Nathe American, or Indian Dogs. 17 



names. For savages sometimes bestow the same 

 names upon species that are, unquestionably, dis- 

 tinct. 



We are not yet prepared, it is obvious, to give an 

 exact genealogical history of the Indian dog. We 

 are compelled to mix conjecture with fact. The 

 anatomical structure of the animal should be examin- 

 ed. But whatever may have been the origin of this 

 breed of dogs, I am disposed to think, with Josselyn, 

 that the savages found it in the woods, and that it 

 Has existed as a distinct species, or breed, for a very 

 long period of time. Several of the earlier visitors 

 of different parts of North- America speak of the ex- 

 istence of wild dogs in the country. Renatus Lau- 

 donerius invaded Florida in the year 1564, only a 

 few years after the death of Soto. In his enumera- 

 tion of the native productions of the country, he 

 mentions wild dogs. There is no reason to suppose 

 that he has confounded them with the wolves. For 

 he expressly says, that the country produced, beside 

 these dogs, some species of wolves*. 



The discoverers of the island of Cape-Breton, in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, found in that island black 

 dogs, which we are informed, the Indians were very 

 careful to bring up to hunting. f I think it probable, 

 that both these and the dogs mentioned by Laudone- 

 rius, were the same as the half-wolf-breed, which I 

 have described. 



* See De Laet's Noma Orbit, lib. iv. p. 215. 

 t See the same, lib. ii. p. 37. 

 VOL. I, PART II. C 



