INTRODUCTION. 101 



Europe, the fiercest dogs, such as the packs kept by 

 the feudal nobility for boar and wolf hunting, were 

 invariably fed on bread.* If the dog proceeded 

 solely from one typical species, allowance being 

 made for some modifications as above specified, all 

 his developments would continue within the circle 

 of powers and faculties belonging to the original 

 type. They might diminish, but increase only in a 

 trifling degree. "VVe may infer, that food or climate 

 would not truncate and widen the muzzle, nor raise 

 the frontals, nor greatly alter the posterior branches 

 of the lower jaw-bone, as in mastilBfs.t It would 

 scarcely have the effect, in other cases, of producing 

 a high and slender structure, w^hile it took away the 

 sense of smelling and several of the best moral qua- 

 lifications resulting from domesticity and education, 

 as occurs in greyhounds. All these qualities appear 

 to us indications of different types, whose combinable 

 properties have enabled man to multiply the species 

 of dogs into the several races his wants required. 

 In these views we expect to have the concurrence 

 of all sportsmen, who have studied the characters 

 of the animals more than the books of systematic 



* See our own ancient books of venery ; also Le Roi Modus 

 and the household institutions of the dukes of Burgundy ; 

 the ancient Welsh laws, &c. 



+ " The deep jaw-bones of (some) domestic dogs are inde- 

 pendent of the more general character of the family, and 

 indicate a corresponding possession of actual physical power, 

 as in the lion and jaguar, compared with the more insidious 

 habits of the puma, we find a similar correspondence. — Ani- 

 mal Kingdom, m ilie Edivbwrgh Review 0/ Nat. History, 



