THE MAMMALIA— MAN AND BEASTS. 



63 



from their great sociability and their power of imitation. Azara mentions an Agua- 

 rachay of Paraguay (Cams cinereo-argenteus) which became as tame as a Dog, but 

 ate up all the fowls. Yet the opinion of ancient writers regarding the prior domes- 

 tication of the Sheep seems to be by far the more probable. The Sheep lives habi- 

 tually in large flocks ; the mildness of this animal, its simplicity, and disposition to 

 follow its companions even to certain destruction, must have rendered it an easy 

 prey to the savage in those first ages which followed the creation of Man. Its utility 

 for food and clothing must have been evident. On the contrary, the Wild Dog lives 

 in troops ; he is a Carnassier, fierce, and daring ; he unites with his fellows to form 

 a combined plan of attack and defence. He is as strong and more to be dreaded thaji 

 the Wolf. No use could be made of his skin, of his flesh, or the milk of the female; 

 Hence it is not very probable that the savage would have at once foreseen all the 

 future advantages which he would derive from associating the Dog in his labours 

 to reduce and subdue the other animals. Even if he could have entertained this pro- 

 ject, the diflSculties and dangers with which it was beset would have diverted him 

 from the enterprise. In this case, we must admit, that the more simple and natural 

 idea would first present itself to his mind. 



It may easily be imagined, that in those early ages, when the globe was less 

 peopled than it is at present, the great work of Domestication must have been slowly 

 and gradually accomplished. The remarkable property which these animals possess of 

 transmitting their acquired quaUties to their descendants, and of perpetuating modi- 

 fications of form, colour, and even of intelligence, render their races singularly 

 capable of improvement. The several races of Men are far less capable of undergoing 

 this relative improvement than the domestic animals, which receive his influence in 

 innumerable ways. Yet we are not without some striking instances of the trans- 

 mission of acquired properties even in Man. Among the Negro children of Sierra 

 Leona, the ofl"spring of the Negroes, who have long been liberated, and who are born 

 in the colony, possess an immense relative superiority of intelligence over the children 

 of Negroes which have recently been emancipated from their slavery. Their parents 

 inhabit the same country, but the older liberated Negroes have commenced a 

 moral and intellectual education, while the more recent Slaves have long endured a 

 savan-e and degraded existence. It has, however, never been attempted to bring the 

 Human race, like the Domestic animals, to a greater physiological perfection, by 

 always uniting individuals, remarkable for the beauty of their forms, the goodness of 

 their temperament, and the extent of their intellectual faculties. Absolute monarchs 

 might, in the course of a long dynasty, have made this curious experiment, and en- 

 deavoured to promote the good of their subjects, by improving the breed of their ovm 

 ministers. Hence Man, considered as a race, that is, in reference to his physiological 

 qualities, n much less capable of improvement than the domestic animals. 



In consequence of this remarkable property of transmitting acquired faculties to 

 posterity, the notices of the ancients, which date back perhaps from twenty to twenty- 

 five centuries, however meagre, become peculiarly important and interesting. 



Wants, dangers, and necessities, develop the more violent and fiercer passions of 

 animals; the suppression of these exciting causes improves the milder and more 

 useful quahties. From the descriptions of Aristotle, the passions of the domestic 

 animals were formerly much more violent than they are at the present day. 



The progress of domestication, as recorded by the ancients, in respect to the Horse, 

 the Ass, the Dog, and the Cow, presents many interesting facts. With the Dziggtai 

 (Equus kemiomis)-, domestication seems to have made a retrograde movement. 



Herodotus (iv. 52) informs us that Horses existed in the wild state on the banks 

 of the Hj-panis (now the Dniester). These Horses, he adds, were white. Further, 

 also, that in Thrace, the PiEonians of lake Prusias fed their Horses and beasts of 

 burthen with fish instead of hay. Strabo says that the Wild Horses were to be found 

 in India, on the Alps, in Iberia, among the Celtiberians, and finally in Caucasus, where 

 the intensity of the cold had given them thick coats of hair. The last remark is 

 confirmed by modern observations on the Norwegian and Lapland Horses, which 

 have a thick and woolly hair like the fleece of our Sheep. Pliny says that the North 

 contains herds of Wild Horses. Strabo relates, on the authority of Megasthenes, 

 that the greater number of our domestic animals were wild in India. -ZElian makes 

 the same remark for the interior of India. 



