Much has depended on the specialization of the horse into different breeds, made possible by the iron shoe. By reconciling the creature to uses—agriculture, which depends on draught animals, and the commerce of importance, which can only be effected by means of wagons—the rapid economic development of our civilization was made possible. By developing a horse capable of bearing an armored man, Europe was brought into a condition in which organized armies took the place of mere forays, and so the development of centralized states was promoted. In the warfare between the Mohammedans and the Christian states of Europe, in the campaigns with the Turks and the Saracens, it is easy to see that the powerful breeds of horses reared in western and northern Europe were a mighty element in determining the issue of the contest. The battles of these momentous campaigns represented, not only a struggle between the Christian Aryans and the Semitic followers of Mahomet, but, in quite as great a degree, the war was waged between the light and agile steeds of the Orient and the massive and powerful animals that bore the mail-clad warriors of the West. On the field of Tours, when the fate of Christian Europe for hours hung in the balance, we may well believe that the strong and enduring horses of the northern cavalry did much to give victory to our race.

Along with our general account of the place of the horse in civilization, it is fit to give something to the story of his near, though inferior, kinsmen, the ass and the mule, both of which have played a subordinate, though important, part in the same field of endeavor in which the nobler species has done so much for man. The original progenitors of our donkeys differed from the ancestral form of the horse by variations of good specific value. So far as we can determine from visible features, these forms were more distinctly parted than the dog and the wolf, or either of these animals from the jackal. Nevertheless, these equine forms are clearly closely akin, for they may be bred together. Although the original stock of the ass may possibly have been lost, it seems most likely that the wild forms which exist in Asia have not wandered off from captivity, but are the remnants of the original wilderness form.

It appears likely that the two domesticated equine species have been under the care of man for about the same length of time; but the difference in their condition, and in the place which they hold in civilization, is very great. As we have seen, the horse has been made to vary in a singular measure, its form and other qualities changing to meet the need or fancy of its master. Its humbler kinsman has remained almost unchanged. Except small differences in size, the donkeys in different parts of the world are singularly alike. In part this lack of change may be explained by the relative neglect with which this species has been treated. From the point of view of the breeder it has perhaps been the least cared for of any of our completely domesticated animals. In some parts of the world, as for instance in Spain, where a long-continued effort has been made to develop the animal for interbreeding with the horse, the result shows that the form is relatively inelastic. It is doubtful if any conceivable amount of care would develop such variations as the horse now exhibits.

The principal hinderances to the general acceptation of the donkey as a help-meet to man are found in its small size and slow motion. These qualities make the creature unserviceable in active war or in agriculture, and they seem to be so fixed in the blood that they are not to any extent corrigible. So long as pack animals were in general use, and in those parts of the world where the conditions of culture cause this method of transportation to be retained, the qualities of the donkey have proved and are still found of value. The animal can carry a relatively heavy burden, being in such tasks, for its weight, more efficient than the horse. It is less liable to stampedes. It learns a round of duty much more effectively than that creature, and can subsist by browsing on coarse herbage, where a horse would be so far weakened as to become useless. Thus, in developing the mines in the unimproved wilderness of the Cordilleras, where ores of the precious metals have to be carried for considerable distances, trains of "burros" are often employed. The animals quickly learn the nature of their task, and will do their work with but little guidance from man.

In general we may say that the donkeys belong to a vanishing state of human culture, to the time before carriage-ways existed. Now that civilization goes on wheels, they seem likely to have an ever-decreasing value. A century ago they were almost everywhere in common use. At the present time there are probably millions of people in the United States to whom the animal is known only by description. In a word, the creature marks a stage in the development of our industries which is passing away as rapidly as that in which the spinning-wheel and the hand-loom played a part.

