230 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 



these half-animate species, the plants, that they will prove 

 perfectly obedient to our will. It is otherwise, however, with 

 wild animals. Here we have to deal with intelligences in 

 which the most striking characteristic is an abiding fear of 

 the master, and a general indisposition to submit to. any other 

 control than that of their native wild instincts. The measure 

 in which this wilderness habit, bred of long contention ^.ith 

 enemies, prevails in animals varies greatly. Some, as for 

 instance the elephant, at once reconcile themselves to human 

 association, and directly on being made slaves accept the 

 mastery of their captors. Others, such as the zebra, remain 

 for a lifetime possessed of their original savage nature. A 

 large part of the labor which has been given to the work of 

 domesticating by the breeder's art the score of mammalian 

 species which man has won to his use has been devoted to 

 this task of expelling the wilderness motives from these forms. 

 The cases in which he has failed to accomplish this end are 

 those in which the savage humor has persisted for so long a 

 time that he has been forced to abandon his effort to subdue 

 the stock. 



It seems likely that at the present time we have acquired 

 from the wilderness nearly all the animals which are capable 

 of adoption by such brief and individual experiments as have 

 won to us the species which constitute our flocks and herds. 

 Our future gains will have to be made by far more deliberate 

 and continuous endeavors. These tasks of the hereafter will 

 have to be undertaken in a way which will insure a continuity 

 of effort such as can only be attained by permanently organ- 

 ized associations which may continue their essays if needs be 

 for centuries. The work should be done with two distinct 

 ends in view: first, to determine what members of the wilder- 



