32 PRINCIPLES OF RURAL ECONOMICS 



of pets. Having captured a young animal, it occurred to some 

 savage to amuse himself by playing with it. If food was suffi- 

 ciently abundant, he might easily prefer to keep it as a per- 

 manent pet rather than to sacrifice it to his own appetite. 

 When a number of pets were kept in the same village, they 

 would soon form the nucleus of a herd, and in the course of 

 years would multiply. Then it would not require very great 

 intelligence to see the advantage of having a herd of this 

 kind to fall back upon in times when game was scarce. A 

 great many individual animals from these herds would un- 

 doubtedly escape and take to their natural wild life. Only the 

 tamest animals, or those most attached to their human masters, 

 would remain in domestication. Again, we may well believe 

 that when it became necessary to slaughter any of these pets 

 for food, it would be the least tamable which would be sacrificed, 

 rather than those with milder dispositions. This process of 

 selection going on generation after generation that is, the 

 elimination of the less tamable and the preservation of the more 

 tamable would eventually result in the breeding of a tame or 

 domestic variety of the animals in question, differing in many 

 respects from their wild cousins. 



It is worthy of remark that our branch of the human race 

 has not reduced a single new animal to domestication since the 

 beginning of recorded history, every one of our farm animals 

 having been domesticated so long ago that we have no historical 

 record of the time, place, or circumstances under which it was 

 accomplished. 1 This ought to give us a new respect for our pre- 

 historic ancestors, even though they were ignorant of many 

 things which have been discovered since, and which we, there- 

 fore, have had an opportunity to learn. 



1 The zebra may be a possible exception to this statement, individual animals 

 of that species having been tamed. But it can scarcely be said that it has yet 

 become a domestic animal in general use. Pet sea lions, wolves, rats, etc., are 

 not really domesticated animals. Their wild nature has not been bred out. 