As the use of the ass in the economic arts began to decline, the mule or hybrid progeny of this creature and the horse has progressively increased. Although the value of this mongrel has been known, particularly in southern Europe, from very early days, its most extensive employment has been found in the old slave-holding States of the Federal union. The custom of using mules has been almost unknown in England, and has never been generally adopted in the northern part of the United States. It appears to have been introduced into southern regions by the Spaniards and the French, and there to have spread, because of the peculiar fitness of the creature to the climate and the employment it had to endure in that part of America. The mule has the peculiar advantage that it is on the average as large as the horse, is nearly as quick-footed when walking, and has at the same time a considerable share of the patient endurance to hard labor and scant fare which characterizes the donkeys. It matures somewhat more speedily than its nobler kinsman, being ready to meet severe strains perhaps a year earlier. Unless unconscionably abused, its period of fitness for hard work endures about one-third longer, often lasting for thirty years. It is singularly exempt from disease, its sturdy frame withstanding rude usage until the old age time.

The mule is especially interesting to the naturalist for the reason that it affords the only certain case in which a hybrid has proved decidedly serviceable to man. It is not unlikely that a similar mixture of the blood of two species occurs in our ordinary cats, and it may exist in the case of the dog and in some of the domestic birds; but so far as we know, there has been no other useful result from the hybridizing, if it has occurred. Moreover, the mule is unique for the fact that the animal is distinctly stronger for its weight, and more enduring than either species which his blood combines. In fact, there is no product of man's industry in relation to domesticated animals which is more interesting than this singular creature. At present, its use appears to be going out of vogue; the evidence goes to show that the hybrid has no place in the affections of mankind, and that it is only likely to be kept in its use in tropical countries, and particularly in regions where the beasts have to be under the care of slaves or other negligent folk. It is a singular fact in connection with this hybrid, that it is nearly absolutely sterile, there being only two or three cases on record in which they have proved fecund. It seems, however, possible that if these rare instances of continued breeding were to be duly used, an intermediate species might be permanently established. This is, indeed, one of the most important lines for experiment which could be undertaken by an institution devoted to the study of problems relating to domestication.

It is commonly thought that a mule is a stupider creature than the horse; but I have never found a person, who was well acquainted with both animals, who hesitated to place the mongrel in the intellectual grade above the pure-blood animal. There is, it is true, a decided difference in the mental qualities of the two creatures. The mule is relatively undemonstrative, its emotions being sufficiently expressed by an occasional bray—a mode of utterance which he has inherited from the humbler side of his house in a singularly unchanged way. Even in the best humor it appears sullen, and lacks those playful capers which give such expression to the well-bred horse, particularly in its youthful state. It is evident, however, that it discriminates men and things more clearly than does the horse. In going over difficult ground it studies its surface, and picks its way so as to secure a footing in an almost infallible manner. Even when loaded with a pack, it will consider the incumbrance and not so often try to pass where the burden will become entangled with fixed objects.

Mules soon learn the difference between those who have the care of them and strangers. It is a well-known fact that trouble awaits the wight who unwarily ventures to take from the stall a mule which has not the advantage of his acquaintance. On this account they are rarely stolen. Even in the daytime they are often dangerous for strangers to approach, and the most of the ill-usage which men receive from their heels arises where unwitting people venture to treat them as they would horses. Mules are much less liable to panic-fear than the most of our domesticated animals, yet, when kept in the herded way, they occasionally become stampeded. Many a soldier of our Civil War, where mules played a large part in the campaigns, doubtless remembers the mad outbreaks of these creatures from their corrals, when they went charging through the army with a fury which, if directed against an enemy, would have been almost as effective as a cavalry charge.

It is interesting to note that mules have a greater disposition to adopt a leader in their movements than we note in either of the species whence they come. In the old days when mules were plentifully bred in Kentucky, and taken thence for sale to the plantation States, they went forth in droves, commonly under the leadership of a bell horse, or, by preference, a mare, which it was quite the custom to choose of a white color. In the course of a few hours the creatures would learn to know their guide, and to follow the leader with so little trouble that two men could conduct a throng of several hundred. Nevertheless, if the foremost mule of the procession turned aside, all the others would blindly follow him in the manner of a flock of sheep.

