236 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 



their beauty and the charm which their quick intelligences 

 afford them. Whoever has watched them in their care of 

 their young or their other social habits has observed features 

 which indicate a possible development under domestication 

 perhaps greater than that which we have attained in any 

 other of our feathered captives. 



It seems most important that experiments in the further 

 domestication of birds should be first addressed to certain 

 large ground forms which .are now in more or less danger of 

 extinction. The newly instituted industry of ostrich farming 

 has probably insured this the noblest remnant of the old 

 avian life from destruction ; but the emu and the cassowary 

 are still among the diminishing and endangered forms which 

 unless taken into the human fold are likely soon to pass away. 

 The brush turkey and the bower bird of Australia, two of the 

 most curious inhabitants of that realm of strange life, appear 

 to have qualities of mind and body which would make them 

 readily domesticable and which would cause them to be 

 among the most interesting of our feathered captives. 



Among the aquatic birds there are many species which are 

 as promising subjects for domestication as any which have 

 been made captive ; these if subjugated would prove great 

 additions to our resources of ornament and use. Thus the 

 eider duck, so well known for its wonderful soft down which 

 is plucked from the breast to make a covering for the eggs, 

 though a marine species, would prove domesticable at least 

 on the seashore of high latitudes. There are many other 

 varieties of the family, such as the canvas-back which is so 

 highly esteemed for its flesh, that would likewise afford very 

 interesting subjects for experiment. 



The wading birds are characteristically very wild and range 



