APPENDIX. 351 



ground in rabbit burrows, the new-comers would not be long in 

 devising a remedy for the defect. The common English house- 

 sparrow, thoroughly acclimatised, and abundant in New York, would, 

 doubtless, do as well in this neighbourhood. 



As a second consideration in connection with this wide subject, 

 let us inquire whether any good purpose could be answered by an 

 attempt at domestication or semi-domestication of our indigenous 

 ruminants, the moose and the cariboo. When we consider that 

 these two species are found throughout the old world, under the 

 same conditions of climate and vegetation which attend them in the 

 new, it appears unaccountable that we have no historic records of the 

 subjugation of the cariboo for domestic purposes by the primitive 

 Indians of the northern coasts of America, as this animal has been 

 applied from time immemorial by the Lapps. 



An eminent naturalist, Dr. Gray, in delivering his address in the 

 Kat. Hist. Section at the late meeting of the British Association at 

 Bath, thus alludes to the latter fact : — " The inhabitants of the arctic 

 or sub-arctic regions of Europe and Asia have partially domesticated 

 the reindeer ; and either Asiatics have peculiar aptitude for domesti- 

 cating animals, or the ruminants of that part of the world are 

 peculiarly adapted for domestication;"* and he then instances a 

 variety of exemplifications, in their having domesticated the yak in 

 the mountain regions of Thibet and Siberia, the camel and drome- 

 dary in central Asia, in southern Asia the zebra, and in the Malayan 

 archipelago various species of buffalo and wild cattle. It may be 

 stated, that modern discovery has placed the original home of the 

 reindeer in the high Alps of central Asia, whence these animals, 

 followed by their ever-accompanying human associates, the Lapps, 

 migrated to the north-west of Europe. As a beast of burden, how- 

 ever, to traverse those treeless wastes answering to the snow-covered 

 barrens of Lapland, the dog seems to have answered all the purposes 

 of the Esquimaux and other arctic- American tribes, whilst in more 

 southerly and wooded regions, a sledge-drawing animal would have 

 no scope or sphere of employment. And, viewing the animals in this 

 light, the horse and the ox which have accompanied Europeans, 



* Erman in his Siberian travels frequently speaks of the passionate desire 

 evinced by the reindeer for human urine as the acknowledged means of success 

 adopted by the Ostyaks, Samoyeds and Tunguzes, in domesticating this animal, 

 otherwise naturally so shy and averse to the presence of man. The new life 

 apparently acquired by the deer on a journey, after gratifying this strange 

 appetite, is attributed by the same author to the stimulus afforded by the 

 ammoniacal salts. 



