12



“ While all the creatures of the wilderness may by the breeder’s art

be induced to vary in the conditions of captivity, the birds have shown

themselves more plastic in our hands than any other animals. In almost

every brood we find individuals possessing marked peculiarities of form or

plumage. In their mental qiralities also there is a like range of variation.

Seizing upon these, the fanciers can guide the quick succeeding generations

so as to cause the form to depart in the course of a few years very far from

its original aspect. With each step in this succession of changes, the

readiness with which the species responds to selective care increases. . .


“ Perhaps the greatest conquests which we have yet to make among

the birds will be won from the species which have the habit of dwelling

mainly or altogether on the ground. These, as experience shows, can be

more readily brought to the uses of man than the species which are free by

their wings to wander through the realms of air. There are very many of

these ground birds the domestication of which has never been fairly essayed.

There are perhaps a hundred species which, in one part of the world or

another, might afford valuable additions to our resources, those of orna¬

ment or of economy’, and yet within tlmee centuries only one of these, the

turkey, has been brought to the domesticated state. The greater part of

our game birds, such as the quail, pheasants, and partridges, though they

appear on slight experiments to be untamable, could probably' by 7 con¬

tinuous effort be reduced to perfect domestication. For ages they 7 have

been harried by man in a manner which has insured a great fear of liis-

presence. We have indeed through our hunting instituted a very 7 thorough¬

going and continuous sy 7 stem of selection which has tended to affirm in

these creatures an intense fear of our kind. Only the more limorous have

escaped us, and y 7 ear after year we proceed to remove with the gun the

individuals which by’ chance are born with any 7 considerable share of the

primitive tolerance of man’s presence. It is not to be expected that the

chicks of these species will at once accept relations with our kind. The

domestication of many of these forms is to be desired, not only 7 on account

of the excellent quality of their flesh, but because of their beauty and the

charm which their quick intelligences afford them. Whoever has watched

them in the care of their y 7 oung or their other social habits, has observed

features which indicate a possible development under domestication,

perhaps greater than that which we have attained in any other of our

feathered captives.


“ It seems most important that experiments in the future domestica¬

tion of birds should be first addressed to certain large ground forms, which

are now in more or less danger of extinction. The newly 7 - instituted

industry of ostrich farming has probably insured this the noblest remnant

of the old avian life from destruction; but the emu and the cassowary 7

are still among the diminishing and endangered forms which, unless taken

into the human fold, are likely soon to pass away. The brush turkey’ and

the bower bird of Australia, two of the most curious inhabitants of that

realm of strange life, appear to have qualities of mind and body’ which'

would make them readily domesticable, and which would cause them to be

among the most interesting of our feathered captives.


“ Owing to their singularly’ perfect protection against the cold, and,

also perhaps to the quickness of their wits, birds are more readily 7 trans¬

ferable from one clime to another than any other animals. The feathered



