The Most Widely Spread Animal.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 20 July 1910, Page 4

The Most Widely Spread Animal.

The three animals that are most widely spread over the eartih. are the cow, the horse, and the pig. These animals did not spread through their own efforts, but were developed by man, and gradually rendered adaptable to practically every place where man himself can live. Cattle entered America simultaneously with its discovery, for Columbus introduced Spanish .steers and cows in 1493. In 152/5 tihey were introduced into -Mexico, which offered ideal conditions for them. From Mexico they spread into Texas, where the new conditions of range and feediing developed a race of cattle that became known as Texas cattle; and these animals are typical of the range-bred cattle of America now. THE PIG. had its origin in India, and its first conquest was that of Eastern aia and the archipelagoes of tilfc Eastern seas. China tall a nearly victim to the love of the pig. Records show that the cultivation of the grunting porker was a high art in that land as long as 3,000 years before Christ. One of tihe greatest of the Chinese feast d?ys is known by tho name of "Pig." Tlie Koran forbids the use of p®rk just as the Mosaic law does: hence the pig is not raised in countries where the Mohammedan aw rules. But in all other parts of the world the porker is as popular as the cow or tho .horse; and there are ns many varieties of pis, due to local causes and to different ways of breeding in different countries, as there are varieties of horses and cattfe. Tt has always been a, matter of wonder to naturalists and economists that THE CAMEL did not become as widely spread as any of these three animals in the course of its thousands of years of existence' as a domestic minimal. The camel combines the advantages of ox and horse as draught animal and burden carnien; it is of high food, value; it gives excellent milk; dts demands in the form of food and water are exceedingly modest, and its hair as of great value. While the camel probably could not bear all the extremes of climate that the horso or oow lan bear, it is by _no means a difficult animal to acclimatise, as us shw-yn by the fact that it is used as draught animal in the colder parts of Siberia, on the Russian a.nct Turkestan steppes, in tho Himalayas, in Africa, and in Australia. THE DROMEDARY. is the plains caniol, while the boast jvith the two humps is the favourite for mountain use. Tn Sokotora the latter camel climbs up stoep steps hewn_ in-to the face of the rock, and in all places where they are almost as sure-footed as mules. Prschewnlski. the Russian explorer, found, wild camels in the worst mountain regions of Asua., in places so dangerous that tho human foot could not find a hold.