Since Wild Horses thus existed in great numbers on several parts of the Old Con- 

 tinent, the progress of domestication must have been very slow in all those places 

 where they came in contact with the tame herds. Azara observed, that the Wild 

 Horses which live at liberty in the plains of Paraguay, in herds consisting of many 

 thousand individuals, have an instinctive habit of seducing the domestic Horses. As 

 soon as they perceive one, says this able Naturalist, even at the distance of two 

 leagues, they form into an uninterrupted column, and approach at full gallop to entice 

 him. They either surround him on every quarter, or merely come along side ; they 

 caress him by neighing gently, and always end in carrying him off never to return, 

 without his offering them the slightest resistance. The inhabitants of that country 

 hunt the Wild Horses very keenly, to drive them away from their own studs, for, 

 without this precaution, the Wild Horses would seduce away all the tame herds. 

 Gerbillon notices the Wild Horses in the desert of Chamo in nearly the same terms. 

 This fact may serve to explain one of the causes that in ancient times the herds of 

 Wild Horses disappeared very rapidly when the population increased. According to 

 the accounts of those Missionaries who were best acquainted with China, Wild Horses 

 are still to be found in Western Tartary and in the territory of Kalkas. They live 

 in large troops in the neighbourhood of Ha-mi, and appear to resemble the common 

 Horses. Grosier, in his Descriptiira of China, mentions that if they meet a domestic 

 Horse, they surround him on all sides, and, urging him onwards, draw him to their 

 forests of Saghatur. 



A passage of Xenophon ('tts^I I'TTTTiK'^g, III.) alludes to this characteristic of the 

 Wild Horses, so forcibly described by Azara and the Chinese Missionaries. His remark 

 serves to show that, at the period of 450 years before the Christian era, the domes- 

 tication of the Horse was still recent, and had not yet overcome this primitive in- 

 stmct. In speaking of a Horse broken in by the groom, Xenophon observes, " It is 

 proper to ascertain whether, when mounted, he will willingly separate from other 

 Horses, or whether, when passing them at a short distance, he does not attempt to 



join them." Another observation of Xenophon, " One can teach nothing to a Horse 

 by word of mouth" (Ibid. VIIL), shows how imperfect their domestication must 

 have been in his time. We have so many proofs and examples to the contrary, as to 

 render an allusion to them only necessary at present. 



The modern Wild Horse, as described by Pallas, has his tail and mane very long 

 and thick. He carries his ears depressed backwards, like a domestic Horse of the 

 present day when preparing to bite. Xenophon and Varro describe a StalUon, the 

 model of a War-horse, in words nearly synonymous to those used by Pallas in de- 

 scribing the Wild Horse of the Russian Steppes (juba, cauda, crebra, subcrispa, auribus 

 applicatis). We have here an evident proof that the Domestic Horse, in the last 

 century of the Roman RepubUc, still retained the characters now peculiar to the Wilj* 

 Horses of the old continent. 



It must be observed that Herodotus describes the Wild Horses to be white (Xet- xo/), 

 while the dark bay has become the prevalent colour of the Wild Horses in America, 

 Naturahsts have generally concluded that the latter was the primitive colour of the 

 species. This difference between the primitive hues of the Old and New AVorld is 

 supposed by some to be owing to the excessive cold of the climate in some parts of the 

 former, where it has been supposed that the temperature might act upon the Solipeda 

 and Ruminantia in the same manner as it is known to do upon Hares, Rabbits, and other 

 Rodentia. But Leo Africanus and Marmol relate that the Wild Horses of Africa 

 are small, and either white or ash-coloured. Pallas also informs us that the Wild 

 Horses which inhabit the country between the Jaik and the Volga are fawn, red, or 

 dun-coloured. Aristotle attributes the changes in the colour of tho hair of Mam- 

 malia, as well as in the feathers of Birds, jointly to the cold and the influence of the 

 water. The streams of Psychus, near to Chalcis in Thrace, according to him, 

 caused the White Ewes to produce Black Rams. In the neighbourhood of Autan- 

 dros, he states that there are two rivers, one of which causes the lambs to be white 

 and the other black. We must remember that Aristotle belonged to Stagyra, and 

 that he here mentions a fact which, it is probable, had fallen imder his own observa- 

 tion. The same remark is made by Varro, Pliny, jElian, and by Anatolius (Hip- 

 piatric, p. 59). It would be interesting to verify their declaration by observations 

 made on the spot, as it seems to bo rather of doubtful authority. 



