82 
ORIGIN OF DOMESTIC QUADRUPEDS. 
lation, were never numerically very abundant, and the car¬ 
nivora which fed upon them were still less so. It is almost 
needless to add that the Rocky Mountain sheep and goat must 
always have been very rare. 
Summing up the whole, then, it is evident that the wild 
quadrupeds of North America, even when most numerous, 
were few compared with their domestic successors, that they 
required a much less supply of vegetable food, and conse¬ 
quently were far less important as geographical elements than 
the many millions of hoofed and horned cattle now fed by 
civilized man on the same continent. 
Origin and Transfer of Domestic Quadrupeds. 
Of the origin of our domestic animals, we know histor¬ 
ically nothing, because their domestication belongs to the ages 
which preceded written history ; but though they cannot all 
be specifically identified with now extant wild animals, it is 
presumable that they have been reclaimed from an originally 
wild state. Ancient annalists have preserved to us fewer data 
respecting the introduction of domestic animals into new coun¬ 
tries than respecting the transplantation of domestic vegetables. 
Ritter, in his learned essay on the camel, has shown that this 
animal was not employed by the Egyptians until a compara¬ 
tively late period in their history ; that he was unknown to 
the Carthaginians until after the downfall of their common¬ 
wealth ; and that his first appearance in Western Africa is 
more recent still. The Bactrian camel was certainly brought 
any personal knowledge, and who continued to indulge his favorite passion 
much heyond the age which generally terminates exploits in woodcraft, 
lamented on his deathbed that he had not lived long enough to carry up 
the record of his slaughtered deer to the number of one thousand, which 
he had fixed as the limit of his ambition. He was able to handle the rifle, 
for sixty years, at a period when the game was still nearly as abundant as 
ever, but had killed only nine hundred and sixty of these quadrupeds, of 
all species. The exploits of this Nimrod have been far exceeded by prairie 
hunters, hut I doubt whether, in the originally wooded territory of the 
Union, any single marksman has brought down a larger number. 
