TEADITION AND HEEEDITY 441 



or as the yam elsewhere must have presumably been that first 

 cultivated. 



The poverty of America in animals fit for domestication is 

 even more remarkable. If we except the reindeer, milch animals 

 were entirely absent a fact of great significance. The Indians 

 had made the fullest possible use of such animals as there were. 

 ' Setting aside the reindeer, an unprofitable animal on any soil which 

 produces any better crop than moss, the Indians had domesticated 

 every animal in the continent which was capable of domestica- 

 tion.' 1 Among them was the llama, an animal of restricted useful- 

 ness, as it cannot be used for draught and cannot be milked. 

 The fact that there are several varieties of llama would seem to 

 point to the fact that it had been brought under domestication 

 many centuries before the discovery of America. Turkeys, dogs, 

 pheasants, ducks, and geese were also domesticated as well as 

 a few other animals of little importance. 



When compared with Western Asia, America is seen to be 

 poorly endowed in animals fit for domestication and plants 

 suitable for agriculture. But it must be remembered that Western 

 Asia is far richer than any other area. America is not poor com- 

 pared with Africa or Australia. We may now glance at the 

 endowment of these other regions beginning with Asia. 



4. It is often a matter of the greatest difficulty to trace the 

 original habitat of the species of animals and plants which after 

 many centuries of domestication have given rise to the varieties 

 now in use ; in some cases it is impossible ; the camel, for instance, 

 has never been found wild. 2 In some cases the evidence is vague 

 and merely points to the original home as having been within some 

 large and not very clearly defined region. Nevertheless an inquiry 

 into the original habitat of the more important domesticated 

 animals and plants leads to a very remarkable conclusion. We 

 find that with few exceptions Western Asia was the home of the 

 great majority of such species. The chief exceptions among 

 animals are the elephant, buffalo, reindeer, and llama. The 

 llama originated in South America, the reindeer is found in the 

 circum-Polar regions, the elephant and buffalo are Indian. It is 

 probable that the original home of the camel was somewhere in 

 this Asiatic region, and, if this is so, then all milch animals, with 



1 Payne, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 289. * The single-humped Arabian camel has 



never been found wild, but it is said that the double-humped Bactrian camel 

 has been found wild in Turkestan. See Flower and Lydekker, Mammals, p. 297. 



