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Nonhuman animals other than human can hardly be characterized as novel historical subjects. Their remains have provided valuable evidence for historians of cultures that left little or no written trace. They traditionally have attracted the attention of economic historians, especially those who study times and places heavily dependent on agriculture. In more recent times, important animal-related institutions, from humane societies to zoos, have had their chroniclers. People distinguished in their association with animals, from breeders to hunters to scientists, have had their biographers as, indeed, have some animals distinguished in their own right, such as Jumbo, Greyfriars Bobby, or Seabiscuit. Speci c animal-related issues or practices have received focused attention, and historians working in specialized areas continue to make use of such excellent studies as Richard D. French's Antivivisection and medical science in Victorian society (1975). Even some much earlier work continues to be useful. Even some much earlier work continues to be useful. For example, E.

The nineteenth century saw numerous transfers and attempted transfers of animal populations, mostly as the result of the spread of European agriculture. The exchange of animal populations facilitated by the acclimatization societies that were established in Europe, North America, Australia, among other places, had more complicated meanings. Introduced aliens were often appreciated or deplored in the same terms that were applied to human migrants. Some animal acclimatizations were part of ambitious attempts to transform entire landscapes. Such transfers also broached or blurred the distinction between the domesticated and the wild. The intentional enhancement of the fauna of a region is a forceful assertion of human power. But most planned acclimatizations failed, if they moved beyond the drawing board. And those that succeeded also tended to undermine complacent assumptions about human control. People were on the move in the nineteenth century. Millions of men and women participated in massive transfers of human population, spurred by war, famine, persecution, the search for a better life, or (most rarely) the spirit of adventure. The largest of these transfers-although by no means the only one-was from the Old World to the New. Of course, people are not unique in their mobility, as they are not unique in most of their attributes. And many non-human animals followed the same paths during that period. Most of the animals thus transplanted were members of domesticated species long accustomed to moving in the human wake. But a small, yet compelling, fraction moved in the service of what was called "acclimatization." In its most expansive nineteenthcentury sense, this meant: to introduce, acclimatize, and domesticate "all innocuous animals, birds, fishes, insects, and vegetables, whether useful or ornamental." 2 As

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