I recall an amusing instance of this "follow-my-leader" motive which occurred many years ago in a way somewhat personal to myself, in southern Kentucky. Engaged in survey work, I was passing along a quiet road when in the distance I heard a thunder of hoofs, and in a moment saw a great drove of mules, the appointed leader of which, a man on a white horse, had fallen to the rear of the column. The creatures, thinking that it was their duty to overtake the missing master, were going on the full run. Heeding the shouts of the troubled herder, I turned my wagon across the road, which, being at that point very narrow, was effectually barricaded by the vehicle. Although the rush was so wild that the brutes nearly overset my "outfit," they were brought to a full stop. Unhappily, on one side of the road and one hundred feet or so from it, there was a comfortably built southern house, with a broad gallery extending along the front; while in the door of the mansion were some women who had been attracted by the tumult. No sooner had the mob of mules been brought to a state of surging quiet, than one of the creatures jumped the picket fence, and started for the open house-door, thinking, perhaps, that he would find some peace of life in what probably seemed to him his accustomed barn. In much less time than it takes to tell it, a hundred or more mules were on the gallery, the floor of which gave way beneath their weight; they quickly broke down the columns which supported the roof, so that the whole structure at once became a heap of wood and mules. The unhappy proprietor of the drove, in his consternation, forgot even to swear—an art which I have never known on any other occasion to pass from a mule-driver; and, sitting on his white horse, he lifted his hands like an oriental in prayer, and said to me meekly, "Did you ever in all your life?" I assured him that I had never, and went my way, leaving him to settle an interesting case of damages with the owner of the mansion.

In considering the general influence of the horse and its kindred forms on human culture, we clearly perceive that we are now attaining a time when the machinery of civilization is to depend in a much less degree than of old on the help which these creatures give to man. Even fifty years ago the horse was far more necessary to the work of our kind than it is at present. Going back a hundred years, we perceive that the population of the civilized world could not possibly have been maintained, if by some disease all the horses had been swept away. Such a calamity in the year 1800 would have led to the depopulation of almost all the cities of the interior country, famine would have ravaged our States, and the whole economic system of society would have had to be reconstructed. Now the greater part of the work which of old had to be done by horses, can, at a slight increase of cost, be effected by mechanical engines. Ploughing, except on steep hillsides and in very stony ground, can be cheaply and effectively done by steam. The same agent can propel the harvesters and work the threshing machines. Even farmers who till fields of no great extent find it desirable to do much of their work by steam-engines, for the reason that fuel is less costly than horse feed. An interesting instance to show how far mechanical inventions have taken the place of horsed wagons in the work of civilized communities was afforded by the horse distemper which swept over the country in 1872. During the week or more in which this epidemic was at the worst, the State of Massachusetts was practically unhorsed, yet the greater part of the necessary business, that required to bring provisions to the town, was effected by means of the railways. The same incident shows, however, in another way, how absolutely necessary this animal is, in certain parts of our work. For the great Boston fire, which occurred at that time, was doubtless due to the fact that, owing to the sickness of the horses, an effort was made to drag the engines by hand-power, with the result that they came upon the ground so slowly as to give the fire a chance to become an uncontrollable conflagration.

In the present state of our arts there is one great occupation which we cannot conceive to be carried on without the services of horses. This is war. It is hardly too much to say that all our highly elaborated military system has depended for its development, as it does for its maintenance, on the transportation value of horses. Much has been said of late as to the use of bicycles as adjuncts to armies, and in a certain limited way they will doubtless prove serviceable in future campaigns; but no one who has had any experience of military duty, with its work across tilled fields and through forests, can imagine a man on a wheel rendering any very effective service except under peculiar conditions. Moreover, no ordnance corps can do its appointed work in the rear of a line of battle without sending its wagons across country and over ground which no unhorsed vehicle could traverse.

