DOGS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 



cock-fighting and hunting were most practised. Large tracts 

 of the country were still unreclaimed, deer and wild-boar 

 abounded. These were driven by beaters into open spaces, 

 there to be pursued by men on horseback with bows and 

 arrows. In the fourth century the pastime of hawking was 

 introduced. It came from Korea, a king of that country 

 having sent a present of falcons to the Emperor of Japan.* 



One theory as to the evolution of domestic dogs is that they 

 were tamed at approximately the same period by several 

 branches of the human race from the local wolf or jackal, 

 and that to this must be traced the fact that in certain areas 

 the native dog resembles the local wolf. Modern geological 

 research, however, indicates that certain races of early man 

 had no domestic dogs. According to Professor Geikie/f the 

 dog was not part of the indigenous fauna of Europe in 

 Palaeolithic times, and was introduced in Neolithic times by 

 tribes who migrated, probably from Central Asia, into the 

 European continent. Similarly the domestic cat arrived in 

 England only at a period which was very late, in Saxon times. 

 In early Neolithic or late Palaeolithic times certain tribes 

 which were in contact with the jackal-like C. mikii of the 

 period, in an environment which favoured co-operation in the 

 chase, captured the young of that animal, and because of the 

 human ability to throw stones, to tie knots, and to use sticks, 

 established such an ascendancy as to take full advantage of 

 canine possibilities as watchers, as destructors of refuse, as 

 food in time of need, and as assistants in the scenting out and 

 pursuit of game. The tribes which first domesticated the 

 dog were probably the first to domesticate the sheep and the 

 ox. Geologists place the first known human remains as 

 dating from at least 400,000 years B.C. Consequently, 



* " Japan and China," vol. i, Captain F. Brinkley. 

 f " Text-book of Geology," vol. ii. p. 1356. 



