ion, 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

I have met persons, otherwise quite sane, who told me that they would
like to visit India if it were not for the _snakes_. Now there is
something very depressing in the thought that this state of mind is
extant in England, for it is calculated, on occasion, to have results of
a most melancholy nature. By way of example, let us picture the case of
a broken-hearted maiden forced to reject an ardent lover because duty
calls him to a land where there are snakes. Think of his happiness
blighted for ever and her doomed to a "perpetual maidenhood," harrowed
with remorseful dreams of the hourly perils and horrors thr