HUNTING 89 



descended from the wolf or the jackal after he 

 had become the assistant of man. In fact, there 

 is no such thin^r as a wild orii>"inal door. His 

 evolution was contrived by man. In European 

 countries the process must have taken place tens 

 of thousands of years after man had established 

 himself. Thus it is that the origin of the door 

 is lost in obscurity. Probably the Chinese were 

 the first people to discover the usefulness of 

 animals in assisting them to capture wild animals 

 for food ; they were the first to utilise the hunt- 

 ing instincts of the wolf or the jackal. 



The claims of the fox as a progenitor of the 

 dog can be dismissed for several reasons. First, 

 he is a nocturnal animal, endowed with the oblong 

 eye and contracting lenticularly similar to the 

 characteristics of the cat tribe. The fox is also 

 of a solitary habitat and, so far as experience 

 goes, almost impossible to train from a utility 

 point of view. The only animals that can be 

 really domesticated are those having gregarious 

 or social instincts. Again, there is no authentic 

 instance of a cross between a fox and a doe. 

 Therefore it is too improbable to suggest that 

 the fox was the dog's progenitor. The Cape 

 hunting dog may be evolved from the cross of 

 some semi-domestic dog that had become wild, 

 and the hyena. In appearance he certainly takes 



