302 



VARIATION OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS. [Ch. XXXVI. 



individual to join tliem. 



In a wild state, mor 



, they 



obey some individr.al, which, by its superiority, has become 

 the chief of the herd. Our domestic species had, originally, 

 this sociability of disposition ; and no solitary species, how- 

 ever easy it may be to tame it, has yet afforded true domestic 



races. 



We 



propensities which xDropel the individuals of certain species 

 to draw near to their fellows. 



The sheep which we have reared is induced to follow us, as 

 it would be led to follow the flock among which it was 

 brouglit up ; and^ wlien individuals of gregarious species 



it is lie alone whom 



only whom thev nhav. 



have been accustomed to one 



ster 



they acknowledge as their chief^he only 

 ' The elephant allows himself to be directed only by the 

 carnac whom he has adopted ; the dog itself, reared in solitude 

 with its master, manifests a hostile disposition towards all 

 others; and everybody knows how dangerous it is to be in 

 the midst of a herd of cows, in pasturages that are little fre- 

 quented, when they have not at their head the keeper who 

 takes care of them. 



^ Everything, therefore, tends to convince us, that formerly 

 men w^ere only, with regard to the domestic animals, what 

 those who are particularly charged with the care of them 

 still are — namely, members of the society which these animals 

 form among themselves ; and, that they are only distinguished, 

 in the general mass, by the authority which they have been 

 enabled to assume from their superiority of intellect. Thus, 

 every social animal which recognises man as a member, and 

 as the chief of its herd, is a domestic animal. It might even 

 be said, that, from the moment when such an animal admits 

 man as a member of its society, it is domesticated, as man could 

 not enter into such a society Avithout becoming the chief of it.'* 



But the ingenious author whose observations I have here 

 cited, admits that the obedience which the individuals of 

 many domestic species yield indifferently to every person, is 

 without analogy in any state of things which could exist 

 previously to their subjugation by man. Each troop of wild 

 horses, it is true, has some stallion for its chief, who draws 



^ Mem. dii Mus. cVHist. Nat. 



