3. The Taming and the Domestication of Animals[83]
Primitive man was a hunter almost before he had the intelligence to use weapons, and from the earliest times he must have learned something about the habits of the wild animals he pursued for food or for pleasure, or from which he had to escape. It was probably as a hunter that he first came to adopt young animals which he found in the woods or the plains, and made the surprising discovery that these were willing to remain under his protection and were pleasing and useful. He passed gradually from being a hunter to becoming a keeper of flocks and herds. From these early days to the present time, the human race has taken an interest in the lower animals, and yet extremely few have been really domesticated. The living world would seem to offer an almost unlimited range of creatures which might be turned to our profit and as domesticated animals minister to our comfort or convenience. And yet it seems as if there were some obstacle rooted in the nature of animals or in the powers of man, for the date of the adoption by man of the few domesticated species lies in remote, prehistoric antiquity. The surface of the earth has been explored, the physiology of breeding and feeding has been studied, our knowledge of the animal kingdom has been vastly increased, and yet there is hardly a beast bred in the farm-yard today with which the men who made stone weapons were not acquainted and which they had not tamed. Most of the domestic animals of Europe, America, and Asia came originally from Central Asia, and have spread thence in charge of their masters, the primitive hunters who captured them.
No monkeys have been domesticated. Of the carnivores only the cat and the dog are truly domesticated. Of the ungulates there are horses and asses, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, and reindeer. Among rodents there are rabbits and guinea-pigs, and possibly some of the fancy breeds of rats and mice should be included. Among birds there are pigeons, fowls, peacocks, and guinea-fowl, and aquatic birds such as swans, geese, and ducks, whilst the only really domesticated passerine bird is the canary. Goldfish are domesticated, and the invertebrate bees and silk-moths must not be forgotten. It is not very easy to draw a line between domesticated animals and animals that are often bred in partial or complete captivity. Such antelopes as elands, fallow-deer, roe-deer, and the ostriches of ostrich farms are on the border-line of being domesticated.