CANIS FAMILIARIS. 169 



survivors of tlie early parents of such Egyptians and Indians. If we 

 could believe this, we could also believe that with such a more 

 primitive human race (which, on this view, would have survived in 

 Australia) the more primitive domestic canine race may have survived 

 there also and become feral. 



JThe doctrine now generally accepted amongst men of science is tha 

 all existing races of mankind sprang from one primitive -race and 



v_y_arid locally radiating from a single geographical centre. We cannot 

 see any impossibility in all existing races of Dogs having also sprang 



D from a single kind and varied locally ; also radiating from a single 

 geographical centre. We know that the Dog existed in company with 

 man in prehistoric times, and the fact that different prehistoric races of 

 Dog succeeded one another, and that the earliest historical monuments 

 show that various breeds, more or less like existing breeds, had then 

 arisen, by no means proves that the Dog had not for ages existed in 

 man's company, as little differentiated as was the Dingo when Euro- 

 peans first visited Australia. That such a primitive dog would tend 

 to vary when exposed to very different climatic conditions, is shown 

 both by the change of coat, according to the seasons, which we have 

 seen so often takes place in other canine species, and also by the fact 

 that the Domestic Dog of to-day does undergo much modification from 

 climatic change. It is also probable that sudden modifications of form 

 might have excited interest, and so been preserved by selection. 



Donitz has described * a Fox's skull shaped like a Bull-dog's, with a 

 shortened snout and " underhung," the mandible being upturned in front 

 > -ef the promaxilloQ. This is a very interesting and noteworthy instance 

 of a wild and very distinct species with an abnormality like that existing 

 in one of the most peculiar of our races of the Domestic Dog. Darwin 

 cites evidence f of the degeneration of Greyhounds, Setters, and 

 Pointers in India, as also of Bull-dogs, after two or three generations, 

 not only losing their pluck and skill, but also their peculiar shape, 

 including the underhung jaw. 



* Sitzungsb. d. Gesellsch. naturf. Freunde Berlin, 1868, p. 21. 

 t Op. eit. vol. i. pp. 37-39. 



z 



