168 THE DOMESTIC DOG. 



one of those breeds, in, as it were, an as yet undeveloped condition. 

 But no such races exist in nature. They can hardly all have 

 once existed and become extinct, for two reasons. In the first 

 place, paleontology affords us no evidence that such has been the 

 case ; and, in the second place, what we know of the life-history 

 of existing wild Canines does not favour the supposition. The 

 Dog family is not one the species of which tend readily to disappear, 

 as is shown by the long persistent efforts needed to exterminate the 

 Wolf, even in the most civilized parts of the habitable globe. There- 

 / fore the Domestic Dog cannot well be the product of a variety oT wild 

 true Dog, once widely diffused but now entirely extinct. That the 

 various breeds known to us may nevertheless have originated from 

 one form must be admitted to be possible, when we consider the 

 changes which have taken place m old breeds, and the new forms which 

 have been called forth in the historical period. The Egyptian and 

 Assyrian monuments show this, and our King Charles' Spaniels have 

 been modified and had their characteristics exaggerated since the days 

 of the Merry Monarch. Darwin, in his admirable work ' Animals and 

 Plants under Domestication/ has collected and published amply 

 sufficient evidence * as to this matter. 



Can, then, all the breeds of the Domestic Dog have descended from 

 one wild true dog now existing or extinct ? We have not, so far as is 

 known to us, any evidence of an extinct dog for which such a distinc- 

 tion can be claimed, nor has such a claim, to our knowledge, been made. 

 As to an existing Wild Dog, there is but one species the Dingo 

 which we think can possibly be supposes to have played such a part. Of 

 course, if the Dingo was always, as now, an Australian animal, then it 

 cannot have played such a part. But the dogs of the Pacific Islands, 

 including the Solomon Islands f, are probably of the same race as 

 /u) the Dingo. Professor Huxley has thrown out the suggestion 

 that not only some of the tribes of Hindostan, but even the ancient 

 Egyptians, were of the same race as the inhabitants of Australia, so 

 that the Australians might thus be regarded as the survivors degraded 



/ 

 * See vol. i. pp. 40-43. f See above, p. 158. 



