From Jens Jensenius, Odense, Denmark
Your feature describes ideas about the origin of dogs, that is, how wolves were domesticated. Why, I wonder, is there no speculation on Darwinian evolution: mutations and selection of the fittest? I like to relate an example of such domestication: a cousin of mine had a small mink farm of about 200 minks. One day, so he told me, one of the minks signalled to him that it was tame and that it was safe to let her out of the cage. So, he did, and the mink followed him in his footsteps wherever he went on the farm and in the house. This was 60 years ago. This summer I learned from another former mink farmer that this isn’t unique, but has occurred several times. I can only imagine it happening as the result of mutations followed by selection. Certainly, the fittest survived(9 August, p 34).
