INTRODUCTION. 70 



differ only in their mode of acknowledgment, from 

 the expressions of favour with which the drover, 

 the shepherd, the sportsman, and the fine lady of 

 civilized society regard them. 



As the dog alone, of all the brute creation, volun- 

 tarily associates himself with the conditions of man's 

 existence, it is fair to presume also that he was the 

 first and therefore the oldest of man s companions ; 

 that to his manifold good qualities the first hunters 

 were indebted for their conquest and subjugation of 

 other species. We do even now perceive, notwith- 

 standing the advance of human reason and the pro- 

 gress of invention, that in a thousand instances we 

 cannot dispense with his assistance. 



If we still feel the importance of his services in 

 our state of society, what must have been the ad- 

 miration of man, when in the earliest period of 

 patriarchal life he was so much nearer to a state 

 of nature ? When the wild hunter first beheld the 

 joyous eyes of his voluntary associate, and heard 

 his native howl modulated into barking ; when he 

 first perceived it assuming tones of domestication fit 

 to express a master s purposes, and intonate the 

 language which we still witness cattle, sheep, and 

 even ducks and hawks learn to understand : What 

 exultation must he have felt when, with the aid of 

 his new friend, he was enabled to secure and do- 

 mesticate the first kid, the first lamb of the moun- 

 tain race ! When, with greater combinations of 

 force and skill between man and his dogs, the bull, 

 the buffalo, the camel, the wild ass, and then tho 



