CHAPTER XIII. 



DOGS AND FOXES, EXTINCT AND LIVING. 



Canid^ : (Maps 20-23). — Extinct species. Fossil remains of animals belonging to this 

 family have for nearly one hundred years been known to exist, Esper having first recognised 

 them in remains from the caverns of Franconia in 1772. But it is at a much more recent date 

 that the remains of genera have been distinguished. The skeletons of the Dog and the "Wolf 

 arc so nearlj^ alike, that it is scarcely pC».»ible in dealing with remains belonging to an unknown 

 canine species to say to which of them j^ belongs. It has, however, been pretty satisfactorily 

 established by M. Schmerling, that certain bo/.es belonging to an aninnil weaker than the Wolf 

 and larger than the Fox, which were found iji cavos iii the neighbourhood of Liege, belonged to the 

 domestic Dog ; and this determination is of the more value that it was made in 1833, long before 

 the present views regarding the antiquity of man had begun to be accepted. The domestic Dog 

 so discovered was at that time supposed to be a wild animal from which the " friend of man " was 

 afterwards derived. A different signification is now placed on its occurrence. It is now sujiposed 

 to have been a specimen of our existing Dog, — a domestic Dog belonging to the savage man of the 

 period ; and its presence is adduced as one of the proofs of the then existence of man, as it is 

 assumed that where the domestic Dog was, its master, man, would not be far off. But the separa- 

 tion of the Dog from the Wolf is not the only difficulty which palecontologists have had to overcome 

 in dealing with the fossil remains of this family. ^Vhen certain bones were recognised as belonging 

 to the Wolf they were at first referred to an extinct species, which was named C. sPELiEus, or the 

 Cave Wolf, but more careful examination has since shown that they do not differ from those of the 

 existing Wolf. That animal was therefore already in existence at that period, a circumstance 

 which strengthens the probability of the Dog, too, being the same as the existing Dog. It is a 

 remarkable circumstance that none of our truly domestic animals have ever been found but in 

 company with man ; it is as if they have not appeared until he was ready for them, and that 

 when they did appear they came endowed with such a craving for his society that the process of 

 domestication was short and easy. 



Probably no objection will be taken by any one to the assumption that in whatever way the 

 domestic breeds have come under the control of man, a certain amount of modification has been its 

 result. But the chief point on which a difference of opinion will occur is whether the original 

 progenitor of the modern animal was a distinct species, or is merely a captured and tamed indi- 

 vidual of one of the wild species which are still in existence. 



So far as regards the Dog, the authorities in favour of its being a taine variety of the 

 Wolf or the Jackal chiefly depend on the numerous peculiarities which arc common to both, 

 and on their coupling together and having fertile progen)'. The authors who have taken an 



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