Adaptable Nature.
The way of animals is to bear their young in the spring, so that they can mature, or advance to independence, under the kindest conditions of weather and with an abundance of food. How fixed is this instinct is shown by the fact that numbers of birds and animals from the Antipodes fail to adapt themselves in northern countries to reversed seasons, and produce their eggs and young in the winter when they have least chance of survival. But, under domestication, animals have become adapted not only to producing their young in other seasons than spring, but in producing them at shorter intervals than they would in a wild state. Man has made the land he lives by, and the stock on it, just as much as he has made his roads and buildings. Sussex and Dexter cattle show what variations he can bring about in size ; Angus and Jersey cattle, in shape and function. But not less remarkable is man's control over the time and the interval of breeding. Spring means nothing to the up-to-date dairy cow ; instead, she drops her calf in September. The hen lays her eggs all the year round, and probably started her own life in January. The pig has lost all count of spring, although her young are more sensitive than those of other domestic animals to cold and exposure. Lambs are now ready for the butcher which, but for man, would not yet be born.
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