At best the opportunities which the wilderness affords, in the way of fit dwelling-places for the swarm which goes forth from a hive, are much less than can readily be provided by art. In almost all cases the wild bees have to expend a great deal of labor in searching for a fit residence; and after such is found it requires a great deal of toil and expenditure of the costly wax in order to shape the cavity so that it may comfortably accommodate the multitude, and be reasonably safe from the attacks of other insects. Thus it has come about that the bee has, in a way, welcomed the interference of man with his ancestral conditions; and, though the species exists in the wildernesses of its native land, the domesticated varieties have so far taken up with man that in other countries they do not wander far from the limits of civilization. Now and then an uncared-for swarm which cannot find accommodations about the parent hive will betake itself to the wilderness; though it generally continues to seek sustenance from the abundant flowers of the tilled fields where it finds species, such as clover and buckwheat, from which it has been long accustomed to win the harvest of pollen and honey.
In North America the honey-bees, which were brought by the early settlers, and which had been kept on the frontier by the pioneers of our civilization, have always extended, in wild swarms, a little distance into the wilderness. But, at most, they appear to have wandered only for a few miles beyond the homestead, going no further away than would permit their use of the cultivated plants. The aborigines early learned to regard the insect as the avant courier of European men. When they came upon an individual of the species they always knew that some white man's dwelling stood nearby. Those who are familiar with the solitudes of our Appalachian forests must often have remarked, in the stillness of a summer day, the hum of a swarm from some forest or domestic hive in its search for a dwelling-place. Those who have followed up the movements of these migrating colonies have had a chance to perceive how long is the search before they find a fit abiding place. Doubtless by far the greater part of these searchers for a home fail of their quest, and the wandering swarms perish without finding a suitable shelter.
In certain kinds of woods, as, for instance, those occupied by pine trees or other species which do not develop spacious hollows in their trunks, and where there are no crannied rocks—all the swarms which seek habitations there are foredoomed to destruction. If by chance the colonies wander too far, they generally find the wilderness so ill provided with plants which may furnish them with the sources of wax, honey, or other necessaries, that they cannot maintain their life. Thus it is that the bee, though domiciled with us rather than domesticated, has become united in its fortunes with civilization. In this position they have shown a remarkable adaptation to extremely varied conditions. They can withstand any climate which permits the development of the vegetation to which they need have access, provided the growing season continues long enough to accumulate their store. In the tropical lands they harvest so little honey that they are not profitable to man, and in the high north they need all their summer's accumulation to maintain them through the long winter. Thus, though they may range almost as far as man through the gamut of climates, they are profitable to their masters only in the middle latitudes. They commonly do not do well close to the sea, and cannot be kept on inconsiderable islands for the reason that they are, in their wanderings, likely to be lost in the waters.
The bee, like the other social insects, evinces a wide range of instincts which are intimately related to the economy of the hive; but these motives appear to be of an unchangeable character. They show no tendency to undergo the modifications which we observe to take place in our birds and mammals when they are brought under the influence of man. The only case in which they show any distinct effect from their contact with man is found in their evident recognition of those who care for them. They soon learn that their master is not to be feared, and, therefore, need not be resisted; but, beyond this dumb acceptance of a situation, they exhibit no trace of sympathetic recognition of our kind. It is clear that their mental endowments, though considerable, are very much more remote from our own than are those of the vertebrated animals with which we have formed a friendly association. Moreover, the type of life of the creatures in a way excludes them from any kind of share in human society. Each of them is, from its birth to its death, entirely devoted to the interests of its little commonwealth. Every impulse of their being relates to the economy of their hive. While we know little about instinct, we know enough of its manifestations to state that the real unit of this species is not the individual insect, but the colony to which it belongs. The separate form is hardly more than a bit of machinery so arranged that it may operate at a distance from the engine of which it forms a part. On this account it appears to be impossible for us ever to attain to any kind of sympathetic relations with these creatures.
Even more important than the bees are those insects which, in their immature state, yield us silk. The so-called silkworms, like the bees, originated in Asia, and have long been in the care of man. Beginning their experiments in spinning with the wool of animals and the various accessible vegetable fibres, men have ever been seeking materials which could serve them in the weaver's art. At one time or another they have tried an exceeding variety of materials; in modern days more than a score of insects have been experimented with in the endeavor to obtain fibres which could be turned to use. So far, however, the Bombyx mori—the form which, as its specific name indicates, feeds upon the leaves of the mulberry tree—is the only one which proves really serviceable. The advantages of this species are found in a peculiar assemblage of qualities, each of which is necessary to make it fit for the ends it attains at the hand of man.
The mulberry silkworm can readily be bred in confinement. The eggs are easily gathered and preserved, and are so readily kept that they may be sent the world about. At a given temperature they with infrequent failures hatch; and if sufficiently fed with the fresh leaves of the mulberry, will in a short time attain to as perfect a development as though they grew, not in close rooms, but in the open conditions of the trees. When of adult size, the grubs proceed to spin themselves in, forming a thick cocoon composed of threads of a material which, though as soft as paste when emitted from the body, hardens so as to form a strong and even thread. If the insect be allowed to remain for a sufficient time in the cradle which it has spun for its second birth, the body within the chrysalis case will proceed in a manner to dissolve; and in the milky fluid thus produced, where only faint traces of its former state remain, the beautiful image or perfect form will arise. In the economic use of the creature, however, except as far as a supply of eggs may be desired, it is necessary to prevent the completion of its development; for in escaping from the chrysalis case, the butterfly cuts many of the delicate threads, so that the silk is made unserviceable. It is necessary to wind it off before the insect escapes. In this part of the work we notice the most perfect adaptation of the creature to the needs of man. While the silk threads from the cocoons of other species which might prove of value cannot be easily reeled off, those of the silkworm, when placed in hot water, readily separate, and can be gathered in a condition for spinning. Thus, while some success has been attained by carding the cocoons of other species, thereby making a fibre which has a certain utility, the silkworm alone yields material fitted for delicate fabrics.
At the present time in Europe, Asia, and America there are probably not far from ten million people who depend in large measure upon the product of the silkworm for their livelihood. Although the product of their industry and that of the insects combined is not nearly as indispensable to man as those which are won from the hair of animals or the fibres of plants—for silk is a luxury rather than a necessity—the value of the work done by these humble creatures is greater than that effected by the largest of our domesticated animals, the elephant. If the philanthropic economist were forced to choose which of these creatures should pass from the earth, he would have to accept the loss of the greater and far nobler animal.
