ORIGIN OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 235 
are the most terrible of all wild animals. It is also an open 
question if the domestic cat has not lost his usefulness long 
ago, if, indeed, he ever had any. He never was but half- 
domesticated at best, and while he is a universal favorite with 
children because of his furry coat and look of seeming intelli- 
gence, he is yet essentially a wild animal, almost incapable of 
true domestication. He has lost little of his innate savagery, 
and as a relentless foe of birds he has really become an enemy 
to our civilization. The sooner he could become extinct the 
better for our song birds on which we depend so much not only 
for our pleasure but for protection against the depredations of 
insects. The true nature of the cat should be more commonly 
understood in this respect, as well as its proclivity to throat dis- 
eases common to children. We can well afford to do without 
the cat. 
DoMESTICATED BrRps 
The domestication of birds! was a great achievement, whether 
viewed from the standpoint of its inherent difficulty, the quality 
and cheapness of their meat 
and eggs, or the utility of 
their feathers. All told, the 
domesticated birds cover 
many species, with scores of 
wild relatives in all parts of 
the world. Most of them 
being, in the wild state, 
good flyers, their distribution 
is much wider than is that of 
species more closely confined 
Fic. 47. A trio of prize-winning barred 
. Plymouth Rocks, property of Bradley 
to locomotion on the ground. Bros., Lee, Massachusetts 
The hen. Of all the birds 
domesticated none is more valuable than the chicken (Gallus 
domesticus), whose undoubted progenitor, Gallus bankivus, can 
yet be heard cackling in the forests of Farther India; all of 
1 See Darwin’s ‘Animals and Plants under Domestication,” Vol. I, p. 236. 
