CHAPTER XXX 
DOMESTIC ANIMALS 
Domestic ANIMALS AND THEIR ORIGIN 
Probably as long as man has possessed greater intelligence 
than other animals so long has he been in the habit of captur- 
ing and enslaving them and making them serve his own pur- 
poses. A great number of species have thus from time to 
time been brought into captivity, but only a few have been 
permanently domesticated. It is comparatively easy to take 
wild animals at a very young age and raise them, but much 
more is required if they are really to be domesticated. They 
must prove themselves worth while, must breed freely in cap- 
tivity, generation after generation, must be able to thrive 
under the artificial conditions imposed by man, and their 
wild instincts must be capable of modification. 
The most important of our domestic animals are familiar 
to all: horses, cattle, sheep, and swine; chickens, ducks, 
geese, and turkeys; dogs and cats. To these we might add 
certain kinds of less importance, as goats, pigeons, guinea 
hens, and peacocks ; and we might also make several important 
additions from other countries, as the zebu and the camel 
of the Old World and the llama of South America. In all, 
about twenty species of mammals and a dozen of birds have 
been domesticated — which is not more than one in a thou- 
sand species of all mammals and birds known. 
With a few minor exceptions, all of these were domesti- 
cated in the Old World, being derived from animals formerly 
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