2 26 DOlMESTICATED ANIMALS 



conquests from the vegetable world have to a great extent 

 so far lost their original character that we can no longer 

 determine the species from which they sprang. Botanists 

 cannot find the wild forms which have given us the cabbage, 

 wheat, and most other small grains, and a host of other 

 important varieties. So, too, the origin of our dogs is as yet 

 unsolved and bids fair ever to remain a mystery. In addition 

 to this changed character which we observe in the forms of 

 domesticated animals and plants alike, we note that the 

 mental characteristics of the former undergo vast alterations. 

 The creatures, in a way, take the tone of civilization, and 

 to a great extent abandon those ancient habits of fear and 

 rage which were essential to their life in the wilderness. 

 The intellectual condition of our dogs shows us that the 

 creatures may be progressively educated — in a word, that 

 man may put into them something of his human quality. 

 In the case of the dog, the longest possessed and most 

 familiar to our households of all our captives, the mental 

 change which has come, partly by selection, from associ- 

 ation with man has gone so far that the species may be 

 fairly said to have replaced its pristine motives with those 

 which it has derived from ourselves. In many cases it 

 has become, so far as its ways are concerned, even more 

 man than dog. 



Although the physical and mental educability of animals 

 when brought into companionship with man is an old subject 

 of remark, and one of the most interesting features which they 

 exhibit, it was not until the doctrine of descent by variation 

 of species from other related forms became established, that 

 we had a chance to see the vast possibilities of accomplish- 

 ment which are presented to us by our domesticated creat- 



