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Show 46 MODIFICATIONS OF INS1'1NCTS [Ch.III. 'l'lhese animals will breed in captivity, as is now ascertained in opposition to the vulgar opinion of many modern naturalists, and in conformity to that of the ancients £linn and Columella~·. Yet it has always been the custom, as the least expensive mode of .obtaining them, to capture wild individuals in the forests, usually when full grown, and in a few years after they are taken,· sometimes, it is said, in the space of a few months, their education is 'completed. Had the whole species been domesticated from an early period in the history of man, like the camel, their superior intelligence would doubtless have been attributed to their long and familiar intercourse with the lord of the creation: but we know that a few years is sufficient to bring about this wonderful change of habits; and, although the same individual may continue to receive tuition for a century afterwards, yet it makes no further progress in the general development of its faculties. Were it otherwise, indeed, the animal would soon deserve more than the poet's epithet of " half-reasoning." From the authority of our countrymen employed in the late Burmese war, it appears, in corroboration of older accounts, that when elephants are required to execute extraordinary tasks, they may be made to understand that they will receive unusual rewards. Some favourite dainty is shown to them, in the hope of acquiring which, the work is done. And so perfectly does the nature of the contract appear to be understood, that the breach of it, on the part of the master, is often attended with danger. In this case, a power has been given to the species to adapt their social instincts to new circumstances with surprising rapidity ; but the extent of this change is defined by strict and arbitrary limits. There is no indication of a tendency to continued divergence from certain attributes with which the elephant was originally endued, no ground whatever for anticipating, that in thousands of centuries any material alteration could ever be effected. All that * Mr. Corse on the Habits, &e. of the Elephant, Phil. Trans. 1799. Ch. III.] PRODUCED BY DOMESTICATION. 47 we can infer from analogy is, that some useful and peculiar races might probably be formed, if the experiment were fairly tried, and that some individual characteristic, now only casual and temporary, might be perpetuated by generation. In all cases, therefore, whel'e the domestic qualities exist in animals, they seem to require no lengthened process for their development, and they appear to have been wholly denied to some classes, which from their strength and social nature might have rendered great services to man; as, for example, the greater part of the quadrumana. The orang-outang, indeed, which for its resemblance in form to man, and apparently for no other good :_eason, has been assumed, by Lamarck, to be the most perfect of the inferior animals, has been tamed by the savages of Borneo, and made to dim b lofty trees, and to bring down the fruit. But he is said to yield to his masters an unwilling obedience, and to be held in subjection only by severe discipline. We know nothing of the faculties of this animal which can suggest the idea that it rivals the elephant in intelligence, much less anything which can countenance the dreams of thos~ who have fancied that it might have been transmuted into " the dominant race." One of the baboons of Sumatra (Sirnia carpolegus) appears to be more docile, and is frequently trained by the inhabitants to ascend trees for the purpose of gathering cocoa-nuts, a service in which the animal is very expert. He selects, says Sir Stamford Raffles, the ripe nuts with great judgment, and pulls no more than he is ordered *. The capuchin and cacajao monkeys are, according to Humboldt, taught to ascend trees in the same manner, and to throw down fruit on the banks of the lower Orinoco t. We leave it to the Lamarckians to explain, how it happens that those same savages of Borneo have not themselves acquired, by dint of longing for many generations for the power of climbing trees, the elongated arms of the orang, or even the prehen- • Linn. Trans. vol. xiii. p. 244. t Pers. Narr. of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent in the years 1799-1804. ' |
