of seeming intelli- 

 gence, he is yet essentially a wild animal, almost incapable of 

 true domestication. He has lost little of his innate savagery, 

 and as a relentless foe of birds he has really become an enemy 

 to our civilization. The sooner he could become extinct the 

 better for our song birds on which we depend so much not only 

 for our pleasure but for protection against the depredations of 

 insects. The true nature of the cat should be more commonly 

 understood in this respect, as well as its proclivity to throat dis- 

 eases common to children. We can well afford to do without 

 the cat. 



Domesticated Birds 



The domestication of birds * was a great achievement, whether 

 viewed from the standpoint of its inherent difficulty, the quality 

 and cheapness of their meat 

 and eggs, or the utility of 

 their feathers. All told, the 

 domesticated birds cover 

 many species, with scores of 

 wild relatives in all parts of 

 the world. Most of them 

 being, in the wild state, 

 good flyers, their distribution 

 is much wider than is that of 

 species more closely confined 

 to locomotion on the ground. 



The hen. Of all the birds 

 domesticated none is more valuable than the chicken (Gal his 

 domestiais), whose undoubted progenitor, G alius bankivus, can 

 yet be heard cackling in the forests of Farther India ; all of 



1 See Darwin's "Animals and Plants under Domestication," Vol. I, p. 236. 



Fig. 47., A trio of prize-winning barred 



Plymouth Rocks, property of Bradley 



Bros., Lee, Massachusetts 