The mark of the old utility of the animal in varied employment is retained in our use of the term horse-power in measuring the energy of engines. That gauge of strength of old determined what man could do in the severest taxes upon the forces at his command. In attaining the point where, owing to the possession of horses, he could use this standard, he won a great way beyond the station of his ancestors, who had but the strength of men at their command. Modern invention, by giving us heat-engines, has made the way for an advance. In another century, or even in another generation, the horse may, save for the uses of war, be confined to the position of a luxury and an ornament.

THE FLOCKS AND HERDS: BEASTS FOR
BURDEN, FOOD, AND RAIMENT

Effect of this Group of Animals on Man.—First Subjugations.—Basis of Domesticability.—Horned Cattle.—Wool-bearing Animals.—Sheep and Goats.—Camels: their Limitation.—Elephants: Ancient History; Distribution; Intelligence; Use in the Arts; Need of True Domestication.—Pigs: their Peculiar Economic Value; Modern Varieties; Mental Qualities.—Relation of the Development of Domesticable Animals to the Time of Man's Appearance on the Earth.

It is not too much to say that the opportunity to go forward on the paths of culture, at least the chance to advance any considerable distance beyond the estate of primitive men, depends in a considerable measure upon what the wilderness may offer in the way of domesticable beasts of burden. Where such exist we find that the folk who dwell with them in any land are almost certain to have made great advances. Where the surrounding nature, however rich, denies this boon, we find that men, however great their natural abilities may appear to be, exhibit a retarded development. Thus in North America, where there was no domesticable beast of burden, the Indians, though an able folk, remain savages. So, too, in central and southern Africa, where the mammalian life, though rich, affords no large forms which tolerate captivity, the people have failed to attain any considerable culture. On the other hand, in the great continent of the Old World, where the horse, the ass, the buffalo, the camel, and the elephant existed in the primitive wilds, men rose swiftly toward the civilized station.

The immediate effect arising from the possession of beasts of burden is greatly to enlarge the scope and educative value of human labor. A primitive agriculture, sufficient to provide for the needs of a people, can be carried on by man's labor alone, though the resulting food-supply has generally to be supplemented by the chase. Rarely, if ever, are the products of the soil thus won sufficient in quantity to be made the basis of any commerce. Such conveyance as is necessary among the people who are served by their own hands alone, has to be accomplished by boat transportation or by the backs of men. The immediate effect of using beasts for burden is the introduction of some kind of plough, which spares the labor of men in delving the ground, and the use of pack animals, which, employed in the manner of caravans, greatly promotes the extension of trade. A great range of secondary influences is found in the development of the arts of war, by which people who have become provided with pack or saddle animals are able to prevail over their savage neighbors, and thus to extend the realm of a nascent civilization. Yet another influence, arising from the domestication of large beasts, arises from the fact that these creatures are important storehouses of food; their flesh spares men the labor of the chase, and so promotes those regularities of employment which lead men into civilized ways of life. In fact, by making these creatures captive, men unintentionally brought themselves out of their ancient savagery. They were led into systematic and forethoughtful courses, and thus found a training which they could in no other way have secured.

The first and simplest use made of the animals from which man derives strength appears to have been brought about by the subjugation of wild cattle—the bulls and buffaloes. Several wild varieties of the bovine tribe were originally widely disseminated in Europe and Asia, and these forms must have been frequent objects of chase by the ancient hunters. Although in their adult state these animals were doubtless originally intractable, the young were mild-mannered, and, as we can readily conceive, must often have been led captive to the abodes of the primitive people. As is common with all gregarious animals which have long acknowledged the authority of their natural herdsmen, the dominant males of their tribe, these creatures lent themselves to domestication. Even the first generation of the captives reared by hand probably showed a disposition to remain with their masters; and in a few generations this native impulse might well have been so far developed that the domestic herd was established, affording perhaps at first only flesh and hides, and leading the people who made them captives to a nomadic life—that constant search for fresh fields and pastures new which characterizes people who are supported by their flocks and herds.

