Chap. I. 



THEIR PARENTAGE 



2? 



grey wolf." He could, in fact, detect no marked difference 

 between them; and Messrs. Kott and Gliddon give additional 

 details showing their close resemblance. The dogs derived from 

 the above two aboriginal sources cross together and with the 

 wild wolves, at least with the C. occidentalis, and with European 

 dcgs. In Florida, according to Bartram, the black wolf-dog 

 of the Indians differs in nothing from the wolves of that 

 country except in barking. 13 



Turning to the southern parts of the new world, Columbus 

 found two kinds of dogs in the West Indies ; and Fernandez 16 

 describes three in Mexico : some of these native dogs were 

 dumb — that is, did not bark. In Guiana it has been known 

 since the time of Buffon that the natives cross their dogs 

 with an aboriginal species, apparently the Canis cancrivorus. 

 Sir E. Schomburgk, who has so carefully explored these 

 regions, writes to me, " I have been repeatedly told by the 

 Arawaak Indians, who reside near the coast, that they cross 

 their dogs with a wild species to improve the breed, and 

 individual dogs have been shown to me which certainly 

 resembled the C. cancrivorus much more than the common 

 breed. It is but seldom that the Indians keep the C. cancri- 

 vorus for domestic purposes, nor is the Ai, another species 

 of wild dog, and which I consider to be identical with the 

 Dusicyon silvcstris of H. Smith, now much used by the Are- 

 cunas for the purpose of hunting. The dogs of the Taruma 

 Indians are quite distinct, and resemble Buffon's St. Domingo 

 greyhound." It thus appears that the natives of Guiana have 

 partially domesticated two aboriginal species, and still cross 

 their dogs with them ; these two sj)ecies belong to a quite dif- 

 ferent type from the North American and European wolves. A 



15 ' Fauna Boreali-Americana.' 

 1829, pp. 73, 78, 80. Nott and 

 Gliddon, ' Types of Mankind,' p. 383. 

 The naturalist and traveller Bartram 

 is quoted by Hamilton Smith, in 'Na- 

 turalist Lib.,' vol. x. p. 156. A Mexican 

 domestic dog seems also to resemble a 

 wild dog of the same country ; but 

 this may be the prairie-wolf. Another 

 capable judge, Mr. J. K. Lord ('The 

 Naturalist in Vancouver Island,' 1866, 



vol. ii. p. 218), says that the Indian 

 dog of the Spokaus, near the Rocky 

 Mountains, " is beyond all question 

 nothing more than a tamed Cayote or 

 prairie-wolf," or Canis latrans. 



16 I quote this from Mr. R. Hill's 

 excellent account of the Alco or 

 domestic dog of Mexico, in Gosse's 

 ' Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica,' 

 1851, p. 329. 



