DOMESTICATED RACES ie) 
both cattle and horses, as truly wild in temperament as any 
species that ever ranged the natural pastures. 
Such descendants of escaped domesticated races, however, 
are called “ feral,’ to distinguish them from a truly aboriginal 
stock, like the buffalo, that ranged our plains with our feral 
horses. Many cultivated plants also freely revert to the wild in 
unoccupied lands, but they are spoken of as having “ escaped ”’ 
from cultivation, so that the term “feral” is limited to animals. 
Feral animals have most of the characters and appearance of 
the domestic forms from which they spring, except in respect to 
temperament, which is that of the truly wild, all of which consti- 
tutes an additional argument for their origin in the wild.! 
The next step is to see how it was that animals and plants 
came to be domesticated and taken out of the wild for the 
benefit of man. 
Summary. Domesticated animals and cultivated plants originated and 
existed for indefinite generations as wild, from which state they have been 
taken by man to meet his needs, and cultivated in order to insure a suf- 
ficient and unfailing supply. Some of these races were domesticated ages 
ago, some within the lifetime of men yet living, and all have been more or 
less modified from what they were in the wild state. 
Exercises. 1. What wild animals or plants in your vicinity are, in your 
opinion, related to domesticated or cultivated forms ? 
2. What animals or plants that have never been domesticated would, in 
your opinion, prove valuable to man? 
3. Make a list of the wild fruits and nuts native to your vicinity. 
4. Make an exhaustive list of the cat tribe of wild animals, with notes 
on the character and habitat of each. 
5. Make the same sort of study of the dog tribe, including wolves, foxes, 
and jackals. 
References. 1. ‘ Wild White Cattle of Great Britain.” Storer. 
2. The zodlogy and the botany in use in the local school. 
8. Any good cyclopedia, or, better, a special treatise such as Lydekker’s 
Library of Natural History (6 vols.) 
1JIn this connection read Jack London’s “ Call of the Wild,” one of the 
strongest pictures of this reversion that has ever been drawn, and an excellent 
dog story withal, 
