THE CUR DOGS. 203 



they came from the Thoan and Sacalian groups, or 

 sprung from a lost species now entirely absorbed in 

 domestication, is a question : we have in part pointed 

 out the presence of similar small species over the 

 whole surface of the old world, which in Greece, un- 

 der the name of Alopecides appear to have modified 

 and influenced the characters of the large breeds by 

 introducing their own individual capacities and 

 -propensities. It is credible, in fact, that in the first 

 attempts at the subjugation of canines to the pur- 

 poses of man, he would begin by the smaller and 

 less powerful individuals of the genus, and accord- 

 ingly we see most generally, where the savage state 

 still obtains, that the dogs accompanying it are small 

 and resemble some wild species of the country, and 

 that universally through the world, when no care 

 happens to be taken in selecting the breeds and 

 preserving them more or less in the purity of given 

 qualities, the small cur blood predominates in their 

 character. 



In Southern Africa we have a race of small Saca- 

 lian dogs ; in Arabia, one of Thoan form ; in India, 

 the parent Pariah breed, apparently captured in the 

 woods of the country ; Southern China, all Persia, 

 Natolia, and Russia have a similar predominant 

 race of curs, and in Europe there is every where 

 evidence of an originally indigenous species of small 

 dimensions, or at least of one, brought in by the 

 earliest colonists of the West, extending from Lap- 

 land to Spain; and if we search for that which 

 now seems to be the most typical ; that possessing 