It is a curious fact that the kindred of the buffaloes and bisons differ exceedingly in the measure of their domesticability. Thus, the ordinary buffalo of Asia, though a dull brute, is very subjugable, even in the literal sense, for he makes a tolerable beast for the plough and bears the yoke with due patience. His African kinsman, on the other hand, is perhaps the most unconquerable of all the large wild animals. The late Sir Samuel Baker, in answer to my question as to what wild form was the most to be feared in combat, unhesitatingly answered, "The African buffalo, the bulls of which charge home upon any aggressor with an immediate and determined fury, which often enables them to kill the hunter after they have been shot through the brain." Our American bison, though a much milder-spirited beast, seems also to be essentially undomesticable for the reason that he cannot be taught to subordinate his desires to the will of man. He can readily be brought to the point where he will tolerate captivity; but if, when engaged in ploughing, it occurs to him that he needs water, he will straightway go in search of it, not in a vicious, but in a perfectly obdurate manner. This quality of mind appears to be accountable for the failure of the many experiments which have been made to domesticate this interesting American form.

The limitations of the domesticating work, the fact that as between two kindred species the one has been chosen by man and the other left, indicate the truth—which is generally of much importance—that the intellectual qualities of animals commonly differ more than their frames. This is a part of the larger fact that with the advance in organization the individuality, as regards the whole spiritual field in persons and species alike, becomes greater. The culmination of the tendency is seen in man, where, with bodies which do not vary much, we have an almost infinite range in individual qualities.

This is perhaps a good place in which to make answer to the suggestion that the domesticability of the animal species is in inverse proportion to their native courage and independence of mind. The reader will see how fallacious is this common notion if he will consider the quality of the supremely domesticated creature, the dog. There is probably no beast which has a larger share of natural courage and of independent motive. When not under the control of their masters, they have perhaps as free a contact with nature as any creature in the world; the same thing may be said of the elephant, which, next to the dog, lends himself most obediently to the requirements of the master. Owing to the power of his huge body and to the ease with which he wins his food, he is in his native wilds the least dependent of land animals. Except from the assaults of man, he has nothing to fear; yet when enslaved he at once surrenders himself to his captors. In general, it may be said that the true gauge of domesticability is the sympathetic motive, that strange outgoing spirit which leads the mind to recognize the life about it and to accept that life as a part of its own. In other words, the domesticability of man is due to his willingness to enter into social relations and rests on the same foundation that supports his intercourse with the lower animals he has won to his use.

It is probable that the first use which was made of beasts of burden, in ways in which their strength became useful to man, was in packing the tents and other valuables of their masters as they moved from place to place. Even to this day in certain parts of the world bulls and oxen serve for such purposes. In fact the nomadic life, a fashion of society which is enforced wherever people subsist from their cattle alone, leads inevitably to such use of the beasts. In the southern Appalachian district of this country there remain traces of this service rendered by bulls and oxen. These creatures, provided with a kind of pack saddle, are occasionally used in conveying the dried roots of the ginseng, beeswax, feathers, and the peltries which are gathered by the inhabitants of remote districts, not accessible to carriages, to the markets of the outer world. All the varieties of ordinary cattle could be made to serve as burden-carriers, and they doubtless would be continued to be used for saddle purposes in one way or another but for the wide use of the horse, a creature very much better adapted for carrying weight. The cloven foot of the bulls and buffaloes gives a weakness to the extremities which will quickly lead to disease in case they are forced to carry heavy loads such as the horse or ass may safely bear.

The help which our bovine servants afford us by the power which they exert in traction, as in drawing ploughs, sleds, or wagons, appears to have been first rendered long after their introduction to the ways of man. The first of these uses in which the drawing strength of these animals was made serviceable appears to have been in the work of ploughing. In primitive days and with primitive tools, hand delving was a sore task. The inventive genius who first contrived to overturn the earth by means of the forked limb of a tree, shaped in the semblance of a plough and drawn by oxen, began a great revolution in the art of agriculture. To this unknown genius we may award a place among the benefactors of mankind, quite as distinguished as that which is occupied by the equally unknown inventors of the arts of making fire or of smelting ores. After the experience with the strength of oxen had been won from the work of ploughing, it was easy to pass to the other grades of their employment, where they were made to draw carriages.

