30 CHARLES R. STOCKARD 



These views expressed by the leading biologists of two 

 generations ago are in many respects as correct as any that 

 could be advanced today. However, at that time it was en- 

 tirely impossible, without our modern knowledge of genetics 

 and mutations, to understand the origin of the diversified 

 breeds of dogs. We now know from numbers of examples 

 among various animal species, including even man himself, 

 that strange freak individuals are constantly appearing as 

 mutations which definitely transmit their characteristics and 

 which may be used for the creation of new true races or 

 breeds. 



Nevertheless, Darwin, through his broad knowledge of the 

 animal kingdom, was surprisingly close to a correct under- 

 standing of what modern experiments have demonstrated to 

 be true. He recognized the fact that the short legged dachs- 

 hund pattern appeared from time to time among various 

 species, and he apparently also appreciated the fact that 

 such sports or mutants might give origin to certain breeds. 

 Referring to carvings on Egyptian monuments from the 

 fourth to the twelfth dynasties, i.e., from about 3400 B.C. 

 to 2100 B.C., which represent several varieties of dogs, Darwin 

 states: 



"Most of them are allied to greyhounds; at the later of 

 these periods a dog resembling a hound is figured, with 

 drooping ears, but with a longer back and more pointed 

 head than in our hounds. There is, also, a turnspit, with 

 short and crooked legs, closely resembling the existing variety ; 

 but this kind of monstrosity is so common with various 

 animals J , as with the ancon sheep, and even, according to 

 Rengger, with jaguars in Paraguay, that it would be rash 

 to look at the monumental animal as the parent of all our 

 turnspits: Colonel Sykes (Proc. Zoolog. Soc., July 12, 1831) 

 also has described an Indian pariah dog as presenting the 

 same monstrous character." (p. 17, v. 1.) 



Darwin thus recognized that breeds might arise from mon- 

 strosities and that similar breeds from different parts of the 

 world may have originated independently since the same 



1 Italics supplied. 



