282 A HISTORY OF 



ants of the plain ; their union against him can yield them no protec 

 tion, and their cunning is but weakness. In their fellow brutes, thev 

 have an enemy whom they can oppose with an equality of advantage 

 they can oppose fraud or swiftness to force ; or numbers to invasion 

 but what can be done against such an enemy as man, who finds them 

 out, though unseen, and though remote, destroys them ? Wherever 

 he comes, all the contest among the meaner ranks seems to be at an 

 end, or is carried on only by surprise. Such as he has thought proper 

 to protect, have calmly submitted to his protection ; such as he has 

 found it convenient to destroy, carry on an unequal war, and their 

 numbers are every day decreasing. 



The wild animal is subject to few alterations ; and, in a state of 

 savage nature, continues for ages the same, in size, shape, and colour. 

 But it is otherwise when subdued, and taken under the protection of 

 man ; its external form, and even its internal structure, are altered by 

 human assiduity : and this is one of the first and greatest causes of 

 the variety that we see among the several quadrupeds of the same 

 species. Man appears to have changed the very nature of domestic 

 animals, by cultivation and care. A domestic animal is a slave that 

 seems to have few other desires but such as man is willing to allow it. 

 Humble, patient, resigned, and attentive, it fills up the duties of its 

 station ; ready for labour, and content with subsistence. 



Almost all domestic animals seem to bear the marks of servitude 

 strong upon them. All the varieties in their colour, all the fineness 

 and length of their hair, together with the depending length of their 

 ears, seem to have arisen from a long continuance of domestic slavery. 

 What an immense variety is there to be found in the ordinary race of 

 dogs and horses ! the principal differences of whichhavebeen effected 

 by the industry of man, so adapting the food, the treatment, the la- 

 oour, and the climate, that nature seems almost to have forgotten her 

 original design ; and the tame animal no longer bears any resemblance 

 to its ancestors in the woods around them. 



In this manner nature is under a kind of constraint, in those animals 

 we have taught to live in a state of servitude near us. The savage 

 animals preserve the marks of their first formation ; their colours are 

 generally the same ; a rough dusky brown, or a tawny, seem almost 

 their only varieties. But it is otherwise in the tame ; their colour? 

 are various, and their forms different from each other. The nature 

 of the climate, indeed, operates upon all ; but more particularly on 

 these. That nourishment which is prepared by the hand of man, not 

 adapted to their appetites, but to suit his own convenience, that cli- 

 mate, the rigours of which he can soften, and that employment to 

 which they are sometimes assigned, produce a number of distinctions 

 that are not to be found among the savage animals. These at first 

 were accidental, but in tinao became hereditary ; and a new race of 

 artificial monsters are propagated, rather to answer the purposes of 

 human pleasure, than their own convenience. In short, their \cry 

 appetites may be changed ; and those that feed only upon grass may 

 be rendered carnivorous. I have seen a sheep that would pat flesh, 

 and a horse that was fond of oysters. 



