THE PROBLEM OF DOMESTICATION 



247 



be made to serve their needs. The natural growth on a 

 hundred acres of otherwise worthless land would probably 

 be sufficient to maintain a colony of average size containing 

 say twenty-five individuals. In the region about the great 

 lakes and for some distance to the northward and to the 

 east and west there are great areas amounting in the aggre- 

 gate to some hundred thousand square miles that would 

 apparently be well suited to the nurture of this form, and 

 which in the present condition of the country, as well as for 

 the immediate future, cannot be turned to better use. It may 

 be remarked that the domestication of the beavers would 

 afford yet another means, in addition to those above noted, 

 whereby we might be able to win some profit from the great 

 wilderness of the north, which is, so far as our existing means 

 of appropriating its resources, of little use to mankind. The 

 only evident way by which we may hope to win profit from 

 this part of our continent is by using it as a field for rearing 

 animals that have yet to be subjugated ; none of our captive 

 varieties are fit for the service. 



In the tropical parts of the world there are many mam- 

 malian species which are worthy subjects for essays in 

 domestication. This is particularly the case in the continent 

 of Africa where, except in the lands about the Mediterranean 

 and the Red Sea, the native peoples have never attained the 

 stage of culture in which men become strongly inclined to 

 subjugate wild animals. Africa is richer in large herbivorous 

 species than any other of the great lands ; many of these 

 forms are of large size and have qualities of flesh, of hide, 

 or other peculiar features which promise to -make them 

 valuable in an economic way. Others, especially the ante- 

 lopes, have a beauty of form and a grace of movement which 



