VIII
OTHER ANIMALS USED AS PETS
We have now gone far and near among the animals kept by man, have seen them at work and at play, on farm and on road, in doors and out of doors, some helping him, some amusing him, some supplying him with food and clothes. But so far we have kept among the animals of common use. There are others not so often kept and at some of these we must take a passing glance before we finish our journey.
Man, you know, is only one among many thousands of kinds of animals which dwell upon the earth. These are found everywhere, from the hot equator almost to the frozen poles. The most of them, of course, live in warm regions, but away up in the seas of ice may be seen creatures clad in thick wool and fur and finding food under the snows. So there is hardly any part of the earth without its living beings.
Some of these animals are so savage that man rarely tries to tame them. The fierce lion and tiger, the ferocious grizzly bear, the huge and stupid rhinoceros, and many others of the same wild sort are shown us at times in menageries. But we look at them through the iron bars of their cages. If any of them should get out of the cage we would hasten to get out of the show.
Even these fierce animals at times grow tame enough for men and women to go into their cages and teach them some simple tricks. But they are never safe to deal with, and we are always glad to see the tamers of lions and other wild beasts come out of the cages alive.
It is not such creatures as these that man makes use of. He has picked out those of gentle nature, the grass eaters, not the flesh eaters. The dog and cat, it is true, are flesh eaters, but the dog is an animal that is easily tamed and becomes one of man's best friends. As for the cat, it rarely becomes quite tame. Its wildwood ways cling to it still.
Animals fitted for man's use are found in all parts of the earth, but the tame ones mostly came from Europe and Asia, the countries in which civilization first began. Here are the native places of the horse and the cow, the sheep, goat and pig, the hen, duck and goose, and nearly all the other animals found about our homes.
There is no continent with a greater variety of animals than Africa, but few of these have been tamed, and this mostly in the civilized north, for the people of that continent have long been in a savage or barbarian state, and have been hunters instead of tamers of animals. It has been the same in America. When white men came here they brought their home animals with them and there was no need to tame those found in this new continent. The only ones tamed by the Indians were the dog and the Peruvian llama, and nearly the only one added by the white man has been the turkey. The rest of our animals, like our forefathers themselves, came from abroad.
Though we have dealt with the chief animals kept by man, for use or as pets, there are many others which have been at times tamed and made into friends and comrades, and it may be well to speak of such of these as seem of most interest.