Dr Morton on Hybrid Anhnals and Plants. 21 Z 



North America are of one variety, with erect ears, a wolfish 

 aspect, and having a howl in place of a bark. Most natu- 

 ralists agree in considering it a reclaimed wolf. The late 

 Mr Thomas Say, regarded it as the Canis latrans or Howling 

 Wolf, in a state of domestication. It is remarkable, when 

 unmixed, for the uniformity of its characters, which are the 

 same in every locality over thousands of miles in extent.* 

 No varieties have arisen from it, excepting by crossing the 

 breed with other dogs, when a hybrid is produced that is pro- 

 lific without end. It is much to be regretted that so little 

 is known of the history of the indigenous dogs of America, 

 — a subject that afiPords a fine field for scientific inquiry. 



While engaged in writing this memoir, I am assured by 

 my friend Dr M'Coy, an intelligent physician and naturalist, 

 that in the interior of Pennsylvania, the common wolf, C. 

 lupus, has been taken when young, and successfully trained 

 to deer hunting. The difficulty, however, with these animals 

 was, that they devoured the game, unless the sportsman was 

 on the spot to prevent them. To obviate this fault, these 

 wolves were crossed by the common dog ; giving rise to a 

 mixed breed, that combined the keener instinct of the wolf 

 with the greater docility of the dog. Should these hybrids 

 reproduce among themselves, or with either of the parental 

 sources, how completely will the history of these animals il- 

 lustrate the origin of the dog tribe, its primitive domestica- 

 tion, the crosses between different species, and the varieties 

 that must have followed from such intermixture % I hope yet 

 to be able to lay before the reader all the facts of this singular 

 history. 



Surine Hybrids. — An other domestic animal which presents 

 remarkable varieties of form as well as of marking, is the 

 hog ; and these have also been attributed to a single species 

 modified by immemorial domestication. Some new light, 

 however, has recently been thrown on this branch of zoology 

 by Mr Eyton of London, who has compared the skeletons of 



* Carver's Travels in North America, p. 417. See also the plates of the 

 magnificent Atlas of the Prince de Wied's Travels in this country. 



