Livingstone alludes to an extreme fondness for small tame singing-birds (pp. 324 and 453).  Dr. (now Sir John) Kirk, who accompanied him in later years, mentions guinea-fowl—­that do not breed in confinement, and are merely kept as pets—­in the Shire valley, and Mr. Oswell has furnished me with one similar anecdote.  I feel, however, satisfied that abundant instances could be found if properly sought for.  It was the frequency with which I recollect to have heard of tamed animals when I myself was in South Africa, though I never witnessed any instance, that first suggested to me the arguments of the present paper.  Sir John Kirk informs me that: 

“As you approach the coast or Portuguese settlements, pets of all kinds become very common; but then the opportunity of occasionally selling them to advantage may help to increase the number; still, the more settled life has much to do with it.”

In confirmation of this view, I will quote an early writer, Pigafetta (Hakluyt Coll., ii. 562), on the South African kingdom of Congo, who found a strange medley of animals in captivity, long before the demands of semi-civilisation had begun to prompt their collection:—­

The King of Congo, on being Christianised by the Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth century, “signified that whoever had any idols should deliver them to the lieutenants of the country.  And within less than a month all the idols which they worshipped were brought into court, and certainly the number of these toys was infinite, for every man adored what he liked without any measure or reason at all.  Some kept serpents of horrible figures, some worshipped the greatest goats they could get, some leopards, and others monstrous creatures.  Some held in veneration certain unclean fowls, etc.  Neither did they content themselves with worshipping the said creatures when alive, but also adored the very skins of them when they were dead and stuffed with straw.”

[Australia.]—­Mr. Woodfield records the following touching anecdote in a paper communicated to the Ethnological Society, as occurring in an unsettled part of West Australia, where the natives rank as the lowest race upon the earth:—­

“During the summer of 1858-9 the Murchison river was visited by great numbers of kites, the native country of these birds being Shark’s Bay.  As other birds were scarce, we shot many of these kites, merely for the sake of practice, the natives eagerly devouring them as fast as they were killed.  One day a man and woman, natives of Shark’s Bay, came to the Murchison, and the woman immediately recognising the birds as coming from her country, assured us that the natives there never kill them, and that they are so tame that they will perch on the shoulders of the women and eat from their hands.  On seeing one shot she wept bitterly, and not even the offer of the bird could assuage her grief, for she absolutely refused to eat it.  No more kites were shot while she remained among us.”