1850.] 89 



wolf races from whom they have descended ; and Dr. Richardson quotes Theodat 

 to show that the common Tndian dog has not materially changed during two hun- 

 dred and twenty years. Again, the same remark applies to the indigenous Alco 

 and Techicld dogs of Mexico and South America, which, before their admixture 

 with European breeds, conformed to the types or species from whence they 

 sprung, without branching into the thirty varieties of Buffon, or the sixty of 

 Brown. The dog of New-Caledonia, in the western regions of Arctic America, 

 cannot be regarded as an exception, for he is also a lupine animal, although too lit- 

 tle is known of him to enable us to suggest his relative position to the other 

 American races- The Indian dog of Florida partakes largely also of the wolf, 

 and is supposed by Hamilton Smith to be intermediate between the common grey 

 wolf (C. occide7itaIis') and the Newfoundland dog, C. palmauis. And finally, the 

 latter animal, which belongs also to the same great dog family, is by some natural 

 ists^regarded as a cross between the Esquimaux dog and some exotic breed. To 

 this latter question I have not yet given attention. 



What is true of forms is equally true of instincts. 



"It is undoubtedly true (observes Sir. C. Lyell)that many new habits and 

 qualities have not only been acquired, in recent times, by certain races of dogs, 

 but have been transmitted to their offspring. But in these cases it will be obser- 

 ved that the new peculiarities have an intimate relation to the habits of the ani- 

 mal in a wild state, and therefore do not attest any tendency to departure, to an 

 indefinite extent, from the original type of the species." 



The author then instances a peculiar mode in which a certain breed of dogs 

 attack the deer on the platform of Santa Fe, in Mexico, and adds, that other Euro- 

 pean hunting dogs, though of superior strength and general sagacity, are destitute 

 of this instinct, and are often, in consequence, killed by the deer. 



I explain this phenomenon, not on the supposition of a new, but of a latent in- 

 stinct, which circumstances have merely developed ; and as by crossingdissimilar 

 species or varieties of dogs, we obtain the blended and opposite lineaments of both, 

 so, by the same process, we may combine a double or modified instinct. 



In view of the preceding facts, I continue to regard the great canine race of the 

 old and new world as constituted of many species of primordial dogs ; of three, at 

 least, (and perhaps more) species of wolves; of some accessions from the fox- 

 tribe, and a less certain infusion of the jackal. The wolves that appear to have 

 principally contributed to this protean family, are the Canis lupus of the old 

 world, and the C. occidentalism or common grey-wolf, and the C latrans ox 

 prairie-wolf of America. The evidence of the fox-tribe are most conspicuously 

 shown in the Aguara dogs of more southern latitudes. 



October 15th. 

 Dr. Morton, President, in the Chair. 



Two letters were read from the Agricultural Society of Lyons, 

 dated severally, August 10, 184-9, and April 12, 1850, informing the 

 Academy of the transmission by that Society, of Vols. 10 and 11 of 

 its Annals. 



Also a letter from the National Academy of Sciences of Lyons, 

 dated July 2, 1850, accompanying a copy of its Memoirs for 184-8-50. 



12 



