Show THE TAMING OF ANIMALS skill of the ancients la in subduing wild I 1 1 z there are few benefits which we owe to t o our forefathers greater than the endless skill and patience with which they tamei tamed those animals which we call at the present day domestic it must lave have required a steady perseverance extending gil countiess genera eions to have succeeded in inducing such essentially wild and mistrustful animals as cats to lay aside their timidity jt V and sn suspicion dicion and to become the faithful friends ot of man the people who accomplished t this his irrea peat p eat t benefit for posterity had accord ing in ff to the academy more leisure than their restless and hard worked descend nuts ants they were generally speaking members of slave states in which the food supply was plentiful and in which we may suppose that both masters and slaves had bad plenty of time on their hands in an some cases the obvious ut utility il of the animals cause caused d them to be lamed in some cases this very utility came to invest them with a special sanctity san city which as in case of the cat in egypt and the cow in india afforded an additional guaranty for their preservation va von the ancients seem to have tamed almost mos t all the existing animals known to them that were worth taming had they known the american bison they might have added him to the list of draught animals we possess possibly too the weasel stoat and polecat might have aten en reclaimed and employed as a useful foe to vermin it is certain that ume tome animals which were once tamed save have been allowed to relapse into a wild s state tat te such as hawks monkeys and croes crocodiles in egypt and weasels in greece and rome |