274 DOG. 



mains in a state of uncertainty ; wild dogs appear to 

 be found in great troops in Congo, lower ^Ethiopia, 

 and towards the Cape of Good Hope. They are 

 said to be red-haired,, with slender bodies and 

 turned-up tails, like greyhounds. It is also added, 

 that they vary in colour, have upright ears, and 

 are of the general size of a large fox-hound. 

 They destroy cattle, and hunt down antelopes, 

 and many other animals, and commit great ra- 

 vages among the sheep of the Hottentots. They 

 are very seldom to be taken, being extremely 

 swift as well as fierce. The young are said to be 

 sometimes obtained, but grow so fierce as to be 

 very difficultly rendered domestic. 



It is not, however, allowed by modern natu- 

 ralists, that these wild dogs constitute the true or 

 real species in a state of nature, but that they are 

 rather the descendants of dogs once domesticated, 

 and which have relapsed into a state resembling 

 that of primitive wildness; and a theory has for 

 some time prevailed, that the Wolf is in reality 

 the stock or original from which the Dog has 

 proceeded. The Count de Buffon, however, in 

 the earlier part of his writings, maintains a con- 

 trary opinion. 



" The Wolf and the Dog (says Buffon) have ne- 

 ver been regarded as the same species but by the 

 nomenclators of natural history, who, being ac- 

 quainted with the surface of nature only, never 

 extend their views beyond their own methods, 

 which are always deceitful, and often erroneous 

 even in the most obvious facts. The Wolf and 



