VI 



THE SPIRIT OF THE HERD 



• o more interesting group of animals 

 can be found the world over than 

 those in the zoological garden of 

 the average farmyard. The history 

 of their domestication is exceed- 

 ingly, humanly interesting; but still more inter- 

 esting is the phenomenon itself — what it has 

 wrought in the animals, and what it has left un- 

 changed. For if domestication has not changed 

 the leopard's spots, it is because the leopard has 

 never been domesticated. There is little in the 

 style of spots that domestication cannot change. 

 Color, size, and shape are as clay; habits and 

 tempers, even, have been made over. But not 

 the creature itself, not the wild instinctive thing 

 within the fur or the feathers : for this has hardly 

 been touched by domestication. 



That some species of animals are more amena- 

 ble than others, are predisposed to domestication, 

 is evident. Nothing in wild life is more amazing 



