The domestication of some other creatures
certainly dates from high antiquity, from an
ante-historic period. The mulberry silkworm was
cultivated in China in the reign of Yao, two
thousand two hundred years before our era.
M. Stanislas Julien refers it to more than forty-
five centuries ago. The hen is Asiatic:
descended through a long line of ancestors, from
Gallus bankira, many believe. The geographical
origin of the pigeon is very uncertain, even if
we admit that all the domestic races are
derived from the Columba livia, or blue rock dove.

The camel is said to be still found wild in
Turkistan as well as in Thibet. Its domestication
is of unknown date. The dromedary is no
longer known in a state of nature. The sheep
and goat are mentioned in Genesis. The goat is
not a descendant, as has been supposed, of one of
the three European bouquetins, nor the sheep of
our European mouflon. Pallas's opinion, assigning
to both an Asiatic origin, is fully justified by the
evidence of history. M. Saint-Hilaire also
feels bound to restore the ox to Asia. At an
epoch when the West was still covered with
forests, the East, already civilised, possessed both
the zebu and the ox; the latter species, therefore,
came to us from the East. Cuvier's opinion
that our oxen spring, not from the aurochs (as
Buffon supposed), but from an animal destroyed
by civilisation and now only known by its fossil
bones, is held to be no longer tenable.

The horse and the ass are both of Oriental
origin. The wild horse is still found in Central
Asia; the native country of the onager or wild
ass extends from Asia into the north-east of
Africa. The pig has long been supposed to be
descended from our European wild boar; but
its domestication in the East—in the
extreme East especially—mounts to a very
remote epoch. The hog was domesticated in
China at least forty-nine centuries ago, and is,
therefore, a descendant of the Oriental wild boar,
and not of our own. The Sus scrofa of Europe
and the Indian swine resemble each other so
closely that their specific differences are not yet
exactly determined. Consequently, there is no
zoological reason for referring the various breeds
of pigs to Sus scrofa rather than to Sus indicus
and other Eastern swine.

The domestic cat, although a later acquisition
than the dog, is still a very ancient inmate of
our dwellings. It is a double error to
suppose it to be the issue of the native wild cat of
our forests. Herodotus tells us that the
Egyptians buried their cats "in sacred sepulchres,"
that is, in catacombs, where their mummies
are found by modern travellers. In Nubia and
Abyssinia, there exists, both in the wild and
the domestic states, the gloved cat—Felis
maniculata—which, judging from certain
peculiarities of colouring, is the probable parent
of all our pussies. Cats, therefore, are African.

The dog has been sometimes supposed to be
the offspring of the wolf. Buffon took the
shepherd's dog to be "the real dog of nature."
Linnæus considered the dog to be a distinct
species, Canis familiaris, quite separate from
Canis lupus, Canis aureus, and others. But
the only specific character of Canis familiaris is
that he carries his tail curved to the left.
M. Saint-Hilaire derives the various breeds of dogs
from different species of jackals, who habitually
frequent the neighbourhood of human dwellings.
Jackals are eminently sociable, easily tamed,
and soon become attached to their master.
They breed readily with the dog, and bear a
great resemblance to the canine races in
colour, form, and even in voice. By association
with barking dogs, the jackal learns to bark.
Greyhounds are probably derived from Canis
simensis, a slim-built species, recently
discovered by M. Rueppell in the mountains of
Abyssinia. Greyhounds, therefore, are not
ordinary dogs extremely modified by human art
and selection in breeding, but a race having their
own proper origin and their special type, which
retains to this day its leading characteristics.

With all these forty-seven domestic
creatures, meat for the multitude still runs short;
furs and skins are scarce and expensive; there
is a demand for increased supplies of leather,
of wool, hair, and other textile material, and
also of additional brute labour. At this
juncture science has the important part to play,
of indicating fresh conquests to be made in the
world of animals. Science, unfortunately, is
but little prepared for such a task. Travellers
hitherto have taken greater pains to enrich the
museums of their native country than to introduce
promising living animals.

M. Saint-Hilaire anticipates a twofold benefit
from the naturalisation of foreign species in a
wild condition in Europe. First, an increase
of the ever-insufficient quantity of meat; the
wombat and the kangaroo will one day be
(as Cuvier long ago predicted) "as useful a
game as the rabbit is;" an assertion which may
be extended to a few American rodents, to
several ruminants, and to a great number of
gallinaceous birds. Secondly, several animals,
besides being eatable, would render special
service by their peltry. Would not the
chinchilla be a great acquisition to mountainous
districts? Would not forests gain by being stocked
with the Walleby kangaroo and the dusky
phalanger, whose skins, susceptible of a variety
of uses, are sold in immense numbers in the
markets of Hobart Town?

Of the foreign wild species to be imported
and domesticated, the American rodents, as
meatmakers and substitutes for the rabbit, are
M. Saint-Hilaire's particular favourites. Such are
the pacas and the agoutis: members of a family
of which the little guinea-pig is the best known
type. There is scarcely one of these creatures
whose flesh is not wholesome when it has been
properly fed; and they are at the same time
remarkable for their fecundity and their rapid
development. No doubt, they will one day, like
the rabbit, pass from the poultry-yard to the
wood, stocking it with novel game. The cabiai
(cavia or hydrochærus capybara), the largest
rodent in the world, strongly tempts the
domesticator. Resembling the guinea-pig in