We must admit, however, that, whatever pliability of disposition, or other inherent suitability, led to the first domestication of certain species of animals, the changes induced in their natures by many generations of domesticity have made them amenable to man's control to a degree which puts a wide difference between them and their wild relations. A wild ass, though brought up from its birth in a stable, would make a very intractable costermonger's moke. We may infer from this that the first subjugation of each of our common domestic animals was the achievement of some genius, or of some tribe favourably situated, and that they spread from that centre by sale or barter, rather than that they were separately domesticated in many places. This would partly explain why a few species of widely different families are so universally kept in all countries to the exclusion of hundreds of species nearly allied and apparently as suitable. When a want could be supplied by obtaining from another country an animal bred to live with man and serve him, the long and difficult task of softening down the wild instincts of a beast taken from the forests or the hills and acclimatising its constitution to a domestic life was not likely to be attempted. But there have been a few recent additions to our list of domestic animals. The turkey and the guinea fowl are examples, and perhaps within another generation we may be able to add the zebra. And there may be many other animals fitted to enrich and adorn human life which would make no insuperable resistance to domestication if wisely and patiently handled. Here is a noble opening for carrying out in its kindest sense the command, "Multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the face of the earth." IX SNAKES