CONCLUSION. 805 
during the night, secure in the loyalty of their host, they fly away 
happy in the morning, and repay him for his hospitality with the 
spectacle of their joy and their unrestricted strains.” 
I shall exercise great caution in speaking of their domestication, 
since my friend, M. Isidore Geoffrey Saint Hilaire, reopens in so 
praiseworthy a manner this long-forgotten question. 
An allusion will suffice. Antiquity in this special branch has 
bequeathed us the admirable patrimony which has supported the 
human race: the domestication of the dog, the horse, and the ass; of 
the camel, the elephant, the ox, the sheep, the goat, and poultry. 
What progress has been made in the last two thousand years? 
What new acquisition ? 
Two only, and these unquestionably trivial: the importation of 
the turkey and the China pheasant. 
No direct effort of man has accomplished so much for the welfare of 
the globe as the humble toil of the modest auxiliaries of human life. 
To descend to that which we so foolishly despise, to the poultry- 
yard, when one sees the millions of eggs which the ovens of Egypt 
hatch, or with which our Normandy loads the ships and fleets that 
every year traverse the Channel, one learns to appreciate how the 
small agencies of domestic economy produce the greatest results. 
20 
