n 



itip 



J 



%^ 





4jp 





ec- 



-.J 





*i 



4i^ 



T^ 



i_ 



Uii 



Win 



\ 



<u 



idv) 



lerk 



eren 



4 



it. 



< 



bete 

 ,is 



<1 



ist 



ili 



r 



,<s 



I 



Ch. XXXVI.] 



OEIGINAL TAMEXESS OF AXIMALS. 



303 



com 



but, wlien a domesticated liorse lias passed from hand to 

 hand, and lias served several masters, he becomes equally 

 docile toAvards any person, adopting as it were the vv^hole 

 hmnan race as his leader. * 



Every troop of wild elephants has a leader who directs 

 their movements with much caution, and takes care that 

 none of them straggle from the herd. In India this animal 

 rarely breeds in captivity, although, according to Mr. Craw- 

 furd, in Ava, where the females are allowed to roam some- 

 what freely in the forests, they breed in a half-domestic 

 state. In general it is found to be the best 



economy 



capture full-grown individuals in a wild state, and in a few 



years after they are 

 months, their 



sometimes 



said, in a few 



their education is completed. They who have had 

 opportunities of observing them in their native forests are 



by no 



means 



the sagacity which they display 



after they have accommodated themselves to the society of 

 man, to whom they render obedience, not by acquiring any 

 new instincts, but simply in conformity to faculties proper to 

 them in a wild state. 



The tameness of some animals, in the case of cattle, 

 goats, and deer for example, after they have been reclaimed 

 and improved by selection for two or three generations, is 

 another change of which we may be in danger of overrating 

 the importance. The first savages who wandered into new 

 districts probably found most of the animals free from any 

 apprehension of danger from man. Mr. Darwin relates that 

 in the islands of the Galapagos archipelago, placed directly 

 under the equator, and nearly 600 miles west of the American 

 continent, all the terrestrial birds, as the finches, doves, 

 hawks, and others, are so tame that they may be killed with 

 a switch. One day, says this author, ^a inockino--bird 

 ahghted on the edge of a pitcher which I held in my hand 

 and began quietly to sip the water, and allowed me to lift 



it with the vessel from the ground.' Yet 



formerly 



the first Europeans landed, and found no inhabitants in these 

 islands, the birds were even tamer than now : already they 

 are beginning to acquire that salutary dread of man which 



