Show rhe I HE raming OF ANIMALS skill of the ancients Ancl Anci erts ets la in subduing beast j there are few benefits which we owe to our forefathers greater than the endri end j less skill and patience with which they tamed those animals which we call at the present day domestic it muff 4 have required a steady perseverance extending through countless general I 1 eions to have succeeded succeed ed in inducing du cini sue such h essentially wild and mistrustful animals as cats to lay aside their timidity i and suspicion and to become the faial ful nl friends of man a the people who accomplished this oils great benefit for posterity had accord ins ng to the academy more leisure than their restless and hard worked descend j ants they were generally speak speaking ingi members of slave states in which the food supply was plentiful and in which we may suppose that both masters and slaves had plenty of time on their hands ln in some cases the obvious utility of the animals caused them tobe to be tamed 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 v the ancients seen seem to have tamed almost all the existing animals known to them that were worth orth r taming had bad 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 been reclaimed and employed as aa a useful too foe to vermin terrain it la Is certain that r some 0 o m e animals which were once tamed have been allowed to relapse into a wild state as hawks monkeys and crocodiles in egypt and weasels in greece and rome |