488 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



Indians of that country. He considers that it is of undoubted Euro- 

 pean origin, "has no particular characters," and "could be matched 

 in any lot of mongrels. It is generally rather small with a pointed 

 muzzle, foxy looking, and kept hungry to prevent laziness." The 

 "foxy" appearance is somewhat typical of the native breeds of smaller 

 Indian dogs, a result of the fine muzzle, ample erect ears, and drooping 

 tail, traits which seem still traceable among these mongrels of the 

 modern Guiana Indians. 



Among a series of dog-skulls (l)elonging to the U. S. N. M.) from 

 ancient burials in Peru are two which in their small size and slender 

 proportions seem referable to the Techichi. Both are fully ai^ult, 

 with a well-developed sagittal crest on the interparietal, extending 

 forward in the larger skull on to the parietal suture. As will be seen 

 from the table of measvu'ements appended these skulls are a very 

 little larger, with slightly shorter nasals, as compared with the other 

 skulls whose dimensions are given. It is possible that this is due to 

 some admixture with the short-nosed breeds. Nevertheless the skulls 

 in question are quite different from the latter in their slender and 

 narrow outlines, and unshortened tooth-row. 



No doul)t, flid we know the external characters of the dogs whose 

 skulls are here listed, it would be possible to recognize more than 

 one breed. Thus the Ohio individuals are a trifle larger in dimensions 

 than those of the Southwest and the Peruvian dogs again are a little 

 larger. Yet all are clearly of the same general type. 



A comparison of the skulls and measurements of these specimens 

 with those of the Canis pahisfris oi Riitimeyer from the Swiss Lake- 

 Dwellings of late Neolithic to Bronze times in Europe, reveals a rather 

 close correspondence which is probably more than accidental, and 

 may even indicate a derivation from some common Asiatic stock at a 

 very early period. The type of small dog of the Swiss Lake-Dwellings 

 was one apparently of general distribution in southern Europe during 

 the Neolithic time, and AYoldrich (1886a) has identified it as far north 

 as Denmark in the kitchen-middens. It was apparently, on the 

 average, of wider zygomatic breadth, but otherwise its dimensions 

 corresponded very closely. This evidence favors the view that a dog 

 of this type was one of the earliest to be domesticated and was of wide 

 distribution in an early period of human culture. Remains of a 

 larger type of dog, C. intermedius, are also wide-spread in late Neo- 

 lithic or Bronze culture layers of middle Europe, and correspond 

 broadly to the larger type of Indian dog, a parallelism that is sug- 

 gestive of the common origin of the large and the small types of dogs 

 in Europe and America, probably from Asiatic prototypes. 