So far as regards their intelligence, the silkworms are much below the level of the bees. Though they dwell in an aggregate way they have scarcely a semblance of social order, and are without the wide range of peculiar instincts which we invariably find among the commonwealth animals. The order of Lepidoptera, in which these creatures belong, though the most beautiful, appears to be from an intellectual point of view the least advanced of our insects. Their instincts are all on a low plane; they have no kind of mutual labor, and however much advance we may make by selection in developing their bodies, there is no reason to expect that we shall affect their intelligences.
The cochineal insect, a species which has the habit of feeding upon the cactus, is used for a dye stuff, for which service the brightly colored body is appropriated. Although the creature is deliberately planted where it is to feed, and thus is in a way submitted to culture, it cannot fairly be said to have been entered in the domesticated circle of man. In a similar way the so-called Spanish fly—which really belongs among the beetles—whose ground-up bodies are used for producing blisters, is merely appropriated to our use without any process of subjugation. The fact remains that, so far as our dealings with the insect world have gone, we have really won but two of the million or more of forms to captivity; and our relations with these have nothing of the humanized nature which marks our intercourse with truly domesticated creatures.
Small as are the lessons which we may read from our experience with the honey-bee and the silkworm, they appear clearly to indicate that, while we may expect to do little with the intelligences of insects, we may fairly reckon on a great field for accomplishment in the way of changes in their bodily constitution. In the case of the bees the facts show us that in particular conditions of climate or other surroundings a certain amount of variation takes place, and by proper selection either of queens or swarms it may be possible considerably to extend the value of these animals. The task is beset with difficulties for the reason that, while in ordinary selective breeding we deal with individuals, we have, as before remarked, in this species to regard the hive or colony as the unit and to make our selection with reference to the qualities of that colony as a whole. Nevertheless, with the constant advances in the skill of our economic selectionists, there is reason to expect that our bees may be progressively improved. On the other hand, there is the chance that the progress of chemical discovery may enable us at any time to manufacture honey in the artificial way and of a quality indistinguishable from that produced by domesticated bees; in which case these captives, at best troublesome, though most interesting, will probably disappear from the human association.
With the silkworms, variations can be more readily brought about; for, as is the case with other animals, the individuals can be paired. The efforts at selection already made show that valuable characters can be thus accumulated, though not with the success which attends the efforts of a like nature made in the case of our domesticated mammals and birds. In common with other animals—indeed, we may say, with all organic life—the silkworms vary perceptibly in different parts of the world to which they may be taken. Thus, when reared in California it is said that this insect develops more strength than it exhibits in Europe; and the eggs which it lays there produce stronger insects, which in turn yield larger cocoons than the individuals born in Italy or France. With such a basis for the selective art as the variations of this insect afford, there seems no reason why it should not afford a good field for the work of the breeder's art.
THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS
Recent Understanding as to the Rights of Animals; Nature of these Rights; their Origin in Sympathy.—Early State of Sympathetic Emotions.—Place of Statutes concerning Animal Rights.—Present and Future of Animal Rights.—Question of Vivisection.—Rights of Domesticated Animals to Proper Care; to Enjoyment.—Ends of the Breeder's Art.—Moral Position of the Hunter.—Probable Development of the Protecting Motive as applied to Animals.
It is well to note the fact that, in considering the rights of the creatures below the level of man, we are dealing with a question which does not seem to have entered into the minds of the ancients. Such old phrases as "the merciful man is merciful to his beast" indicate that cruelty to the domesticated creatures was, in a way, reprobated by the ancients; but not until well on in the present century do we find any indication that reason had come to the help of pity in an effort to frame rules having the weight of law and the support of sanctions, either those of public opinion or the more direct penalties of the courts, to limit the conduct of men towards the lower animals. The great tide of mercy and justice which marks our modern civilization had first to break down the grievous and strongly founded evils of human slavery. Having effected that great work, the sympathetic motives are moving on to a similar conflict with the moral ills which arise from an improper treatment of those slaves of a lower estate, the domesticated animals.
It is impossible to see our position in relation to the matter of the rights of animals without looking somewhat carefully into the intellectual and moral steps which have at length brought us to the consideration of the question. First let us note that while the rights of their fellows have been impressed on men by the precepts of religions, particularly by those of Christianity, the rules of conduct which guide us in our contacts with beings below the level of our species have never been determined by the canons of our faith, for the reason that they are the product of very modern conditions; they are the thought of our own time. New as are these tenets, however, they may fairly be received as but the last though not the final expression of that most interesting of all natural series—the succession in the development of sympathy which, step by step in the progress of organic life, has led from the original dull insensitiveness of the lower animals upwards to the outgoing spirit of man.
In the lower stages of animal life we find no traces of appreciation of the neighbor except those which necessarily relate to the selection and capture of food and perhaps to the selection of mates. Further on in the process of development we note the love of offspring, and, as a consequence of that love, the growth of the family sense, which rarely is maintained beyond the time when the young can shift for themselves. Among the species of the higher groups—certain insects, the greater part of the birds, and the nobler of the mammals—the instinct of the family is extended until it includes the tribe, or perhaps goes yet further and leads to a certain kindliness to all the individuals of the race. Thus it comes about that the individuals of many species below the level of man will respond to the cries of their kindred though they may never have had a chance to know them. There is in these cases a sympathetic bond that binds the kind together. It is with this condition of the sympathies that the task of their further evolution is transferred to man. Inheriting as he does the essential motives of the lower beings through which he came to his present estate, man proceeds to deal with them in a manner which is determined by the peculiar rational power which belongs to him. In place of the blind following of the emotions which characterizes the sympathetic movements of the lower animals, we find that even among the most primitive and lowly savages rules of conduct are instituted which serve to direct the ways in which the individual shall act with regard to his fellows. In almost all cases these rules are much intermingled with the religion of the people; usually they rest upon a body of advancing public opinion which amplifies the motives and, in turn, is enlarged by their growth. As time goes on and the folk attain the stage of records, these rules of conduct become definite laws which at first are based on religious ordinances; but in time they are, in the latest stage of social growth, brought into the state of ordinary statutes which, while they may have some religious sanction, are supported by the machinery of the secular government.
After the first rude work of shaping the body of ancient experience into law was done, there remained the larger and more difficult task of continuing the development of the sympathetic motives with a corresponding amplification of customs and statutes so that the steps of advance should be duly embodied in these rules of conduct. The stages of this purely human attainment have been slowly taken, the onward way has been effectively won but by few peoples. A part of the slowness in advance in the enlargement of the sympathetic motives beyond the stage which has been attained in the life below the human grade is to be accounted for in the fact that no sooner are laws formed than they become in a way sacred. If they be cast in the religious mould their sanctity may be such that they are almost beyond the reach of modification; even when they are secular the reverence for the wisdom of the forefathers naturally leads men to regard them as the ark of safety. Thus it has come about that the codification of the ancient sympathies, won by experience in the pre-human time and in the early life of man, has led to the institution of a barrier which makes further advance a matter of difficulty—one which, in the case of most peoples, binds them firmly to the past, arresting their sympathetic development at a point which it had attained when their laws were framed. This is, indeed, the position of nearly all the peoples except those of our own Aryan race.
