st enemies of men are other men."

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,