THE CAMEL 



INTRODUCTION 



HISTORICAL 



THE Camel is one of the oldest mammals now living, 

 is essentially a domesticated animal, and one of the 

 earliest ever domesticated. It has never at least to my 

 knowledge, but I am open to correction been found in 

 a wild state, nor have any traces ever been discovered 

 of its having been so at any period of the world's 

 history. 



Prejevalsky says that wild camels frequent the wild 

 wastes of Lake Lob-Nor in Central Asia, and I have 

 read elsewhere that herds of wild ones of the Bactrian 

 species have been reported to exist in Turkestan, as 

 also in the desert tracts of Shamo on the Chinese 

 frontier ; but I have never seen these statements veri- 

 fied or confirmed. In Nubia and the Soudan large 

 herds are allowed to run wild by their owners, and this 

 is what also occurs in Central Asia, I should imagine, 

 there being a vast difference between wild camels and 

 camels that are allowed to run wild. Up to the present, 

 naturalists have failed in their endeavours to unearth 

 any reliable evidence of the existence in the prehis- 

 toric ages of its wild ancestor; though, on the other 



B 



