26 DOGS. Chap. I. 



I may add that the domestic dogs on the coast of Guinea 

 are fox-like animals, and are dumb. 25 On the east coast of 

 Africa, between lat. 4° and 6° south, and about ten days' journey 

 in the interior, a semi-domestic dog, as the Rev. S. Erhardt 

 informs me, is kept, which the natives assert is derived from 

 a similar wild animal. Lichtenstein 26 savs that the doc's of 

 the Bosjemans present a striking resemblance even in colour 

 (excepting the black stripe down the back) with the G. meso- 

 melas of South Africa. Mr. E. Layard informs me that he 

 has seen a Caffre dog which closely resembled an Esquimaux 

 dog. In Australia the Dingo is both domesticated and wild ; 

 though this animal may have been introduced aboriginally 

 by man, yet it must be considered as almost an endemic form, 

 for its remains have been found in a similar state of preser- 

 vation and associated with extinct mammals, so that its 

 introduction must have been ancient. 27 



From this resemblance of the half-domesticated dogs in 

 several countries to the wild species still living there, — from 

 the facility with which they can often be crossed together, — 

 from even half-tamed animals being so much valued by 

 savages, — and from the other circumstances previously re- 

 marked on which favour their domestication, it is highly 

 probable that the domestic dogs of the world are descended 

 from two well-defined sjoecies of wolf (viz. C. lupus and 

 C. latrans), and from two or three other doubtful species 

 (namely, the European, Indian, and North African wolves) ; 

 from at least one or two South American canine species ; 

 from several races or species of jackal ; and perhaps from 

 one or more extinct species. Although it is possible or even 

 probable that domesticated dogs, introduced into any country 

 and bred there for many generations, might acquire some of 

 the characters proper to the aboriginal Canidee of the country, 

 we can hardly thus account for introduced dogs having given 



25 John Barbut's ' Description of Mag. of Nat. Hist.' (3rd series), vol. 

 the Coast of Guinea in 1746.' i.w, 1862, p. 147. The Dingo differs 



26 ' Travels in South Africa,' vol. ii. from the dogs of the central Polyne- 

 p. 272. sian islands. Dieffenbach remarks 



27 Selwyn, Geology of Victoria; ('Travels,' vol. ii. p. 45) that the 

 'Journal of Geolog. Soc.,' vol. xiv., native New Zealand dog' also differs 

 1858, p. 536, and vol. xvi., 1860, p. from the Dingo. 



148 ; and Prof. M'Coy, in ' Annals and 



