THB 



CANINE FAMILY IN GENERAL* 



OR THB 



GENUS CANIS, (Linn.). 



Dogs, taken in a collective sense, constitute a family 

 of digitigrade carnivora, distinguished from all others 

 hy an uniformity of characters, which leaves no 

 doubt respecting the limits, but renders subdivision 

 the more difficult. Where all the species are so 

 nearly alike in their structure, naturalists have been 

 compelled to adopt distinctive characters of inferior 

 importance, and sometimes even of a trivial nature. 

 M. Frederic Cuvier, and other acute and practised 

 investigators, thoroughly convinced of the necessity 

 of bringing to bear upon this question all the light 

 that can be collected, have justly recommended the 

 investigation of the different intellectual and sensi- 

 tive instincts of canines, for the purpose of applying 

 them in aid of the other means of classification and 

 the distinction of species. But in what manner 

 physiologists, who have advocated the intervention 

 of man as the sole cause of the modifications dogs 



