Omniana/Volume 1/Effect of Domestication upon the Skin and Tendons of Animals
165. Effect of domestication upon the skin and tendons of animals.
Mr. Barrow says that the skins of wild animals are much preferble for strength and durability to those that have been[1] domesticated. The forced heat in which domestic cattle are kept either when stabled or forced together in great numbers, may possibly account for this; but he mentions another fact which is not so easily explicable. The fibres of the tendons of the long dorsal muscle taken from various animals, are used for thread by the Caffres and Hottentots, and that made from wild animals is much stronger than that which is made from tame[2] ones. It might have been supposed that if any difference existed, the fibres of a beast used for draught would have been the toughest.