With respect to domesticated animals, as their domestication mainly depends on
the accident of their breeding freely under captivity, we ought not to expect
that their reproductive system would be affected by any moderate degree of
change. Those orders of quadrupeds and birds, of which the wild species breed
most readily in our menageries, have afforded us the greatest number of
domesticated productions. Savages in most parts of the world are fond of
taming animals (18/68. Numerous instances could be given. Thus Livingstone
('Travels' page 217) states that the King of the Barotse, an inland tribe
which never had any communication with white men, was extremely fond of taming
animals, and every young antelope was brought to him. Mr. Galton informs me
that the Damaras are likewise fond of keeping pets. The Indians of South
America follow the same habit. Capt. Wilkes states that the Polynesians of the
Samoan Islands tamed pigeons; and the New Zealanders, as Mr. Mantell informs
me, kept various kinds of birds.); and if any of these regularly produced
young, and were at the same time useful, they would be at once domesticated.
If, when their masters migrated into other countries, they were in addition
found capable of withstanding various climates, they would be still more
valuable; and it appears that the animals which breed readily in captivity can
generally withstand different climates. Some few domesticated animals, such as
the reindeer and camel, offer an exception to this rule. Many of our
domesticated animals can bear with undiminished fertility the most unnatural
conditions; for instance, rabbits, guinea-pigs, and ferrets breed in miserably
confined hutches. Few European dogs of any kind withstand the climate of India
without degenerating, but as long as they survive, they retain, as I hear from
Dr. Falconer, their fertility; so it is, according to Dr. Daniell, with
English dogs taken to Sierra Leone. The fowl, a native of the hot jungles of
India, becomes more fertile than its parent-stock in every quarter of the
world, until we advance as far north as Greenland and Northern Siberia, where
this bird will not breed. Both fowls and pigeons, which I received during the
autumn direct from Sierra Leone, were at once ready to couple. (18/69. For
analogous cases with the fowl see Reaumur 'L'Art de faire Eclore' etc. 1749
page 243; and Col. Sykes in 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc.' 1832 etc. With respect to the
fowl not breeding in northern regions see Latham 'Hist. of Birds' volume 8
1823 page 169.) I have, also, seen pigeons breeding as freely as the common
kinds within a year after their importation from the upper Nile. The guinea-
fowl, an aboriginal of the hot and dry deserts of Africa, whilst living under
our damp and cool climate, produces a large supply of eggs.
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