72 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
as the companion of princes, less has been done by Biology to
modify the characters and qualities of the animal than in the
case of Man himself: though we are more inclined to think
of the pig in connection with prodigals, as much has been done
by Biology to modify its characters and qualities as in the case
of symbiotic partners of Man like the dog or the horse. It may
be that the absence of change in the elephant is connected with
the circumstance that the creature does not breed freely in
captivity and that its span of life exceeds that of Man. Why
such unusual interest has been taken in the pig it is difficult to
say: it can hardly be owing to a Gentile reaction against a
Semitic tabu that Mediaeval anatomists and Renaissance physio-
logists indulged in the dissection and the vivisection of pigs
as creatures whose bodies were "likest the human form divine."
What is clear is that Man exploits the pig much as he does the
silk-worm. The main difference between the two creatures is
that the silk-worm does not "cry like a pig when," as Marjorie
Fleming remarked, "We are under the painful necessity of putting
"it to death."
As a rule, however, captive animals are left as unmodified
as the elephant. No change has taken place in the captive otters
that drive the fishes of Indian rivers into their owners' nets,
or in the captive ichneumons that protect their masters against
Indian venomous snakes. The biological attention bestowed on
beasts and birds preserved as game is confined to guarding them
against disease and preventing morphological deviations from
type. The characters and qualities of the raptorial birds still
used by falconers in remote Asiatic valleys, or of the cormorants
that assist fishermen in Chinese lakes as otters assist fishermen
in Indian streams, have undergone no modification. The
attention bestowed on collections of ornamental waterfowl is
required, as in the case of game-birds, to eliminate the results
of illicit mating. Birds like the parrot, enslaved as a consequence
of a melancholy ambition to imitate human speech, or, like the
peacock, imprisoned in order to display a more than human
pride, are equally carefully guarded against this particular
mishap. What is true of captive animals and birds is also true
of most of the exotic trees in our woods and parks, and of most
of the crops cultivated in plantations, as contrasted with those
raised under field or garden conditions.