When the conditions of a people are fortunately such that they may continue their sympathetic growth, they proceed to carry onward the process of sympathetic enlargement, modifying their laws to suit the gains in understanding which come with this growth. It may be noticed that the development takes place most readily where the rules of conduct are embodied in statute law; for this law, being the evident result of human action, is manifestly alterable in a way that cannot be taken when the prescriptions are supposed to rest on divine commands. Under such conditions of statute law men are freer to advance than they can possibly be where the rules of action are in the form of revered precepts, such as guide the peoples who are accustomed to base their action on the books which they esteem as sacred. Endowed with this element of freedom, the peoples of our own Aryan race—and, fortunately, the most advanced of all its varieties, the English-speaking part of the folk—have, by the divine impulse towards moral advancement, been led to make a great extension of the sympathetic motives. The first step in this direction seems to have been towards the mitigation of the horrors of war, which of old meant the slavery or slaughter of the prisoners. Under the dictates of the developing spirit of mercy and without written law, these brutal actions have been limited until the dogs of war are allowed to rend only in the hour of battle. In this day the man who slays the wounded or robs the dead is esteemed an outlaw. The same beneficent motive was next extended towards human slaves. In this matter English people led; and to them it was almost altogether due that this evil has come nearly to an end except among the Mohammedans, who are bound as in chains to their sacred books and cannot win their way to progress through statutes. In a like manner, in the care of the poor, of prisoners for debt, and even of malefactors, our English folk on both sides of the Atlantic have led in the ongoing towards a higher moral estate.
The last great excursion of sympathy which has characterized the English Aryans—one dating its beginning to this century—is that relating to the rights of our domesticated animals. This has come about, like the other movements, in a way unconsciously. Prophetic spirits have seen beyond the vision of their fellows; they have given their messages, which have found an echo in the souls of men. The motive originated in the recognition of the essential likeness of the minds of the lower animals to our own. But it has been greatly reënforced by the teachings of the naturalists to the effect that all the life of this sphere is akin in its origin and that our subjects are not very far away from our own ancestral line.
It is characteristic of sympathetic movements that, while they are slowly prepared for, their final development is very rapid. Thus it has come about that within one hundred years the conception of the rights of animals has advanced with almost startling rapidity. No other moral gain has been made with such speed or has so rapidly become a part of the property of civilized man. The steps are those which have been taken in all the other great moral advances: at first there were but a few who, in the manner of the skirmishers of armies, set the standards far on in the new ground; gradually the less ardent win their way to them, only to be led the further by their natural guides. As the great advance is still making, it is difficult to see how far it may attain; it is, however, easy to recognize some of the important gains and to foretell the path if not the field of full accomplishment of the conquest. A century ago a man, so far as the law was concerned, owned his living chattels as he did the inanimate things of his property. He could torture or slay them as whim or malice might dictate; there were no limitations by statute, and public opinion, where it might reprobate, was too weak to influence his conduct. Now the statute books of all countries which are moving in the path of moral advance show that public opinion has attained the point where it begins to formulate itself in statutes which restrict the relations of men to their domesticated animals—or, in other words, endow them with definite rights. He may, of course, force them to do him their fit service; he may at his need slay them; but he must exercise his authority without brutality; he must, in form at least, be merciful unto his beasts. With this limitation the rights of domesticated animals began to exist.
At first sight it may seem unreasonable to found the rights of dumb beasts on the embodiment of public opinion in the law, and this for the reasons that many persons have held, that rights have an establishment in the ultimate moral constitution of the world. It may be granted that even before man or even life existed in the universe there were certain logical moral principles which were destined to take shape when the creatures to which they were adapted came to be; but such speculations are fanciful and do not much concern those who are dealing with the problems of the barnyard. We may, to bring the matter nearer, say that the slave of half a century ago had a right to be free; but this right, in all practical senses, meant only that certain people very much disliked to see him enthralled.
So far, by successive stages, first by accumulated public opinion and then by its embodiment in statutes, we have won a measure of protection to subjugated animals which tends to save them from the extremer forms of cruelty. The question now is as to the advances which may be made in the time to come. It is evident that these advances, so far as the domesticated species are concerned, will have to be limited by the needs of man. We cannot ever expect to have the reverence of the Hindoo for the lower animals, for the reason that his state of mind is based on the preposterous supposition that the beast contains the spirit of a man on its way through the cycles towards perfection. We must continue to burthen, tax, and slay; but we may fairly be required to inflict no unnecessary suffering. In this process of amendment we shall undoubtedly before long come to the point where we shall demand that these animals shall be lodged in a wholesome manner and so fed that they may be fit for their tasks. We may, in a word, consider their well being so far as it is consistent with the well being of mankind, and in so doing we shall demand some personal sacrifice from the owner where such is clearly demanded to maintain the principle of the law.
As in all other great sympathetic movements, the leaders of the advance in the matter of the humane treatment of animals are occasionally unreasonable in their demands—it may well be held that the prophet has to be unreasonable in order to attain his goal; hence it has come about that the demands of these admirable people are often beyond the bounds of things that are practicable. Fire-horses, however ill, should be made to do their duty, even if it costs them any amount of suffering; even as the artillerymen should, if the occasion calls for it, rush their teams, though they know that the poor beasts are to die at the goal. In a word, the only and supreme test of our relations to these subjects is the well being of man considered from the higher point of view. This principle we apply to our own kind; we are justified in like action in case of the brutes. In this consideration, the offence to the feelings of man which is caused by any act of cruelty, however necessary, deserves its due weight.
The most serious matter connected with the question of the rights of animals which is now under discussion relates to the use of these creatures in the investigative work of the naturalist, or in the repetition of the processes and results of those inquiries before students. Although all judicious people are likely to welcome the exceeding reprobation with which many philanthropists visit the vivisectionists, and this for the reason that the state of mind shows a rapid advance of the sympathetic motive, they are likely to question the sound foundation of the objections that are raised to experiments with animals, made for the purpose of discovering of displaying the truths of nature.
