9o INTRODUCTION. 



abundant. Yet none of these dogs have assumed 

 its aspect ; nor have they mixed, further south, with 

 jackals, equally numerous ; nor, in the wildernesses 

 of the western coast, with the dhole. Their several 

 voices are not to be mistaken, and the name pariah, 

 or rather pahariah (which it is true Europeans give 

 to the curs of India, domesticated or half wild), 

 denotes nevertheless a being of the mountains, one 

 residing in the woods, and is applied by the Hindoos 

 to a wild race of aboriginal inhabitants, as well as 

 to wild dogs. 



These considerations must have presented them- 

 selves to both G. and F. Cuvier, as well as to other 

 naturalists, for the Baron did not point out the wolf 

 or any other wild animal as parent of the domestic 

 races ; he merely notices the greater approximation 

 of the jackal, and inclined to one or more species 

 being absorbed in the domestic dogs as we now find 

 them. At least this was our impression when some 

 of the foregoing arguments were submitted by us to 

 provoke an opinion. Both he, and more particu- 

 larly his brother, have pointed out the importance 

 of studying the intellectual character or moral in- 

 stincts of the species, as a method too much neglec- 

 ted, and in this instance of the first importance. It 

 may however be doubted in what manner such an 

 inquiry could be carried on with sufiicient inductive 

 foundation, when it is considered that we have no 

 other instance of a similar nature to g-uide us, and 

 that it would embrace the estimate of gradual mo- 

 dification by domestication, through a period of 



