140 On Luiian Dogs. 



hidory of llie country in which the Kalmucks refide will be- 

 lieve that that country is a new creation ? Who will venture 

 to conjtfture that the Kalmucks themfclvcs are a new people f 

 Moreover, Kalm's obfervation would lead us to believe that 

 the Indian dogs are the fame (and of courfenot more favage) 

 as fome of the dogs in the north of Kurope. 



V. Some animals are very eafily brought into the domef- 

 ticated ftate. Others are domefticated with great difficultv. 

 Perhaps there are fome incapable of domcftication. If the 

 Indian dog be the offspring of the wolf and the fox, or any 

 other aniujal, we ought not, perhaps, to wonder that he is (lill 

 Diore an animal fylvefln: than tlie generality of the dogs of 

 the old world; for both the wolf and the fox are wiih diffi-- 

 culty tnmed. In this inquiry we ought alio to remember that 

 the maOer of tlie Indian dog is a lavage. It may readily be 

 conceived that this circumfiance will influence the genius of 

 our animal. Living in the woods, and too frequently badly 

 treated by his matter, the df)"; mull often leave the huts of 

 the Indians, and, perhaps, imbibe from his parents, in the 

 woods, a new tinclure of their afpcCt and their manners. 

 Even irxjour cultivated towns, Iiow much do the manners of 

 the dogs fecm to depend upon the calling of their nialiers ! 

 It is a fncl, that the doj;s of our frontier feulers have a much 

 more favage afpect than the doers (the fame variety) in the 

 vilbges and populous towns. 



VI. In America there were found fome kinds of dog> 

 uhich were not lefs domefticated thim the dons of the old 

 v.orld. Such were the alco and the Itzcuhiti-potzotli, of which 

 I have already given fome account. I think it very impro- 

 bable that thefc two fpecies or varieties were derived from the 

 volf. Nor is it certain that thev were not a fpecies of canis 

 cirenlially diftinft from thole of the old world. In whatever 

 lisiht we view them, they feem to oppofe an objeftion to Mr. 

 Zimmermann's notion concerning the recent creation of 

 America, and the recent population of this great portion of 

 the globe. Could it be proved that the alco and the ilxai- 

 infcpotz.otli have fprung from the wolf, it wou'd be natural to 

 infer that an immenfe period of time had elapfed before thefe 

 animals could have been brought into the mild, domellicated 

 ftate in which the difcoverers of America found them. 



VII. and laftlv. This is not the place to inquire into the 

 period of the population of America. I have touched upon 

 this qucftion in another work *, and rtiall examine it more 

 fully in a woik in which I have long been engaged. Here, 



* New Vicwi, &c. Preliminary Difcourfc, p. 104 — 1~<). 



how-ever. 