So far as the work of research into the phenomena of life is concerned, there can be no question as to its importance or as to the fitness of sacrificing the lives of the lowlier creatures in any way that may be necessary for the advancement of knowledge. In the last half century there has been an improvement in the treatment and prevention of diseases so great as almost to defy adequate description. To take only the last of these precious gains, that in relation to the treatment of diphtheria, the gain has been such that although the process is not past its experimental stage the reduction of the mortality in hospitals where the remedy is used has lowered the death rate from above fifty to about fifteen per cent. of the cases. Yet this result rests upon a vast amount of experiment which has cost suffering and life to the lower animals; and to produce the remedy which is used, horses have to be innoculated with the disease, and thereby much pain is inflicted upon them. Weighed as against the life of a human being, a host of the lower creatures must count as nothing. As all human advancement depends upon the dissemination of knowledge, it is difficult to see any objection, from the point of view of justice, to the use of the lower creatures to accomplish this end. The only real point in the matter is as to the effect of such scenes on the minds of young people; yet they have to be accustomed to behold the processes of destruction of life which are everywhere going on about them. The gardener maintains his work by endless slaying. Our tables bear the products of the slaughter-houses. While the anatomist's work may be revolting, it is only so because his tasks are done deliberately and for a purpose that is not yet properly appreciated.
It is a curious fact that many a person who enjoys hunting or fishing, and who slays or maims with much pleasure and to no substantial profit, is horrified to see a student dissecting a living frog, guinea-pig, or cat, in order that he may learn new truths or himself behold what others have discovered. Of the two aims, momentary pleasure or intellectual profit, which is the nobler? In which work is the mind the most likely to become careless as to the rights of the dumb beast? To my understanding, the present turn of sympathetic people against vivisection indicates that the movement of the emotions has, as is often the case, been diverted from the fittest path. So far from natural science tending in any way towards cruelty, it has been the very guide in the development of the modern affection for living beings. By showing something of the marvels of their structure and history, it has increased in a way no other influence has ever done the conception which we form as to their dignity and the wonderful nature of their history. It is in the true interest of mercy to disseminate in every way we can knowledge as to the real nature of animals, leaving this knowledge to bring forth the good fruit which it ever bears. In this connection it should moreover be said that the naturalist, like the surgeon, instinctively seeks to make his work as little painful as may be to the subjects of his experiments. In almost all cases, the animal is made unconscious. Moreover, all we know of the life of the lower animals leads us to suppose that while they suffer much as we do, their pains are of a physical sort, and unassociated to any great extent with the large fears and anticipations which in the case of man form so considerable a part of his torment when in face of death.
The question of vivisection is but a part, indeed a very small part, of the much larger problem as to the relation of men to the lower life which is about them in their fields and in the wilderness. An approximate census of the species now on the earth shows that the number is between two and three million. In the presence of this host, we have to recognize that each of the innumerable individuals in its lifetime is a record of toil and pain the history of which extends backward to the beginnings of life. In this wonderful living world man has trodden ruthlessly, for the reason that he has no sense as to the dignity of the field. In the manner of a vandal, he has slain for profit or sport. He has been so effectual a destroyer that species, genera, and even families of animals have been ruthlessly swept away. The revelation of natural science, of the men of the knife who are so hated by some well-meaning but misdirected people, have now and only in our day brought us to a point where the sense of nature in its organic aspect begins to penetrate the minds of men. The revelation is so vast in its contents and its imports, the conceptions which rest upon it are so greatly enlarging to the human soul, that we may be sure of the wide and swift extension of the new light. It cannot be questioned that the clearer insight will rapidly change the attitude of men toward all living beings. We can in a way discern some of the conceptions as to the rights of the other life which will be enforced on mankind.
It is likely that the first step into the new field of human duty, due to our better understanding as to our place in nature, will be in the direction of a greater care as to our domesticated forms. While we must continue to make their lives subserve our own, we may well insist that they should be properly housed, and have what it may be possible to afford them in the way of their primitive joys, which come from the sun, the air, and their natural food. No one who has seen a long-stabled horse made free of a field can have failed to note the intense pleasure which he takes in returning to something like his natural conditions. Many a cow stable with its foul conditions inflicts more and more enduring torments than all the vivisectionists that some misguided philanthropists are fighting; yet because of the novelty of the naturalist's work these attend to the new scene and neglect the ancient abuse. Among these evils which are to be corrected we may also account that which arises from the unguided development of what are called fancy breeds. Thus among our horned cattle, the Jerseys have been brought to a point where, from the iniquitous inbreeding, which is against what may be called the morality of nature, they are fearfully subjected to tuberculosis. The punishment for this insensate performance comes back upon mankind in the dissemination of consumption; but unhappily it does not visit the people who are responsible for the development of this breed. A like, though less considerable, evil is shown in the fancy breeds of dogs, pigeons, and some other petted animals, where for amusement and as an indication of his power man has raised up many decrepit and sickly varieties, which are not likely to have a fair share in the pleasure of life which their natural breeding insured them.
The observant naturalist of the field has the sense—at least he has it if he be endowed with a little imagination—of the immense pleasure which life gives to most wild animals. That instinctive, and in its foundations utterly irrational and animal joy which men have, or should have, in their day, is part of the birthright of all sentient beings. As yet we have not recognized that this privilege of enjoyment should be confessed. We do not hesitate to slay or maim for mere sport. It is true that some of the ancient forms of this sport, such as bull-baiting and cock-fighting, have been condemned, but the best of men go afield with the gun to slay for pleasure. In a measure they keep up the pretence that they are in some way contributing to the needs of the larder, but so far as needs are concerned the pretence is mostly idle. It seems to me clear that in shaping our sympathetic relations towards animals in the light of our present knowledge, the huntsman will soon become unknown in civilized life. So long as men looked upon animals in the childish, ignorant way, viewing them as utterly commonplace things, hunting or fishing, for the reason that they rested on a foundation of ancient emotions, might well be indulged in. But to the man who knows what science has to teach him, and who discerns the marvels which the animal form enfolds, the destruction of such objects, except for need's sake, is sure to be painful. I judge this from my individual experience. In my youth I was very fond of hunting, and could even wring the necks of wounded birds without trouble of mind. A better sense of what life means, a sense which is no better than that to which all educated men are soon to attain, has made such work very repulsive to me.
When the knowledge of our time is so brought down among the masses of men that it may afford the foundations for appropriate enlargement of the sympathies, the result will doubtless be a great movement towards enlargement in public opinion which credits the lower life with what we term rights. The most important result of this movement will be the creation of a sense of duty by this life. It is said of Mohammedans that they hesitate to tread upon a bit of paper lest it bear the name of God. We know now full well that every living creature in this world bears the stamp of a Providence which has acted from all time, and that we, so far as our own advancement will permit, are morally bound to allow this life to go forward on the appointed way.
