A, 



Id 



T 



i 



Ch. XXX\- 



ANIMALS 



A skilful botanist who should see for tlie first time our 

 finest varieties of apples, peaches, pears, and plums, would be 

 unable to guess from what species of wild trees they had 

 been derived. 



De CandoUe mentions no less than thirty-three useful 

 plants which we owe to Mexico, Peru, and Chili, among which 

 the maize and potato are conspicuous ; and Tschudi describes 

 two forms of maize no longer known in Peru, which were 

 taken from the tombs of the Incas,* and which had become 

 extinct before the arrival of the Spaniards in South America. 

 But strange to say, no botanist has yet been able to trace the 

 maize, which had evidently been cultivated from a very re- 

 mote period, to any wild aboriginal parent stock. 



The slowness with which improved varieties of native plants 



Heer 



may be inferred from 



to the Swiss lake-dwellers of the later Stone period. They 

 had collected wild crabs, sloes, buUaces, elderberries, hips of 

 roses and beech-mast differing but slightly from those which we 

 know in a wild state. They had also five kinds of wheat and 

 three of barley, mostly inferior in size to ours. Among them 



commo 



come 



from the south or had intercourse with some southern people. 

 So in regard to the domesticated animals of the same lake- 

 dwellers, they do not agree exactly with any of our breeds. 



exam 



modifications 



nam 



existed in a wild state 



^ ? — — J- ' ^"^ ^^ ^MK^x^ui^t^ LA>j.j.v^ j_j'ua vijfvu v^ 



frons ; but, although they were modifications of these original 

 types, they cannot be identified with any existing European 



breeds. 



from 



later Bronze period, and according to Etitimeyer was of a 



remote from 



They had also a small breed of sheep with thin and tall legs 

 and with horns like those of a goat, which was not exactly 

 smiilar to any one of the races now known. 



* Cited by Darwin ' On Variation,' &c., p. 320. 



fl - . 



