as a king pigeon,
and to kill it was thought as great a crime as to take the life of a
man."

Mr. Ellis, writing of these islands (_Polynesian Researches_, ii. 285),
says:--

"Eels are great favourites, and are tamed and fed till they attain
an enormous size. Taoarii had several in different parts of the
island. These pets were kept in large holes, two or three feet deep,
partially filled with water. I have been several times with the
young chief, when he has sat down by the side of the hole, and by
giving a shrill sort of whistle, has brought out an enormous eel,
which has moved about the surface of the water and eaten with
confidence out of his master's hand."

[Syria.]--I will conclude this branch of my argument by quoting the
most ancient allusion to a pet that I can discover in writing,
though some of the Egyptian pictured representations are
considerably older. It is the parable spoken by the Prophet Samuel
to King David, that is expressed in the following words:--

"The poor man had nothing save one little ewe lamb, which he had
bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him and with
his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup,
and lay in his bosom, and was to him as a daughter."

We will now turn to the next stage of our argument. Not only do
savages rear animals as pets, but communities maintain them as sacred.
The ox of India and the brute gods of Egypt occur to us at once; the
same superstition prevails widely. The quotation already given from
Pigafetta is in point; the fact is too well known to readers of
travel to make it necessary to devote space to its proof. I will
therefore simply give a graphic account, written by M. Jules Gerard,
of Whydah in West Africa:--

"I visited the Temple of Serpents in this town, where thirty of
these monstrous deities were asleep in various attitudes. Each day
at sunset, a priest brings them a certain number of sheep, goats,
fowls, etc., which are slaughtered in the temple and then divided
among the 'gods.' Subsequently during the night they (? the priests)
spread themselves about the town, entering the houses in various
quarters in search of further offerings. It is forbidden under
penalty of death to kill, wound, or even strike one of these sacred
serpents, or any other of the same species, and only the priests
possess the privilege of taking hold of them, for the purpose of
reinstating them in the temple should they be found else