88 jOcT. 



12. Shepherd's Doc (C. domesticics.) The earliest effigy of this animal, 

 which is also mentioned by Aristotle, is preserved on ancient Etruscan medals of 

 unknown date. The probability is that it was familiar to man in the earliest 

 ages, and may yet be found on the Egyptian monuments. It is doubtless one of 

 the primordial forms of the canine race. 



In allusion to the illustrations derived from the monuments, Blainville truly 

 remarks that "we here see a large number of our existing breeds of dogs;" and 

 inasmuch as they have preserved their identity through such vast periods of time 

 not only in the most diversified climates, but also under the influence of the 

 greatest variety of circumstances, is it not reasonable to believe that a part at 

 least of these forms, constitute essential primeval types ? We trace them back 

 into the " night of time," and find them as distinct as they yet are in the living 

 Fau7ia; and it remains for those persons who insist that they have all been derived 

 from an aboriginal pair, to give us something more in proof than analogical rea- 

 soning, or inferences drawn from arbitrary views of the laws of Nature. 



Eut an evidence of the great antiquity of the animal we call the domestic dog, 

 and one to which I have already alluded, is the fact that it has been recently 

 found in a fossil state in two localities very remote from each other. First in 

 Germany by Schmerling, and secondly, in New Zealand by Mr. W. Mantell, (son 

 of the celebrated geologist,) who there foimd it associated with the bones of the 

 gigantic Dinomis. Now from these facts I conceive we must conclude, either that 

 some forms of this animal are primordial and independent of human domestica- 

 tion ; or, that man himself, having existed contemporaneously with these now 

 fossilized animals, claims a vast antiquity as a denizen of the earth. 



It is shrewdly observed by Azara, that if the differences among dogs 

 were the result of climate, all the dogs of each separate country should be alike. 

 To this I may add, that if they are all descended from a single primal type, they 

 ought, on resuming the wild state,^to return to this type. Yet in America, where the 

 experiment has been observed on the largest and most unequivocal scale, we see 

 no such result. In Jamaica, they have in some iustances reverted to the shep- 

 herd's dog in others, to the great Danish dog ; and this last variety is the domi 

 nant one in the wild packs'of Paraguay. In Cuba they have sometimes resembled 

 greyhounds, and in the pampas of Brazil they are more like terriers. Li other 

 words, they constantly tend to recur to that primitive element which is most domi- 

 nant in their "physical constitution ; and it is remarkable that in the old world 

 this restored type is never the wolf, although it is sometimes, as we have seen, a 

 lupine dog, owing to the physiological cause just mentioned. 



The blending of the opposite extremes of these types, and these hybrids again 

 with each other, gives rise, as every one knows, to those degenerate animals 

 known as pugs, shocks, spaniels, &c., which Cuvier justly calls " the most de- 

 generate productions," and which are found " to possess a short and fleeting exis- 

 tence the common lot of all types of modern origin." 



Among the North American Indians, the original forms are very few and closely 

 allied; whence it happens that these grotesque varieties never appear. Neither 

 have they any approximation to that marked family we call hounds; and this fact 

 is the more remarkable since the Indian dogs are employed in the same manner 

 of hunting as the hounds of Europe, Asia and Africa. Yet, this similarity of em- 

 ployment has caused no analogy of exterior form. No varieties, like those so 

 familiar in Europe, spring up among them. They are as homogeneous as the 



