MAMMALIA — DOG. 



135 



THE ESQUIMAUX DOG.i 



This animal is one of those varieties of the dog, from which man receives 

 obedience and affection. To the Esquimaux Indians his services are invalu- 

 able. He assists them to hunt the bear, the rein-deer, and the seal ; in 

 summer, while attending his master in the chase, he carries a weight of 

 thirty pounds ; in winter he is yoked to a sledge, and conveys his master 

 over the trackless snows. Several of them drawing together, will convey 

 five or six persons, at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour, and will 

 travel sixty miles in a day. In winter he is scantily fed, and roughly treat- 

 ed, yet his fidelity remains unshaken. The Esquimaux dog does not bark. 

 In appearance, he comes nearest to the shepherd's dog, and the wolf dog. 

 His ears are short and erect, and his bushy tail curves elegantly over his 

 back. His average stature is one foot ten inches, and the length of his 

 body, from the back of the head to the commencement of the tail, is two 

 feet three inches. His coat is long and furry, and is sometimes brindled, 

 sometimes of a dingy red, sometimes black and white, and sometimes 

 almost wholly black. 



The manner in which the sledge is drawn by these animals, is described 

 with much accuracy and spirit, by Captain Parry, in the Journal of his 

 Second Voyage. "When drawing a sledge," says he, "the dogs have a 

 simple harness, (annoo,) of deer or seal skin, going round the neck by one 

 bight, and another for each of the fore legs, with a single thong leading over 



1 C. Borealis. This animal is a native of America, and is considered by Godman, as 

 descended from the wolf and the fox. He observes, that they retain so much of the ex- 

 ternal appearance, and general carnage of the wild animal, as to leave no question of 

 their descent from the same stock of the wolf, residing in the vicinity, and do not appear 

 to be distinctly removed from that species, however long they may have been in the 

 service of man. 