Next after the contribution which the kindred of the bulls, have made by their strength, we must set that which has come from their milk. Although this substance can be obtained in small quantities from several other domesticated animals, the species of the genus Bos alone have yielded it in sufficient quantities greatly to affect the development of man. It is difficult to measure the importance of the addition to the diet, both of savage and civilized peoples, which milk affords. It is a fact well known to physiologists that in its simple form this substance is a complete food, capable when taken alone of sustaining life and insuring a full development of the body. It is indeed a natural contrivance exactly adapted to afford those materials which are required for the development and restoration of creatures essentially akin to our own species. Those races which avail themselves extensively of it in their dietary are the strongest and most enduring the world has known. The Aryan folk are indeed characteristically drinkers of milk and users of its products, cheese and butter. It may well be that their power is in some measure due to this resource.

In our horned cattle man won to domestication creatures which were admirably suited to promote his advancement from savagery to civilization. Indeed, the possession of these animals appears to have been a prime condition of his advancement. With them, however, as with the camel, there came little in the way of those sympathetic qualities which have made it possible for our race to establish affectionate relations with other captive forms. Long intercourse with man has, it is true, somewhat diminished the wildness of these creatures, though the males remain the most indomitably ferocious of all our servants. The truth seems to be that the bovine animals have but little intellectual capacity, and it has in no wise served the purposes of man to develop such powers of mind as they have. We have ever been given to asking little of them, save docility. This we have in a high measure won with our milch cows, which of all our domesticated creatures are perhaps the most absolutely submissive; the more highly developed of them being little more than passive producers of milk, almost without a trace of instincts or emotions except such as pertain to reproduction and to feeding. It is a noteworthy fact that in all the great literature of anecdote concerning our domesticated animals, there is hardly a trace of stories which tend to show the existence of sagacity in our common cattle.

It is evident that the variability of our domesticated bovines, as far as their bodies are concerned, is very great. Between the ancient aurochs and the more highly cultivated of its descendants, the difference is as great as that which separates any other of our captive animals from their wild ancestors. In size, shape, in flesh-and milk-giving qualities, the departure from the old form of the wilderness is remarkable. Moreover, at the present time these diverse breeds of horned cattle are rapidly being multiplied, the distinctive forms probably being twice as numerous as they were at the beginning of the present century. The process of selection has led to some very wide diversifications of the body. The horns, which in the wild state are invariably well developed, and which in the cattle of our Western plains attain very great size, have in certain breeds altogether disappeared, and in their place there sometimes comes a remarkable crest of bony matter which does not project beyond the skin which covers the head. If such differences occurred in the wild state, they would be regarded as separating the two types of animals widely from each other.

In treating the wool-bearing animals along with beasts of burden, we make a somewhat fanciful classification which yet is not quite without reason. By long training man has brought these species to the state where their covering of wool or hair, once a coating only sufficient to afford protection from the weather, has become a very serious load. In certain of our highly developed varieties the annual coat is so far increased that the creature loses a large part of its bulk after the shearer has done his work. Each year's fleece often amounts in weight to eight to twelve pounds, and in its lifetime the animal may yield a mass of wool far exceeding its weight of flesh and bones in any time of its life. When the fleece is mature the animal is often burdened with a load about as heavy in proportion to his size as is a horse by the weight of its rider and accoutrements.

