9 6 DOMESTIC ANIMALS 



in harness. The great bovine antelopes of Africa 

 would become as tame, and there is no reason to 

 suppose that their beef and milk would not be as 

 good as those of the cow. But no antelope or deer 

 appears ever to have been domesticated, with the 

 exception of the reindeer. 



Of the other ruminants the ox, buffalo, yak, goat, 

 sheep and a few others are domestic animals, while 

 the bison and the gaur, or so-called Indian bison, 

 and a large number of wild goats and sheep have 

 been neglected. The buffalo and yak have probably 

 come under the yoke in comparatively recent times, 

 for they are little changed ; but the goat and still 

 more the sheep have undergone a wonderful trans- 

 formation within and without. Who could recognise 

 in a Leicester ewe the wary denizen of precipitous 

 mountains which will not feed until it has set a 

 sentinel to give warning if danger approaches ? And 

 here is a curious fact which has scarcely been noticed 

 by naturalists. 



The original of our goat is supposed to be the 

 Persian ibex. At any rate, it was an ibex of some 

 species, as its horns plainly show. But on the 

 plains of Northern India, under ranges of hills on 

 which the Persian ibex wanders wild, the common 

 domestic goat is a very different animal from that 

 of Europe, and has peculiar spiral horns of the same 

 pattern as the markhor, another grand species of 

 wild goat which draws eager hunters to the higher 

 reaches of the same mountains. From this it would 



