VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



1311 



Australian dingo was the probable ancestor of 

 the spaniel, and that the American wild-dog 

 gives us the type of the pug, the hypothesis 

 of Professor Agassiz might be admitted to 

 possess a considerable claim to our reception. 

 But so far is this from being the case, that, as 

 already pointed out, the several races of wild 

 dogs present a remarkable conformity to a 

 common type ; and neither of them can be 

 looked to, in preference to the others, as the 

 probable source of those domesticated breeds 

 which are most diverse from each other, and 

 from the supposed common type. Moreover, 

 there is a strong probability, considering the 

 very remarkable character of the zoology of 

 New Holland, that the dingo was not indige- 

 nous to that country, but that it was intro- 

 duced there by its human colonizers ; thus, 

 being a descendant of the Indian dhole, or of 

 the same stock with it. Hence, even if we 

 admit the multiplication of protoplasts' in the 

 case of the dog, we are still driven back upon 

 the influences of domestication as the direct 

 or indirect source of those variations from the 

 fundamental type, by which the existing races 

 are severally characterised. 



The historical evidence of modification in 

 successive generations, which is inadequate 

 to prove the specific identity of the several 

 races of Dogs, is much more fully supplied in 

 the case of some other domesticated animals ; 

 and suffices to show that although the 

 tendency to spontaneous variation may seem 

 to have nearly exhausted itself heretofore in 

 the production of the most divergent forms, 

 still there remains enough to originate new 

 races, distinguished by well-marked pecu- 

 liarities of conformation, even under our own 

 eyes. Some of our most valuable information 

 on this subject, is derived from the changes 

 which have taken place in the races of do- 

 mesticated animals introduced into the West 

 Indies and South America, by the Spaniards, 

 three centuries and a half since. Many of 

 these races have multiplied extremely in a 

 soil and in a climate congenial to their na- 

 ture; and several of them have run wild in 

 the vast forests of America, and have lost all 

 the most obvious appearances of domestica- 

 tion, whilst they have acquired various pecu- 

 liarities which distinguish them from their 

 domesticated progenitors, some of these, per- 

 haps, being indications of a partial restoration 

 to the primitive characteristics of their re- 

 spective races. The greatest part of our 

 knowledge on this subject is derived from the 

 researches of M. Roulin (already referred to) 

 which relate to New Grenada and Venezuela, 

 and from the well-known and justly esteemed 

 work of D'Azara on the natural history of 

 Paraguay. 



No zoologist has any doubt whatever, that 

 the wild boar is the original of our domesti- 

 cated swine; the change from the one form 

 and condition to the other being capable of 

 accomplishment in the course of a few gene- 

 rations. Yet, as Blumenbach has remarked, 

 the difference between the two forms of crania 

 is as great as that between the Negro and the 



European skulls. And the same eminent 

 physiologist has pointed out, that the varie- 

 ties of swine in various countries, all clearly 

 referable to one stock, exceed in their extent 

 of divergence from it, the very widest de- 

 partures of the human conformation from any 

 one type. Thus, swine with solid hoofs were 

 known to the ancients ; and large breeds of 

 them are found in Hungary and Sweden, as 

 also in some parts of England. In some 

 other breeds there are five distinct toes, each 

 having its own hoof. The European swine, 

 first carried by the Spaniards to the island of 

 Cubagua, in 1509, have been the progenitors 

 of a race now found there, possessing toes of 

 half a span in length. The hogs which were 

 first introduced into South America by the 

 Spaniards at about the same period, rapidly 

 extended themselves over the northern and 

 central parts of that continent ; and whilst 

 wandering at large in the vast forests of the 

 New World, and feeding on their original diet 

 of fruits and seeds, they have reverted very 

 nearly to the type of the European boar. 

 Their colour, too, has lost the variety ob- 

 servable in the domestic breeds, the wild 

 hogs of the American forests being for the 

 most part uniformly black. The hogs which 

 cover the mountains of the Paramos, where 

 they are subject to severe cold and deficient 

 nourishment, are small and of a stunted figure ; 

 but their skins are covered with thick fur, 

 often somewhat crisp, beneath which is found 

 in some individuals a species of wool. In 

 some of the warmest regions, the swine are 

 not uniformly black, but red like the young 

 peccari ; and elsewhere there are some, whose 

 blackness gives place under the belly to a 

 white band, which reaches up to the back. 



The question of the original source of the 

 various breeds of ox, will not be now dis- 

 cussed ; it is sufficient for our present pur- 

 pose to notice some of the most remarkable 

 departures from the European type, which 

 have shown themselves in the South Ameri- 

 can descendants of the individuals first intro- 

 duced there by the Spaniards. In the year 

 1770, as we learn from D'Azara, a hornless 

 bull was produced in Paraguay, which has 

 been the progenitor of a race of hornless 

 cattle that has since multiplied extensively in 

 that country. So, again, as we are informed 

 by M. Roulin, in some of the hot provinces 

 of South America, a variety of ox has been 

 produced, which is noted for its extremely 

 rare and fine fur. This variety tends to per- 

 petuate itself ; but it is not encouraged, be- 

 cause the " pelones" (as they are termed) are 

 too delicate in constitution to bear the cold 

 of the Cordilleras, to which the cattle are 

 driven for the provision of the towns situated 

 upon them. These pelones obviously con- 

 stitute a variety adapted for a particular 

 climate ; oxen of other breeds frequently 

 perishing when driven into the provinces in- 

 habited by them, or being with difficulty 

 acclimatised.* But the same hot provinces 



* Hence we see that so much of Prof. Agassiz' 

 argument for the multiplicity of specific centres, as 