THE PROBLEM OF DOMESTICATION
The Conditions of Domestication; Effects on Society; Share of the Races of Men in the Work.—Evils of Non-Intercourse with Domesticated Animals as in Cities; Remedies.—Scientific Position of Domestication; Future of the Art.—List of Species which may Advantageously be Domesticated.—Peculiar Value of the Birds and Mammals.—Importance of Groups which tenant High Latitudes.—Plan for Wilderness Reservations; Relation to National Parks.—Project for International System of Reservations.—Nature of Organic Provinces; Harm done to them by Civilized Men.—Way in which Reservations would Serve to Maintain Types of the Life of the Earth; how they may be Founded.—Summary and Conclusions.
The advance of mankind from the primitive savagery has been accomplished in many ways. Among the various paths of onward and upward going, however, we trace three which have served greatly to secure the elevation of our estate. First of all, culture came through the use of the hands in the development of the simpler arts. Next, these arts led men to search the stores of the wilderness and of the under earth for materials which could serve them in their advancing crafts. The third important stage in their ongoing was attained when they began to subjugate the animals and plants of the wilds, bringing the creatures to abide in and about the households. Although in general this was the last great step to be taken in the beginnings of civilization, it was on many accounts the most important.
Until men began to domesticate the forms of the wilderness, it was impossible for them to rise above the grade of savages. Their supply of food was necessarily in such a measure limited that their societies had to remain small and they were given to much wandering to and fro over the earth. Moreover, they had only the strength of their own hands for all the work of life. It was not until our kind began to form a society of other species about their homes that the foundations of civilizations were firmly established. The home, indeed, may fairly be said to be the product of the conditions which the process of domestication brought about. As distinguished from the temporary hut of primitive men, it represented the stability which was induced by the care of the plants and animals which man had domiciled about him.
With every step upward in the organization of society we find that the number and efficiency of these subjugated creatures increases. Our American aborigines in their primitive state commanded only the dog and three or four plants, yet with this scant help they had already won beyond the lowest savagery and were at the threshold of barbarism. In our more civilized societies of to-day we find the products of near a hundred animals and about a thousand plants as elements of commerce, and each year sees some gain in the number of creatures which we make tributary to our desires.
So far as we can discern, the relations of primitive savages to the animal life about them is on the whole more friendly than is that of cultivated men. It is true that the savage looks to the creatures of the wilderness for the greater part of his needs. He slays them, not at all in sport, but for the profit they may afford. Moreover, in most cases, his imagination endows these wild creatures with a spirit like his own. He often adopts them, in his religious worship, placing his tribe under the protection of one or another, as some of our own people do themselves under the protection of particular saints. The effect of domestication when man comes to have his own separate estate in animal life is to separate men from the creatures of the wilderness. "Wild" and "tame" come to be terms having a meaning which the savage does not recognize, and this meaning has with the advance of culture become intensified, until to most men the only creatures entitled to protection are those which have been made subject to man.
At first the process of domestication concerned only useful animals or plants, those which would take a part in our industries. Rapidly, however, these creatures have been adopted with the view to the æsthetic satisfaction which they might afford. Quite half of the number of species which have come under human control have been tamed mainly if not altogether because of the charms which they possess. If we reckon flowering plants in the category, by far the greater number of our captives have been brought to us because of their beauty.
The work of domestication has in the main been effected by our own Aryan race. Out of the total number of animals and plants which have been made captives, probably more than two-thirds have been brought into subjection by the European Aryans or by the folk whom they have profoundly affected with their civilizing motives. The disposition to win goods from the wilderness is in effect a fair test of those qualities in a people which give them dominance: we may indeed roughly measure the qualities of diverse folk by a variety of conquests of this kind, which they have made. The reason for this relation is plain. Success, whether it be of the individual or of the race, depends in large measure upon forethoughtfulness, on a disposition to study as to where profit may be had, and intelligently to seek accessions of strength by experiments in domestication. Each of these winnings from the wilderness represented by our domesticated animals or plants has been painfully and laboriously gained. The men who did the tasks were not creatures of the day, but foresightful beyond the average of mortals.
In a large way the work of domestication represents one of the modes of action of that sympathetic motive which more than any other has been the basis of the highest development of mankind. Ordinary men of the low grade are content to slay, or otherwise rudely gain what value they find in the wild creatures. Only the higher grades of men perceive much of the charm in the inhabitants of the wilderness, or desire to win them to their homes. If our conquests from the wilds were limited to the grossly profitable life alone, we might say that interest only had determined the work of subjugation; but as soon as men escape from their primitive state, even while in their general motives they are still essentially barbarians, they cultivate flowers and derive a keen pleasure from their company. They domesticate birds which are valuable only for the pleasures which their presence lends to human abodes. This action clearly shows that the element of sympathy, that love for the other life which in any way fixes the attention, has had much to do with this work of bringing other beings into association with our own lives.
Not only is the motive which has led our race to such extensive conquests over the wild nature in itself sympathetic, but the process of winning these creatures from the wilderness has served effectively to extend and amplify this same impulse. One of the best features of agricultural life consists in the great amount of care-taking which it imposes upon its followers. The ordinary farmer has to enter into more or less sympathetic relations with half a score of animal species and many kinds of plants. His life, indeed, is devoted to ceaseless friendly relations with these creatures which live or die at his will. In this task his ancient savage impulses are slowly worn away, and in their place comes the enduring kindliness of cultivated men. When we compare the state of mind of the hunter with that of the care-taking soil-tiller, we see the vast scope and influence which this work of domestication has effected in our kind. To it perhaps more than to any other cause we must attribute the civilizable and the civilized state of mind.
Although no discreet person will venture to determine the relative weight which should be given to the influences which have made for civilization, there can be no doubt that the care of domesticated animals has been one of the most potent of these agents. Not only has this employment served to develop the motives of care-taking that result in the postponement of the momentary satisfaction of indolence or of hunger for the prospect of security or wealth to come, but it has served to arouse and broaden the sympathies given men, that humane spirit without which the best of our higher culture cannot be attained. If this view be correct, we may find in it a good reason for regretting the increasing development of cities, a reason which is more definite than the most of those which have been urged against the growth of great towns. Statistics seem to indicate that people are as healthy, as long lived, and on the whole no more given to vice and crime in a well-ordered urban life than they are on the farms. It is certainly easier to give them the formal education of the schools in the dense than in the scattered condition. There can be no doubt, however, that the practically complete separation of the most of our cities from all educative contact with the ancient companions and helpers of men brings about an omission of an element in culture that may entail serious consequences.
