]75 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE CAMEL (GENUS CAMELUS). 



A COLLECTION of Wild animals would be but a poor one tliat did not 

 contain some specimens of camels ; yet, as a matter of fact, these 

 animals can hardly be said to have existed in a wild state for 

 centuries or even for thousands of years. 



The Russian traveller, Colonel N. Prejevalsky, reports having 

 seen the two-humped camel (Gamelus bactrianus) wild in the moun- 

 tain ranges of Central Asia; and lately camels in a feral state have 

 been seen in Spain by Mr. Abel Chapman, which, as he states, are 

 probably the descendants of domesticated animals that some 

 comparatively short time ago were allowed to roam free. In a 

 communication to the Field lately on the subject of these wild 

 creatures in Europe, the writer says : " Mr. Saunders has recently 

 informed us that he believes the introduction of the camel into 

 the district is antecedent to the time stated by Mr. Chapman, 

 carrying it back to the date of the expulsion of Godoy, the Prince 

 of Peace, about 1810, when the populace broke up his menagerie 

 at St. Lucan de Barrameda and scattered the camels, which had 

 been rather extensively employed by him." In this case they 

 can hardly be described as wild or ownerless animals, for they are 

 the property of the heritors of the prince's estate. 



The camel must in any case remain the one species of animal 

 that has been man's most thorough conquest from the very earliest 

 ages. There are no records now existing that give any clue to their 

 wild ancestors. All assertions on the subject made by ancient 

 writers, such as Diodorus and Strabo, are entirely of a hearsay 

 character, and unreliable. And as other animals that are in complete 



