PETS. 221 



revolving object which upon nearer investigation turns 

 out to be a spavined old horse walking the rounds of an 

 imaginary trapiche. Animals seem to get actually fond 

 of such occupations. I remember an old billy-goat 

 whose reluctance to furnish the motive-power of a baby- 

 carriage had changed into such a passion for that employ- 

 ment that he would tolerate no rival on the track, and 

 once killed a poor huckster's dog who, unintentionally 

 enough, had excited his jealousy by drawing a larger- 

 sized vehicle. 



In process of time our four-footed ally may come to 

 relish city odors, for his power of adaptation rivals that 

 of the human species. In China, dogs eat rice ; in Green- 

 land, dried fish; in Siam, bananas; on the Pampas, car- 

 rion ; and one of the Solomon Islands is inhabited by a 

 race of half-wild curs that subsist entirely on crawfish. 

 This plasticity of the canine species is almost enough to 

 account for its infinite variety of forms : in the course of 

 two or three thousand generations artificial selection may 

 have turned a jackal into a mastiff, or a wolf into a pug- 

 dog. It is strange to think what the continued operation 

 of the same agency might have done for other animals, 

 what marvels of beauty " in-and-in breeding," as our 

 stock-raisers call it, would have developed from the 

 gallinaceous tribes of the Old World, not to mention 

 American parrots. 



And what about the moral capabilities of such animals 

 as monkeys and raccoons? Considering their intelli- 



