THE ORIGIN OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS.

Western Star, Issue 1385, 31 August 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE ORIGIN OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS.

In Btudying zoological distribution the range of domestic animals is not to taken into consideration, for man has been so long engaged in scattering them across the world that now it is impossible to trace their original homes. Indeed, any attempt to assign them wild progenitors must to a large extent be simply guesswork. The tame cattle of our farmyards and fields rray perhaps be sprung from the urus and other wild roamed through the vast forests of Europe; and the s y-living pig from the fierce swine which still hold their own in many parts of the Continent and in the thickets of Northern Africa. In like manner the cat is supposed to be descended from a Persian ancestor, and the various dogs of different barbarous tribes can with some confidence be considered merely the tamed wolves, foxes, or jackals of the regions they inhabit. The ass is evidently a civil'sed form of the wild ass of Abysinia Asinus tceniopus, but it is doubtful whether we have made any progress in the search after the progenitors of the horse and the camel No doubt a so-called wild horse has been discovered in Central Asia, and wild camels are not unfrequentjin the same region. But whether the animals are not a tame species which have escaped from domestication long ago and re-establish-ed their freedom is a question to which a favourable answer might quite as readily be given as to the contrary thesis. The turkey it is certain came from America, the peacock is an Indian bird, and the guinea fowl was originally from Africa. The dom< stic goos 9is regarded as descended from the greylag, or comj mon goose, though all the species are capable of domestication, while the duck in our ponds is in iU wild state known as the mallard. But the domestic fowl has been so long a servant of man that it is now mere speculation to attempt to assign to the progenitor any exact home, the Banhiva fowl of Java and other islanus Malaysia, having no better claim to this distinction than the jungle fowl of Indip, which for a time was proclaimed the barbarous ancestor of the farmyard hen. Much the same remarks may be said regarding the honey bee, the silkworm, and the Mexican cochineal. Eor though they have all been traced to wild forms they have been kept so long under control ot man that their exact origin is lost or at least doubtful.—From " Our Earth anl its Story."