172 THE OX AND ITS KLNDRED 
except possibly in isolated instances — wild animals 
of any kind. They never tried their hand on the 
African elephant, or on any of the quaggas and 
zebras, let alone the larger antelopes. That they did 
not domesticate the ancestors of any of the numerous 
breeds of sheep and goats which are now spread over 
the country is evident from the fact that wild 
members of those groups are unknown to the south 
of the mountains of the Sudan and Abyssinia, and 
the Atlas range. And it is therefore practically 
certain that the domesticated sheep and goats had 
likewise an Asiatic origin. Their pigs, too, are 
likewise in all probability derived from an Asiatic 
source. 
Much the same may be said with regard to the 
natives of North America, who, although they had 
the bison, the bighorn sheep, the white mountain- 
goat, and, in the far north, the musk-ox and the 
reindeer (caribou), never domesticated any one of 
these animals. It may perhaps be urged, from the 
fact that the European bison was never apparently 
domesticated, that its North American cousin was 
unsuited for such a purpose. But, from the fact that 
the prehistoric natives of Europe had domesticated 
cattle derived from another source, there was obviously 
no need for them to try their hand on the bison ; and 
prima facie, there seems no more reason why the 
European bison could not have been domesticated, 
had the necessity arisen, just as well as the yak of 
Tibet or the buffalo of India. And what holds good 
in the case of that species would probably be equally 
valid in regard to the bison of the prairies. As a 
matter of fact, the only American natives who owned 
domesticated animals of any kind were the Incas of 
