68 ANECDOTES OF ANIMALS. 



DOGS. 



BARON CUVIER says that the most useful conquest 

 achieved by man, is the domestication of the dog a 

 conquest so long completed, that it is now impossible 

 with any certainty to trace these animals to their ori- 

 ginal type. The cleverest of naturalists have supposed 

 them to descend from wolves, from jackals, or from a 

 mixture of the two ; while others, equally clever, assert 

 that they proceeded from different species of dogs. 

 The latter maintain that the Dingos of Australia, the 

 Buansas of Nepal, or Dholes of India, the Aguaras of 

 South America, and several other races, are original ; 

 and although they may not have produced the dogs 

 which attend man, they prove that we may attribute 

 the latter to predecessors of the same kind, without 

 having recourse to other animals which they more or 

 less resemble. On the other hand again, some of our 

 first men are of opinion that there are now no original 

 dogs, but that all the packs called wild are those which 

 have made their escape from a state of domesticity. 

 This is not the place to examine the merits of the 

 different proofs brought in favour of each argument ; 

 and I hasten to a brief notice of some of those which 

 subsist independently of human assistance. 



All dogs, wild or tame, walk upon their toes with a 

 firm, elastic gait, and their claws are not retractile. 

 Their other external characters are so varied, that it is 

 impossible to give a general summary of their colour or 

 form : the largest on record (a Suliot, belonging to the 

 king of Naples) measured four feet at the shoulders ; 

 the least would probably give a height of as many inches. 



