248 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 



render them among the most attractive creatures of their 

 class. Even the hippopotamus, one of the grossest beasts of 

 this reahn, affords in its teeth a valuable ivory, and its hides, 

 if supplied in sufficient quantity, would probably find a 

 considerable use. It is evident that in this " dark continent," 

 where the influences which make for human advancement 

 have been so slight, we have the best field for the selection 

 of species that may hereafter be brought to the use of man. 

 There is evidently danger, in the advance in the civilizing 

 process, that the native forms which, owing to their fitness to 

 the physical conditions of the country, might be made useful 

 to its people, may be utterly destroyed by hunters. 



Perhaps the most interesting of the tropical beasts from 

 the point of view which we occupy is the elephant. This ani- 

 mal in its relations to men is eminently peculiar, in that while 

 it has been in an individual way long and completely sub- 

 jugated, it has never been systematically reared in captivity. 

 Owing, it may be, to the slow growth of these great beasts, 

 as well as to the immediate manner in which they submit to 

 their captors, it has ever been the custom to take them when 

 adult from the wilderness. The result is that the supply 

 of the Asiatic species, which alone is serviceable — the African 

 form being apparently too fierce for use — is now dependent 

 on a relatively small number of wild herds. Certain of these 

 herds are protected by the governments of India, but it 

 seems as if the species were already dangerously near the 

 vanishing point — in a position where the invasion of some 

 disease or some insect enemy might deprive the world of what 

 is, all things considered, the most interesting of the brutes. 

 Moreover, the failure to rear elephants in captivity has made 

 it impossible to essay any of those experiments in breeding 