The question arises as to what can be done to diminish the evils which come from the total separation of a large part of our people from the humanizing influences due to the care of animals. How general this separation is may be judged from the fact that so far as I have been able to find in the manufacturing towns of Massachusetts not one child in thirty ever knew what it is to care for any creature, save those of its kind. And even in a well-conditioned place like Cambridge, the proportion of those who have any educative contact with animals probably does not exceed one in fifteen. I do not reckon the mere chance playing with a dog or cat as serving the need; the real service is when the person has a sense of responsibility for the life of the animal. To bring about this relation in the ordinary conditions of a town is usually impossible. Something can, however, be accomplished by various expedients.
In the lowest state of townspeople it is out of the question to give the children any pets whatever. Even caged birds cannot or should not be accommodated in the cheaper grade of lodging-houses. Wherever the animals are in separate houses it is often possible for children to have some contact with sympathetic animal life. In these conditions, our cocks and hens are the best creatures to rear. They are the most attractive of all our domesticated birds; they do better than any other forms of economic value in narrow conditions, and, what is of importance for the end in view, they contribute a share of food, so that a boy may have from them some experience with the economic relation of animals to men.
Some persons who have observed the advancing process of destruction of the natural world may have been brought to consider the change as in the necessary and inevitable order which comes with the higher development of man. They may welcome—indeed, some evidently do welcome—the chance that the ancient system may utterly disappear, and all the earth become fields and garden places tenanted only by those forms that man may have chosen to be his companions. To many people who have a keen impression as to the importance of man in the great economy, and no clear sense of his relation to the natural order, this possibility is doubtless attractive. It is not so to those who have gained a clear idea of the place of man and the conditions of his ongoing.
There is reason to expect that the modern gains in the cheapness and speed of transportation may before long bring about a material change in the housing of the laboring classes of our cities, so that they may be able to dwell in somewhat rural conditions. In this way we may hope to see these people once again brought where they may receive a fuller share of the influences which have served so well to lift our race to its elevated moral station. Working to the same end is the spirit which is leading many manufacturers to place their establishments in the country, where they can control the mode of life of the employees and their families. Against the growth of the factory towns with their sordid conditions, we may with pleasure set these rural workshops where the capitalists are doing the best they can to better the mode of living of the people who are under their charge. In this good work it may well be possible to include a share of contact with the soil and with domesticated animals. In this system of isolated factories we may perhaps hope to find the way out of the perplexities which the present condition of our industries have imposed on our civilization.
Up to our present half-century the process of winning animals and plants to domestication, and of improving them after they had been thus won, has been in its nature a matter of haphazard. Here and there, as men have seen creatures which promised in captivity to afford either pleasure or profit, they have endeavored to convert them to use. In some cases the effort has been made with some patience and steadfastness of purpose. If the creature yielded quickly to the needs of a new life which it was sought to impose upon him, he became a member of man's family. If its wilderness motives were strong, the effort to domesticate was soon abandoned. The greater part of these efforts to win animals and plants into alliance with our race have been made with the creatures which were native in the wildernesses about our ancestral dwelling-places. Occasionally from distant lands important gains have been made, especially among the food-giving plants; but all the animals of any importance which have been adopted by the Aryan people were originally natives of the lands in which that race has dwelt.
It is a remarkable fact that no sooner does a wild animal or plant become intimately associated with man, than it at once departs more or less widely from its ancient type. Our conquests from the vegetable world have to a great extent so far lost their original character that we can no longer determine the species from which they sprang. Botanists cannot find the wild forms which have given us the cabbage, wheat, and most other small grains, and a host of other important varieties. So, too, the origin of our dogs is as yet unsolved and bids fair ever to remain a mystery. In addition to this changed character which we observe in the forms of domesticated animals and plants alike, we note that the mental characteristics of the former undergo vast alterations. The creatures, in a way, take the tone of civilization, and to a great extent abandon those ancient habits of fear and rage which were essential to their life in the wilderness. The intellectual condition of our dogs shows us that the creatures may be progressively educated—in a word, that man may put into them something of his human quality. In the case of the dog, the longest possessed and most familiar to our households of all our captives, the mental change which has come, partly by selection, from association with man has gone so far that the species may be fairly said to have replaced its pristine motives with those which it has derived from ourselves. In many cases it has become, so far as its ways are concerned, even more man than dog.
Although the physical and mental educability of animals when brought into companionship with man is an old subject of remark, and one of the most interesting features which they exhibit, it was not until the doctrine of descent by variation of species from other related forms became established, that we had a chance to see the vast possibilities of accomplishment which are presented to us by our domesticated creatures. It is true that the breeder's art is old and that men have felt the subjugated animals to be almost like clay in the potter's hands, but except in a small and rather careless way with the dogs, little attention has been given to the development of the intelligence of these captives. The success which we have obtained with this animal has been accomplished by a selective process, but one which has been almost as blind in its operation as the choice which acts in the natural world. For thousands of years men have preferred the dogs which manifested a sympathy with them, and the result is a creature which, though derived from a very brutal ancestry, has in its way as intense affections as human beings. Now and then they have chosen deliberately to develop some mental peculiarity of the animal which would be of service in hunting, and the effect of this care is to be noted in the considerable variety and perfection of mental development which the sporting dogs exhibit. In the main, however, the interest of our dog fanciers has been limited to the physical features of the species; nothing like a deliberate effort to ascertain how far the development of their mental parts could be carried has ever been essayed. In no other field of human endeavor of anything like equal importance has there been so little understanding applied to the tasks.
Now that we are beginning to know something of the laws of inheritance, it is high time for us deliberately to consider what our relations to the organic world are hereafter to be, and how we can guide ourselves in these relations by the light of modern learning. It is in the first place clear that the subjugation of the earth which necessarily accompanies the development of civilization, inevitably tends to sweep away a large part of the organic life which is not adopted and protected by man. Already, with the mere beginnings of this culture, we find that several of the large beasts and birds and a number of plants have been destroyed. New as civilization is on this continent, it has already brought the moose and the buffalo to a point where they are on the verge of extinction, and in the Old World the wild ancestors of the horse and the bull have quite disappeared from the wildernesses. Within a few centuries the greater birds, the Dinornis and Epiornis, as well as the interesting Dodo, have vanished from the southern isles which they inhabited. In the century to come we can foresee that this process of effacement of the ancient life will go on with accelerated velocity.
