xviii

VALUE OF OUR EXPORTS.

These are only the principal articles; sponges, mother-of-pearl, cowries, and other shells, tortoise-shell, leeches, cantharides, and many other products, are not included, being aggregately grouped by the Board of Trade under "Miscellaneous Articles."

There are also certain vegetable substances imported, which are chiefly used in the preparation and manufacture of Animal Products, such as all the tanning materials, which should be taken into consideration; these include the following values :

Value of the Animals and Animal Substances, the produce of the

This is exclusive of a number of minor articles not enumerated

or specified in the Board of Trade Returns.

VALUE OF OUR LIVE STOCK.

xix

Taking the latest Agricultural Returns as our guide for numbers, and assuming a very moderate value for each animal, we get at the following approximate estimate of the value of our domestic stock. Live Stock in Great Britain and Channel Islands, 1875:

There are no returns of asses and mules, goats and poultry, for

Great Britain.

Number and value of Live Stock in Ireland in 1875:†

547,675 at £10 O £5,476,750

Horses and Mules

When we find that the figures we have quoted give an estimated money value exceeding £331,000,000 sterling, and that to this has to be added all the dairy produce, the poultry and their products for Great Britain; the annual clip of British wool, which may be estimated at 160,000,000 lbs., worth at least £8,000,000; the hides and skins, tallow, horns, bones, and other offal, horse and cow hair, woollen rags collected, the game and rabbits, the sea and river fisheries; besides the products of our woollen, leather, glove, silk, soap and comb manufactures retained for home consumption, furs, brushes, and many other articles, we ought to add a great many millions more to the aggregate value or total.

* Returned by occupiers of land alone, and quite exclusive of horses kept in towns, racehorses, &c., of the numbers of which there are no complete returns. + These values are the old official prices, and many are much below the present value for horses, &c.

XX

AGGREGATE VALUE OF ANIMAL PRODUCTS.

These collective figures of the value of our Live Stock and of the Animal Products imported and exported, will at least show what a large amount of capital is invested in them, and that they must necessarily give busy and remunerative occupation to a great number of persons in the raising, collection, distribution and after preparation of most of the articles, to fit them for various uses, whilst the amount of shipping tonnage employed, and the inland transport by road and rail from place to place, of the raw materials and the finished manufactures, are other great sources of active industry, in which numbers of our population are specially interested.

INTRODUCTION.

CLASSIFICATION OF MAMMALS.

NATURALISTS* have described more than 2,000 species of Mammals, or animals which suckle their young. They are characterised by warm red blood, and breathe by means of lungs. They have been grouped into different Orders, each divided into Genera, which usually include several individual Species.

Amongst them are the cattle of our fields, beasts of burden, and domesticated animals of many kinds. Most of these are familiar to all; but a more perfect knowledge of their nature contributes to the improvement of agricultural stock, affords indications of rational methods of treating the diseases to which they are subject, and makes us acquainted with the sources of supply of many Animal Products largely used for food or in the various arts and manufactures.

The following, although it may not satisfy all as a classification of Mammals, is yet sufficiently clear for the purposes of this work, which is intended as a description of the Economic uses of the Animals, and their Commercial products, rather than a treatise on Systematic Zoology.

I. QUADRUMANA, or four handed.* Examples-Ape, Baboon, Monkey.

There are about 100 species belonging to this order at present known. In some countries the flesh of monkeys is eaten. The skins and skeletons form articles of commerce, and live animals are purchased for zoological gardens.

* The order Bimana-Man-has been passed over, the only products of any commercial value derived from the human race being the hair of females, in which some considerable trade is carried on, and skulls and skeletons for museums. In the Waste Products Collection will be found illustrations of the use of human hair, and in Case 87 is a piece of cloth made with human hair; ladies' muffs have also been made of it.

B