The progress of education with the Horse, and the influence of domestication 

 during 1800 years, are seen in the development of his paces both in number and 

 permanence. The natural paces of the Horse are the walk, the trot, and the gallop; 

 those which he has acquired from education, for the purpose of combining swiftness of 

 pace with comfort to the rider, arc the amble, the pas reievc, and the auhin of French 

 authors. 



The pas rchve consists in raising two feet on the same side, not at once as in the 

 amble, but successively. It is a close trot which beats the ground, as in the walk, 

 at four successive times. In the aubin, the Horse gallops with the fore feet and 

 trots with the hinder. The Greeks and Romans had induced neither the pas relevts 

 nor the aubin. That pace which thi'y call tuUdard, and which the Lexicons give as 

 synon}'mous with suQ^ofAog, is evidently the amble, and seems to have been induced 

 during the last century of the Roman Republic. It is described by Varro, Pliny, 

 Nouius, and Vegetius, in a manner which leaves no doubt that the amble (tulutartrn. 

 ambulaiuram) was produced by training (traditur arte). The race at that period 

 had not been so long domesticated, that this property sliould have been transformed 

 from an artificial acquirement into a permanent quality. It must then have been ia 

 the interval of time which has elapsed since the days of Pliny and Varro, that the 

 amble, the pas relcve or trot with four beats, and the aubin, where the Horse 

 gallops with the fore limbs and trots with the hinder, all of v/hich are wholly artificial, 

 had become natural paces, and were transmitted as such to posterity. At the present 

 day, these acqmred paces are as permanent as the properties of pointing and bringing 

 back game with the Setter Dogs and Retrievers. M. do la Malle has remarked more 

 than a hundred times in the pastures of Normandy, that the Foals descended from a 

 sire and dam endowed with the pas releve, or even where the sire alone possessed^ 

 this quahty, have exhibited this artificial movement in the meadow before receiving 

 the slightest education, or even leaving the side of their dam. 



As we might readily expect, the ancients were acquainted with very few varieties of 

 the Horse. Only two distinct races, the ThessaUan and African, can be traced on 

 those ancient monuments which have reached our times. There are, however, two 

 intermediate varieties, the Sicihan and Apulian races, formed probably from crosses 

 between the Thessalian and the Wild Horse of Italy, and between the ItaUan and the 

 African races. The descriptions of authors agree precisely with the representations 

 on the statues, the basso-reUevos, and the medals, at least in respect to the two pri- 

 mitive races. We have the ThessaUan Horse faithfully represented on the Par- 

 thenon, in the equestrian statues and basso-relievos of the Greeks, and even on the 

 columns of Trajan and other Roman sculptures, where this variety is always adopted 

 as the type of the heroic Horse. The African race is seen on the medals of Carthage 

 and on a medal of Mauritania, supposed to be a Juba (Catalogue de M. Mionnet, 

 t. vi. Nos. 5 and G). In the time of Oppian, who was contemporary with Septimiua 

 Severus, the races of the Horse had greatly increased in number, and he accordingly 

 enumerates fourteen varieties. The Persian Horse of the age of the Achaemenides is 

 figured on the monuments of PersepoUs. At the present day, in consequence of the 

 continual crossing of these races during twenty centuries of domestication, and the 

 joint influence of climate and food, this species, so useful to Man, has been trans- 

 formed into varieties almost irmumcrablc. 



The Horse is now reared under domestication with greater facility than formerly. 

 The foal, according to Varro, was suckled by its mother until the age of two years; 

 ■ — we separate them at six months. At three years old the young Horse was exer- 

 cised, and when he perspired, was rubbed over with oil. If the weather were 

 cold, fires were lighted in the stables. The modern Horses do not require thests 

 minute attentions even in our less congenial climate. 



The Ass, being less useful than the Horse, has been more neglected by Man, and 

 consequently his physical and intelhgent powers are not so highly developeJ. Yet 

 there are some interesting conclusions which may be drawn from an attentive com- 

 parison of his ancient and modern history, and may serve to clear up some obscura 



