50 MOSTLY MAMMALS 



Commencing with the camel, it is probably known to 

 most of my readers that there are two kinds of this animal — 

 namely, the two-humped Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus) 

 of Central Asia, and the one-humped Arabian camel (C 

 dromedarius), now common to Asia and North Africa. It 

 has been affirmed that wild Bactrian camels occur in the 

 deserts of Turkestan, but it is almost certain that some at 

 least of these are descendants of a domestic race which 

 escaped from captivity about two hundred and fifty years 

 ago. Others may, however, be truly wild. The only clue 

 to the original habitat of the genus is afforded by the 

 remains of fossil camels in North-Eastern India, Eastern 

 Europe, and Algeria ; and as the former occur in the older 

 deposits, it seems probable that Central Asia is the cradle 

 of the race. At what period the camel was first domesti- 

 cated is lost in the mists of antiquity. From its absence 

 in the Egyptian frescoes, it has been stated that this 

 animal was unknown to the early inhabitants of the Delta 

 of the Nile ; but this is controverted by a papyrus of the 

 fourteenth century B.C., in which reference is made to 

 camels. 



Considering the very large number of existing wild 

 species of the genus Ovis, it is a very remarkable fact 

 that we are unable to point to the ancestral stock of the 

 sheep. As we know them in this country, domesticated 

 sheep differ from their wild kindred by their woolly fleece, 

 the wild species having hair more like that of a deer. But 

 as some of the native domesticated sheep of Asia and 

 Africa have a more or less hairy coat, the difficulty does 

 not lie here. With the single exception of the arui, or 

 Barbary sheep of Northern Africa, all wild sheep have 

 short tails ; whereas in the domesticated races this appen- 

 dage, until docked, is very long. The reader may ask why 



