Oct. 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



AND ACCLIMATISATION. 113 



dependent upon our climate, and generally die off before their natural 

 term of existence is completed. I can only regard them as partially 

 domesticated, and that only as objects of curiosity and luxury, and as 

 incapable of being turned to any useful domestic purpose. With regard 

 to those animals which may be considered as more or less completely 

 under the control of man, there exists considerable difference in the 

 nature of their domestication. The typical or truly domesticated among 

 them, such as the ox, the sheep, the horse, the camel, the dromedary, 

 the dog, and the cat, like the wheat and the maize among plants, are 

 never found truly wild, and when they are permitted to run wild, as in 

 the case of horses and oxen in South America, they are easily brought 

 back to a state of domestication, especially if caught young. What may 

 be called the semi-domesticated or domesticatable animals, such as the 

 buffalo, the goat, the pig, the reindeer, the yak, and some other Asiatic 

 cattle, are found both in the tame and wild state, and often in the same 

 region, and in close proximity with each other. The Asiatic elephant, 

 and a few other animals which can be made tractable under man's direc- 

 tion, never (or very rarely) breed in domestication, and all the indivi- 

 duals of these very useful races are caught wild and brought into sub- 

 jection by training. The African elephant is evidently equally amenable 

 to man's control, and was equally domesticated by the Eomans ; but the 

 negroes do not seem to appreciate the advantages which they might 

 derive from its domestication, and only make use of its tractable dispo- 

 sition to keep it in captivity until such time as its ivory is best fitted 

 for the market, when they also can feed upon its flesh. All our domestic 

 or semi-domestic animals have their proper home in the temperate 

 regions of Europe and Asia. They all, except the ass, bear great cold 

 better than excessive heat, and even the ass suffers greatly on the coasts 

 of the tropics. The sheep in the warmer regions require to be driven to 

 the cool mountains during the hot season. In the tropics they lose 

 their wool, and like the long-haired goats and dogs change the character 

 of their fur. The inhabitants of the Arctic or sub-Arctic regions of 

 Europe and Asia have partially domesticated the reindeer ; and either 

 Asiatics have peculiar aptitude for domesticating animals, or the rumi- 

 nants of that part of the world are peculiarly adapted for domestication. 

 In the mountain regions of Thibet and Siberia the yak has been domes- 

 ticated, and like the reindeer of the Arctic regions it is used as a beast 

 of burthen, as well as for milk and food. The steppes of Asia is the 

 home of the camel and dromedary. In the lower or warmer regions 

 of Central and Southern Asia the zebu has been completely domesti- 

 cated ; and the natives of India and of the Islands of the Malayan Archi- 

 pelago have brought into a semi-domesticated state various species of 

 wild cattle, such as the eyal, the gour, and the banting, and have even 

 obtained some hybrid breeds between some of them and the zebus ; as 

 well as the buffalo, which they have in common with Africa and the 

 South of Europe. In the park of the Governor-General of India there 

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