28 THE DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS 



of prey, which once found easy victims throughout the 

 length and breadth of the land. But these results followed 

 indirectly upon the attainment of domestication and the 

 gradual increase of domesticated animals, so that they may 

 be more properly dealt with in a future chapter. The direct 

 influence of man, with which we are more immediately con- 

 cerned here, is limited to the effects he has wrought in the 

 animals he has brought under control, to the changes of 

 temperament and habit, of structure and of function which 

 by long ages of careful breeding and selection he has induced 

 in the creatures which he chose to share the land with him. 



LINES OF ARGUMENT 



It is generally agreed that the greater share in the original 

 domestication of animals was accomplished by the Aryan 

 races of the Old World, though the American Indians brought 

 under subjection the alpaca and the llama, the guinea-pig and 

 muscovy duck, and possessed a host of cultivated plants, in- 

 cluding some of such importance, as maize, potatoes, tomatoes, 

 kidney beans, pineapples and strawberries, tobacco, quinine, 

 cascara sagrada and cocaine, cotton and rubber. It is also 

 generally stated that our familiar domestic animals were first 

 broken in in that convenient home of mysteries the East 

 and that thence they were carried by the Neolithic peoples in 

 their wanderings across western Europe. It seems probable, 

 however, that there may have been many centres of domes- 

 tication in countries where wild Oxen and Horses, wild Boars 

 and Sheep, wild Geese, Ducks and Pigeons were common. 

 At any rate, in the case of Scotland, there is evidence that 

 the early domesticated animals were half-wild creatures, 

 roaming at large in the woods and on the hills, exposed to 

 peculiarities of soil and climate, and in some cases to ad- 

 mixture of blood with the wild representatives of their races. 

 So that, even if our domestic herds and flocks sprang from 

 stock transported by the men of the New Stone Age from 

 the continent of Europe before the English Channel yet 

 existed, they must soon have assumed distinctive territorial 

 characteristics. That in these later days of careful and 

 selective breeding, Scottish domestic animals possess features 

 of their own is shown by breeds of such world-wide repute 

 as Clydesdales amongst horses, Aberdeen-Angus, Ayrshires 