It seems inevitable that man should play the part of a destroyer. It is his place to break down the ancient order determined by what we call natural forces and in its stead to set a new accord in which the economy of the earth will be in a great measure controlled by his intelligence. Even those who most keenly sympathize with the wilderness life, are not likely to object to the changes which are necessary to open the way for this new dispensation. They may fairly ask, however, that hereafter the displacement of the ancient life shall be brought about with foresight and with the exercise of the utmost care in minimizing the sacrifices which we are called on to make. Naturalists may fairly ask men to remember that each of these species which we are forced to destroy represents the toil and pains of unimaginable ages, and that when these creatures are swept away they can never be recovered. Whatever new species may come, by processes of evolution from the life which remains after we have done our will with the wilderness, we shall never see again the forms which have passed away.
It is the worst feature of the destruction which man is bringing upon the organic species that the assault is most effective on those varieties which are most interesting both from an intellectual and an economic point of view. To take only the case of the great birds which have recently been swept from the earth, we see clearly that we have with them lost precious opportunities for enlarging our understanding of nature and have at the same time been deprived of the chance to domesticate creatures which would most likely have proved of much economic value. With each of these species which disappears we lose what may be a precious chance of adding to the small store of animals or plants which may contribute to the well being of our kind. These considerations make it plain that it is our duty by our civilization, to do all in our power to save these species and at the same time to essay their domestication, for only when under the protection of man can they be regarded as insured from destruction.
The task of bringing wild creatures into our domestic fold is one of very varied difficulty. Many plants are easily reconciled to the conditions of our fields and gardens: they may be said to welcome the care of man which insures them some protection from the fierce contention with other life or with the elements to which they are exposed in their natural conditions. Only here and there is it necessary by careful breeding to develop domesticated habits to the point where the forms will endure culture. Where the task is, however, to make avail of some natural peculiarity which promises to be useful, but is not yet of economic value, it may require a hundred generations of careful selection to develop and fix desirable features. We are, however, in all cases sure in these half-animate species, the plants, that they will prove perfectly obedient to our will. It is otherwise, however, with wild animals. Here we have to deal with intelligences in which the most striking characteristic is an abiding fear of the master, and a general indisposition to submit to any other control than that of their native wild instincts. The measure in which this wilderness habit, bred of long contention with enemies, prevails in animals varies greatly. Some, as for instance the elephant, at once reconcile themselves to human association, and directly on being made slaves accept the mastery of their captors. Others, such as the zebra, remain for a lifetime possessed of their original savage nature. A large part of the labor which has been given to the work of domesticating by the breeder's art the score of mammalian species which man has won to his use has been devoted to this task of expelling the wilderness motives from these forms. The cases in which he has failed to accomplish this end are those in which the savage humor has persisted for so long a time that he has been forced to abandon his effort to subdue the stock.
It seems likely that at the present time we have acquired from the wilderness nearly all the animals which are capable of adoption by such brief and individual experiments as have won to us the species which constitute our flocks and herds. Our future gains will have to be made by far more deliberate and continuous endeavors. These tasks of the hereafter will have to be undertaken in a way which will insure a continuity of effort such as can only be attained by permanently organized associations which may continue their essays if needs be for centuries. The work should be done with two distinct ends in view: first, to determine what members of the wilderness life may be made to contribute to the needs of man; and, second, how far it is possible so to develop the intelligence of the lower animals in general as to make them better fitted for companionship with our kind. This last-named line of experiments needs to be undertaken not only with reference to varieties now wild, but also upon our most domesticated forms, for, as before remarked, we have not begun to explore the possibilities of intellectual gain, even in those species which have been the longest associated with us.
In considering a list of the creatures which might well be made the subjects of trial with a view to their domestication, we find ourselves at once embarrassed by the exceeding wealth of our opportunities. It is impossible within the limits of this article to treat, even in the catalogue way, a vast number of forms which commend themselves for experiment. Something of the richness of the field, however, may be judged by noting some of the more conspicuous forms, as we shall now proceed to do. Beginning with the insects, the lowest forms in the animal series which have proved in any sense domesticable, we note that wide as is this realm of life it offers but few opportunities such as the domesticator seeks. Of the million or more species in the group, only two, the honey-bee and the silkworm, have been won to man's use, and there is not another wild form which the naturalist can suggest as likely to prove a valuable captive. The only use which we are probably to find for these creatures is where, by some form of culture, we may induce predatory or parasitic species more effectively to do their destructive work on noxious forms of the class. So well fitted is this group for purposes of self-defence that however much man may interfere with the course of nature, he is not likely to sweep any of their multitudinous kinds from the earth, though experience clearly shows that by the methods above mentioned they may be greatly reduced.
It is among the vertebrate forms alone that we find animals which by their characteristics of body or of mind are well fitted to have an economic or social value. There alone are the qualities of flesh or of the external covering such as to make them in a high measure valuable, and the instincts of a nature to fit them for association in man's work. Even among these back-boned animals we find that the lower groups—the fishes, the amphibians, and the reptiles—promise little in the way of gains as compared with the higher groups, the birds and mammals; yet even among these inferior creatures we find certain forms which give promise of improvement under the care of man. Some of the fishes readily learn to come to any one from whom they may expect food, and they indicate in other ways that they are capable of a certain intellectual advance. The frogs and toads readily learn to recognize a master. Several of the larger members of the first-named forms could advantageously be bred so as to be very useful as food. The common hop toad of our gardens is an admirable helper in restraining the excessive development of certain slugs and insects. The tortoises and turtles contain a number of species which are edible, and many of the forms invite the breeder's care. It is, however, when we ascend in the type of vertebrates to the level of the birds that we find the great array of creatures which are worth considering as members of our civilization.
Nearly all the birds except those of prey and those which haunt the seas can easily be accustomed to man. A few of these species which have been reduced to captivity have not become sufficiently reconciled to the unnatural conditions to maintain their breeding habits. Even in these cases, however, it seems likely that in spacious aviaries, at least in climates to which they are accustomed, it will be possible to secure the continuous reproduction of the kind, on which all development by the breeder's art depends.
The ease with which most birds, except those of prey, may be reduced to domestication is due to the remarkable intensity of their sympathetic motives. In this regard the class is much more advanced than that of the mammalia to which we ourselves belong. Accustomed as they are to ceaseless and active intercourse with each other by means of their varied calls, largely endowed with the faculty of attention, and provided with fairly retentive memories, the birds are, on the average, nearer in the qualities of their intelligence to man than are many of the species in his own class. It was long ago remarked that the birds of remote islands, such as the Galapagos, which had never seen man, were at first not in the least afraid of him. It required, however, but a few generations of experience to show these creatures that the unfeathered biped was a singularly dangerous animal, and they at once and permanently adopted the habit of avoiding him. This incident of itself shows how quick birds are to learn certain large and important lessons. We see also the reverse of this education in fear in the rapid way in which birds become tame when they are secured from persecution. Wherever shooting is stopped over a considerable territory the birds rapidly become more tolerant of man's presence. Even among migratory species the individuals appear to learn that certain places where they are protected may be resorted to with safety.
