578 INTRODUCTION OF CAMELS. 
ly a domestic animal as the horse, his existence in a wild 
state being now doubtful ;* and there is no reason why hemay 
not as well adapt himself to our deserts and prairies as to the 
steppes of Tartary or the Sahara of Africa. 
On the/orty species of animals reduced at this day toa 
state of domestication, Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, a distinguished 
French naturalist, remarks that “ of these thirty-five are now 
cosmopolitan, as the horse, dog, ox, pig, sheep, and goat. The 
others have remained in the region of their origin, as the 
lama and the alpaca on the plateau of Bolivia and Peru, or 
have been transplanted only to those countries which most ap- 
proximate to their birth-place in climatic conditions, as the 
Tongusian reindeer at St. Petersburg. Out of the thirty-five 
domestic species possessed by Hurope, thirty-one originated in 
Central Asia, Europe, and Northern Africa. Only fowr spe- 
cies have been contributed by the two Americas, Central and 
Southern Africa, Australia, and Polynesia; although these 
portions of our globe contain the greater number of zodlogical 
types. In consequence, the great majority of domestic ani- 
mals in Europe are of exotic origin, and hardly any are deriv- 
ed from countries colder than France; onthe contrary almost 
all were primitively inhabitants of warmer climates.’’*> 
Widely as the camel, or “‘ship of the desert,” as it is call- 
ed in the poetic language of the East, is now dispersed over all 
parts of Asia and of Central and Northern Africa, there is histo- 
rical evidence to show that there was a period when he was a 
* Humboldt quotes Chinese and Turkish authors who affirm that the wild 
camel, as well as wild horses and asses, is still to be found in Eastern Turkis- 
tan and in the countries north of China. Cuvier believes that, if such is the 
ease, they have merely become wild after their owners had given them their 
liberty. In the interior of Sonora are thousands of wild cattle which are 
fiercer than the buffalo. The wild horses, or mustangs, of Texas and Northern 
Mexico are also known. But all these are the offspring of domesticated 
animals. 
» + La domestication du Llama, ete. Projet @une Ménagerie Nationale d’Ac- 
climation. 
