THE DOMESTICATION OF WILD ANIMALS 41 
kindred by possessing a coat of wool instead of hair, 
must have taken hundreds, if not thousands of years. 
And it is obvious that no newly domesticated species can 
by any possibility assail the established supremacy of the 
sheep. Again, it was attempted during the early decades 
of the last century to domesticate in England the South 
African eland, which it was thought might vie with the 
ox as a beef-producer, the experiment being carried out 
by a former Earl of Derby at Knowsley Park. But the 
experiment was a total failure, as these animals breed 
comparatively slowly, are long in coming to maturity, and 
bear no sort of comparison with shorthorns in capacity 
for rapidly putting on flesh. 
Although, as noticed later on, there is a large field for 
the advocates of acclimatisation in introducing new species 
of animals into European parks and coverts, either for 
ornament or for sport, it seems to be tolerably evident 
that, in England, at any rate, the introduction and acclima- 
tisation of new kinds of domesticated animals is not at 
all likely to be attended with successful results. Possibly, 
indeed, something of this kind may be accomplished in 
France, where the habits of the peasantry are different 
from those which obtain in England. But, so far as 
economical considerations are concerned, the chances of 
success in domestication are probably more hopeful in 
Africa than anywhere else. There the experimentalists 
have before them the grand opportunity of taming the 
African elephant, which, if its disposition is at all similar 
(and the individuals who carry loads of our young friends 
along the gravel paths of the London “Zoo” seem to 
indicate that it is) to that of its Indian cousin, ought to 
be invaluable as a means of transport. And they have a 
second scope for their ingenuity in producing a tsetse-proof 