Because of their freedom of flight it is in all cases difficult to bring our perching birds into such relations with the domiciles of man that they can be truly domesticated. The success, however, which has been attained in the case of the pigeons, which have been so far made captive by the change of their instincts that they never depart far from their cotes, seems to indicate that this tendency again to go wild is by no means ineradicable. In other instances it will probably disappear as it has in this by long-continued care in breeding. Our successes with the geese, ducks, and swans, all of which belong to genera characterized by the migratory habit, show how readily in the course of time the old native instincts may be subordinated to the will of man. Although the degree of the difficulty which will be encountered in taming many wild forms may be far greater than that which has been met in those which we have domesticated, there is no reason whatever to believe that in any case it will be insuperable.
While all the creatures of the wilderness may by the breeder's art be induced to vary in the conditions of captivity, the birds have shown themselves more plastic in our hands than any other animals. In almost every brood we find individuals possessing marked peculiarities of form or plumage. In their mental qualities also there is a like range of variation. Seizing upon these, the fancier can guide the quick succeeding generations so as to cause the form to depart in the course of a few years very far from its original aspect. With each step in this succession of changes the readiness with which the species responds to selective care increases. The results which have been attained in our barnyard fowl and with the pigeons show how admirably these creatures are fitted to obey the will of man when he has a mind to take charge of their destiny.
Perhaps the greatest conquests which we have yet to make among the birds will be won from the species which have the habit of dwelling mainly or altogether upon the ground. These, as experience shows, can be more readily brought to the uses of man than the species which are free by their strong wings to wander through the realms of air. There are very many of these ground birds the domestication of which has never been fairly essayed. There are perhaps a hundred species which in one part of the world or another might afford valuable additions to our resources, those of ornament or of economy, and yet within three centuries only one of these, the turkey, has been brought to the domesticated state. The greater part of our game birds, such as the quail, pheasants, and partridges, though they appear on slight experiments to be untamable, could probably by continuous effort be reduced to perfect domestication. For ages they have been harried by man in a manner which has insured a great fear of his presence. We have indeed through our hunting instituted a very thorough-going and continuous system of selection which has tended to affirm in these creatures an intense fear of our kind. Only the more timorous have escaped us, and year after year we proceed to remove with the gun the individuals which by chance are born with any considerable share of the primitive tolerance of man's presence. It is not to be expected that the chicks of these species will at once accept relations with our kind. The domestication of many of these forms is to be desired, not only on account of the excellent quality of their flesh, but because of their beauty and the charm which their quick intelligences afford them. Whoever has watched them in their care of their young or their other social habits has observed features which indicate a possible development under domestication perhaps greater than that which we have attained in any other of our feathered captives.
It seems most important that experiments in the further domestication of birds should be first addressed to certain, large ground forms which are now in more or less danger of extinction. The newly instituted industry of ostrich farming has probably insured this the noblest remnant of the old avian life from destruction; but the emu and the cassowary are still among the diminishing and endangered forms which unless taken into the human fold are likely soon to pass away. The brush turkey and the bower bird of Australia, two of the most curious inhabitants of that realm of strange life, appear to have qualities of mind and body which would make them readily domesticable and which would cause them to be among the most interesting of our feathered captives.
Among the aquatic birds there are many species which are as promising subjects for domestication as any which have been made captive; these if subjugated would prove great additions to our resources of ornament and use. Thus the eider duck, so well known for its wonderful soft down which is plucked from the breast to make a covering for the eggs, though a marine species, would prove domesticable at least on the seashore of high latitudes. There are many other varieties of the family, such as the canvas-back which is so highly esteemed for its flesh, that would likewise afford very interesting subjects for experiment.
The wading birds are characteristically very wild and range over a wide field; yet the flamingoes, the herons, and their kindred could probably be brought into at least as near an approach to reconciliation with man as their relations the storks. The comfortable relations which have been established between the last-named species and humankind in northern Europe is probably in nowise due to the peculiarly tamable nature of the bird, but rather to the fact that certain superstitious fancies on the part of the featherless biped led him to protect the feathered visitor of his roofs and chimneys. Should it be desirable to break up the habit of migration in these or other birds which are now accustomed to range up and down the meridians, there seems no reason to doubt that the change could be accomplished with the same ease that it has been in the case of the tamed geese and swans. Experience has shown that with these forms, which probably have not been associated with men for more than three or four thousand years, the migratory instinct, which appears one of the strongest of motives, has utterly disappeared. Not only do they no longer heed the cries of the wild birds of their kind as they fly away on their annual journeys, but they have, through the changes in form induced by their quiet life, lost the power to rise far above the earth. They are even more effectively tamed than are their captors.
Owing to their singularly perfect protection against the cold, and also perhaps to the quickness of their wits, birds are more readily transferable from one clime to another than are any other animals. The feathered tenants of our barnyards are, except perhaps the aquatic species and the turkey, all from the tropical realm. Experiments with various other wild forms go to show that there are very many other tropical species which will prove to have an equal tolerance of high latitudes. If this be true we may fairly look to the domestication of the varied bird life of the equatorial regions for the enrichment of our northern lands. Even when it may not be desirable to bring these species to the state of complete subjugation they may be introduced on something like the terms which have been given and accepted in the case of the so-called English pheasant, which has brought to the high north of Britain and some parts of this country an element of grace which is afforded by no indigenous form of North America or Europe. There are hundreds of beautiful tropical species which await reconciliation with men; they have that quality of sympathy which affords the natural foundations for the contract, but this has in no case been availed of except when the creatures, in addition to their æsthetic charm, have possessed some economic value. There as elsewhere in the matter of domestication the commercial motive has controlled our action.
In forming our societies as we are in time to do, account must be taken of the sympathetic value of its elements, reckoning among these the animals which the system brings in contact with men. Much of the culture which has served to lift our race above its ancient savagery has been derived from the influence of domesticated animals; in proportion as these creatures have sympathetically responded to our care we have been thereby educated and our spiritual development advanced. So far as in our further choice of animals which are to be associated with ourselves we are guided by a desire to extend this work, we may well turn our attention towards the birds, for in that group we may find a greater number of species which have attained the physical beauty which attracts and the mental qualities which may endear them to mankind. They can give us nothing that can ever come so close to us as the dog—the unique gift of the wilderness—but they may afford a host of forms to enrich our lives.