The art of domestication will make no progress if it occupies itself only with the services which tamed animals may render to man.
It ought to proceed in the main from the consideration of the service which man may render the animals;
Of his duty to initiate all the tenants of this world into a gentler, more peaceable, and superior society.
In the barbarism in which we are still plunged, we know of only two conditions for the animal, absolute liberty or absolute slavery; but there are many forms of demi-servitude which the animals themselves would willingly accept.
The small Chili falcon (cernicula), for example, loves to dwell with his master. He goes alone on his hunting expeditions, and faithfully returns every evening with what he has captured, to eat it en famille. He feels the want of being praised by the father, flattered by the dame, and, above all, caressed by the children.
Man, formerly protected by the animals, while he was indifferently armed, has gradually risen into a position to become their protector, especially since he has had powder, and enjoyed the possibility of shooting down from a distance the most formidable creatures. He has rendered birds the essential service of infinitely diminishing the number of the robbers of the air.
He may render them another, and not a less important one—that of sheltering at night the innocent species. Night! sleep! complete abandonment to the most frightful chances! Oh! harshness of Nature! But she is justified, inasmuch as she has planted here below the far-seeing and industrious being who shall more and more become for all others a second providence.