22 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



accustomed to look to the East for the solution of similar problems 

 that we forget what lies near at hand and may furnish a simpler 

 explanation. We do not, however, deny that several species or 

 varieties, very similar to our own domestic ones, may have come to 

 us from the East, and have formed half-breeds and different varieties 

 by mingling with the breeds already existing in Europe. A few 

 animals only came to us from Africa and a few have been imported 

 from America at a comparatively recent epoch. These are the 

 guinea-pig, the turkey, the musk duck, the Canada goose, and the 

 cochineal from Nepal. 



NOTE. More recent and more detailed treatment of this theme 

 may be found in the Twenty- seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of 

 Animal Industry (see p. 125 and p. 187). In the first of these articles, 

 Professor J. Cossar Ewart presents evidence that "the turbary sheep, 

 which seems to have accompanied Neolithic man in all his wanderings, 

 was evolved in Turkestan from the native wild urial, that from Tur- 

 kestan it found its way into Europe, where it was widely distributed 

 in prehistoric times. It was characterized by thin tall legs and horns 

 like a goat, but there existed also a sheep with large curved horns 



and a four-horned sheep Professor Fairfield Osborn says that 



British shorthorn cattle are descended from an indigenous occidental 

 race, domesticated in Europe by the Neolithic man. While the 

 naturalists as a rule agree that the urus was the only wild ox in 

 Europe and that an eastern derivation of European cattle is in the 

 highest degree improbable, some believe our modern breeds are 



descended from varieties originally domesticated in Asia In 



England and America many naturalists now believe (i) that domestic 

 horses have sprung from several wild species probably connected by 

 several lines of descent with three-hoofed species of the Miocene 

 period, and (2) that while some of the wild ancestors were adapted 

 for living in the vicinity of forests and upland valleys, others were 

 adapted for a steppe, plateau, or desert life. The small, stout horse 

 of the ancient Germans is doubtless a true forest type, and it is prob- 

 able that all modern dray horses with round hind quarters have 

 inherited their upright shoulders, large cannon bones, and low-set-on 

 tail from forest ancestors. The plateau or desert type was distin- 

 guished for speed, and this quality we see preserved in the desert 

 Arab strain, and through Barb and Arab blood has contributed to the 

 making of the modern English race horse. The horse of the steppe 

 type had a remarkable ability to clear obstacles when alarmed or when 



