the belief that several canine species have been domesticated. Members of
the dog family inhabit nearly the whole world; and several species agree
pretty closely in habits and structure with our several domesticated dogs.
Mr. Galton has shown (1/12. 'Domestication of Animals' Ethnological Soc.
December 22, 1863.) how fond savages are of keeping and taming animals of
all kinds. Social animals are the most easily subjugated by man, and
several species of Canidae hunt in packs. It deserves notice, as bearing on
other animals as well as on the dog, that at an extremely ancient period,
when man first entered any country, the animals living there would have
felt no instinctive or inherited fear of him, and would consequently have
been tamed far more easily than at present. For instance, when the Falkland
Islands were first visited by man, the large wolf-like dog (Canis
antarcticus) fearlessly came to meet Byron's sailors, who, mistaking this
ignorant curiosity for ferocity, ran into the water to avoid them: even
recently a man, by holding a piece of meat in one hand and a knife in the
other, could sometimes stick them at night. On a island in the Sea of Aral,
when first discovered by Butakoff, the saigak antelopes, which are
"generally very timid and watchful, did not fly from us, but on the
contrary looked at us with a sort of curiosity." So, again, on the shores
of the Mauritius, the manatee was not at first in the least afraid of man,
and thus it has been in several quarters of the world with seals and the
morse. I have elsewhere shown (1/13. 'Journal of Researches' etc. 1845 page
393. With respect to Canis antarcticus, see page 193. For the case of the
antelope, see 'Journal Royal Geographical Soc.' volume 23 page 94.) how
slowly the native birds of several islands have acquired and inherited a
salutary dread of man: at the Galapagos Archipelago I pushed with the
muzzle of my gun hawks from a branch, and held out a pitcher of water for
other birds to alight on and drink. Quadrupeds and birds which have seldom
been disturbed by man, dread him no more than do our English birds, the
cows, or horses grazing in the fields.