As a flesh producer, particularly in sterile fields, sheep are more valuable than our horned cattle. They mature more rapidly, attaining their adult size and reproducing their kind in less than two years, so that in many parts of the world it is possible to obtain a larger quantity of flesh from poor pasturages with sheep than with any other of our domesticated animals. Their principal value, however, has been from the means they afforded whereby men in high latitudes have obtained warm clothing. Before the domestication of these creatures, peoples who had to endure the winter of high latitudes were forced to rely upon hides for covering—a form of clothing which is clumsy, uncleanly, and which the chase could not supply in any considerable quantity. Owing to its peculiar structure, the hair of the sheep makes the strongest and warmest covering, when rendered into cloth, which has ever been devised for the use of man. The value of this contribution is directly related to the conditions of climate. In the intertropical regions the sheep plays no part of importance. In high latitudes it is of the utmost value to man. No other of our domesticated creatures, except the camel, is so specially adapted to the needs which peculiarities of climate impose upon their possessors.

The relations of the goat to mankind are in certain ways peculiar. The creature has long been subjugated, probably having come into the human family before the dawn of history. It has been almost as widely disseminated, among barbarian and civilized peoples alike, as the sheep. It readily cleaves to the household, and exhibits much more intelligence than the other members of our flocks and herds. It yields good milk, the flesh is edible, though in the old animals not savory, and the hair can be made to vary in a larger measure than any of our animals which are shorn. Yet this creature has never obtained the place in relation to man to which it seems entitled. Only here and there is it kept in considerable numbers or made the basis of extensive industries. The reason for this seems to be that these animals cannot readily be kept in flocks in the manner of sheep. They are only partly gregarious, and tend to stray from the owner's keeping. There seems reason also to believe that they cannot easily be made to vary in other characteristics except their hairy covering at the will of the breeder, and so varieties cannot be formed, as is the case with sheep, to suit each peculiarity of soil and climate. Thus in Europe, where it would be easy to name a score of distinct breeds of sheep, each peculiarly well suited to the conditions of the country where it had been developed, the goats are singularly alike. The original stock of these creatures appears to have been adapted to feeding on the scant herbage which develops in rocky and mountainous countries. They do not seem able to make the perfect use of the resources of a pasture which sheep do. These inherited peculiarities in feeding enable them to pick up a subsistence where they may range over a considerable territory, even where it seems to afford no forms of food for the hungriest animal. Thus in that part of the city of New York known as "Shanty town," goats may be seen in fairly good condition, although the sole source of food, besides a few stray weeds, appears to be the paste of the paper advertisements which they pick from the rocks and fences.

Although goats appear to be characterized by invariable bodies, our sheep are, in physical characteristics, among the most flexible of our domesticated animals. They may by selection readily and rapidly be made to vary as regards the character of their wool, the size and proportion of their muscles, and the quantity and placing of the fat. In all these features they may be fairly blown to and fro by the wind of favor. Between the meagre-bodied merino, with its skeleton-like frame and heavily wrinkled skin bearing a vast burden of long wool, and the heavy Hampshire-downs or South-downs, there is really an immense difference in bodily quality; yet these variations represent only a century or two of careful experiment on the part of the breeders. It seems not improbable that in the present state of this developing art it would be possible, in a hundred years, to reverse the conditions of these two varieties.

Sheep and goats, like the other herbivorous species which are the common tenants of our fields and forests, belong to the great class of dull-witted mammals in which the intellectual processes appear to be almost altogether limited to ancient and simple emotions, such as are inspired by fear or hunger. They are characterized by little individuality of mind, and although the needs of men have not led to any experiment in developing their wits, as in the case of dogs, there is no reason to believe that they afford much foundation for such essays. The present rapid variations in the physical characteristics of our sheep which are induced by the breeder's skill, make it evident that we are far from having attained the maximum profit from these creatures. The goats also give promise, when selective work is carefully done upon them, of giving much more than they now afford to the uses of mankind; but from neither of these forms is there reason to hope, at least on our present lines of experiment, for any considerable gain in the intellectual qualities.

