\ 
\ 
FFs 
Zi 
BUANSUAH.—Cwuon Primers. 
as it will often give up a chase just at the critical moment, and is too apt to turn aside 
from its legitimate quarry for the purpose of immolating a tame sheep or goat. 
5 
ALL the various Dogs which have been brought under the subjection of man are 
evidently members of one single species, Canis familiaris, being capable of mixture to an 
almost unlimited extent. By means of crossing one variety with another, and taking 
advantage of collateral circumstances, such as locality, climate, or diet, those who have 
interested themselves in the culture of this useful animal have obtained the varied forms 
which are so familiar to us. In general character, the groups into which domesticated 
Dogs naturally fall are tolerably similar, but the individual characters of Dogs are so 
varied, and so full of interest, that they would meet with scanty justice in ten times the 
space that can be afforded to them in these pages. It has been thought better, therefore, 
to occupy the space by figures and descriptions of the chief varieties of the domesticated 
Dog, rather than to fill the pages with anecdotes of individuals. Upwards of forty varieties 
of the Dag will be described in the following pages, and illustrated with figures which, 
in almost every instance, are portraits of well-known animals. 
One of the most magnificent examples of the domesticated Dog is the THrBer Doe, an 
animal which, to his native owners, is as useful as he is handsome, but seems to enter- 
tain an invincible antipathy to strangers of all kinds, and especially towards the face of a 
white man. These enormous Dogs are employed by the inhabitants of Thibet for the 
purpose of euarding their houses and their flocks, for which avocation their great size and 
streneth render them peculiarly fit. It often happens that the male inhabitants of a 
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