Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/217

is no lack in the Amazonian forests of tameable animals fit for human food; the tapir, the paca, the cutía, and the curassow turkeys, are often kept in houses and become quite as tame as the domesticated animals of the old world; but they are useless from not breeding in confinement. Curassow birds are often seen in the houses of Indians; one fine species, the Mitu tuberosa, becoming so familiar that it follows children about wherever they go; it will not propagate, however, in captivity. It is shown to be not wholly the fault of the natives in this case, by their valuing the common fowl, which has been imported from Europe and adopted everywhere, even by remote tribes on rivers rarely visited by white men. It is, however, treated with little attention, and increases very slowly. The Indians do not show themselves so sensible of the advantages derivable from the ox, sheep, and hog, all of which have been introduced into their country. They seem unable to acquire a taste for their flesh, and the management of the animals in a domesticated state is evidently unsuited to their confirmed habits. The inferiority of the native animals compared with those of the old world in regard to capability of breeding in confinement, to which, according to this view, is originally owing the defect in the Indian character regarding the domestication of animals, has been brought about, probably, in some way not easily explicable, by the domination of the forest. It has been lately advanced by ethnologists, that where dense forests clothe the surface of a country, the native races of man cannot make any progress in civilisation.