We have already noted the fact that the sheep is especially adapted to serve man in high latitudes, where he has to provide against the winter's cold. The camel is an even more striking instance in which the value of the creature depends upon climatal peculiarities. It is peculiarly fitted, by its ancestral training and development, for the use of men who dwell in arid countries. In the olden days of the later Tertiary epoch, creatures akin to the camels appear to have been widely distributed, and were probably adapted to considerable variations of environment. Within the time of which we know something by history, these forms have been limited to the arid districts of southwestern Asia and northern Africa. It is not certain that we know the originally wild form of either of the two species, the double-humped or single-humped camels. Wild members of each exist, but they may be the descendants of the domesticated forms. It seems probable that long before the building of the Pyramids the people of the deserts had learned how to profit from the very peculiar qualities of this strangely provided beast, which in several distinct ways is singularly fitted to serve the needs of man in arid lands. The large and well-padded foot of this creature is well adapted for treading a surface unsoftened by vegetation. Its peculiar stomach enables it to store water in such a manner that it can go for days without drink. In the humps upon its back, as in natural pack-saddles, it may harvest a share of the nutriment which it obtains from occasional good pasturages, the store being laid away in the form of fat which may return to the blood when the creature would otherwise starve. So important have these peculiarities been found by men who have domesticated the camel, that on them have rested many of the most interesting features of race development in the history of our kind. In the territories along the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, and in a large part of southern and central Asia, the camel has done service to man which elsewhere has been performed by sheep, cattle, and horses. In those parts of the world the share which these domesticated animals have had in the development of man has been relatively small. The camel has given the strength for burdens, hair for clothing, and often flesh to the needy men of the desert.

Although long a captive, and for ages, perhaps, the most serviceable of all the creatures which man has won from the wilds, the camel is still only partly domesticated, having never acquired even the small measure of affection for his master which we find in the other herbivorous animals which have been won to the service of man. The obedience which he renders is but a dull submission to inevitable toil. The intelligence which he shows is very limited, and, so far as I can judge from the accounts of those who have observed him, there is but little variation in his mental qualities. As a whole, the creature appears to be innately the dullest and least improvable of all our servitors. The fact is, this animal belongs to an ancient and lowly type of mammals characterized by relatively small brains, and therefore of weak intelligence; but, for its singular serviceableness in drought-ridden countries, it would probably have been hunted off the earth by the early men, as have been many other remnants of the ancient life.

It is somewhat characteristic of the older forms of animals, those which took shape in the earlier Tertiary periods, that they are less variable than those which acquired their characteristics in times nearer our own. It is a fact well known to the students of paleontology, that species and genera which have been long on the earth are apt to become in a way rigid as regards their qualities of body and mind. It is an interesting fact that, although the camel can readily be transplanted to many other parts of the world, where the physiographic conditions are similar to those of the realm where he has served man so well, he has never been thoroughly successful except in the regions where he has been in use for ages. In the desert regions of the Cordilleras of America, in South Africa, and in Australia, various experiments go to show that the creature could be perfectly reconciled to its environment. Many years ago a lot of camels were brought to the valley of the Rio Grande with a view to their utilization in that region, which closely resembles the desert countries about the Mediterranean. These animals were thoroughly successful in meeting the climatal conditions of the region. They proved as strong and as fertile as in their natural realms. Although it is said they survive to the present day, they have never been of any service to the people.

Although, as before noted, the camel has a certain value for other purposes than conveying burdens, these subsidiary uses are so far limited that the creature is not likely to retain a place in the world after his service in caravans is no longer called for. The rapid recivilization of northern Africa, leading as it does to the development of a railway system in that region, promises to displace this creature from his most trodden ways. It seems likely that the other portions of the desert lands in the old world will soon be brought under the same civilizing influences, the nomadic tribes reduced to a stationary habit of life, and the commerce effected in the modern manner. When this change is brought about, this old-time animal, which but for the care of man would have probably long since passed away, will be likely, save so far as it may be preserved through motives of scientific interest, to join the great array of vanished species.