GENERAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 



of the dog, quick to recognise the points 

 of special breeds. In their colony in Car- 

 thage, during the reign of Sardanapalus, 



13 4d<ry 

 C LAZED WAF 

 DOG. 



Alfaandria , 



ANCIENT TOY DOG, MODELLED IN BLUE GLAZED 



WARE, FROM ALEXANDRIA. 



In the BHtish Museum. 



they had already possessed themselves of 

 the Assyrian Mastiff, which they probably 

 exported to far-off Britain, as they are 

 said to have exported the Water Spaniel 

 to Ireland and to Spain. 



II. — The Ferine Strain. — It is a significant 

 circumstance when we come to consider 

 the probable origin of the dog that there 

 are indications of his domestication at 

 such early periods by so many savage 

 peoples in different parts of the world. 

 As we have seen, dogs were more or less 

 subjugated and tamed by primitive man 

 in the Neolithic or Newer Stone age, by 

 the Assyrians, Egyptians, Phoenicians. 

 Greeks, and Romans, as also by the ancient 

 barbaric tribes of the western hemisphere. 

 The important question now arises : Had 

 all these dogs a common origin in a definite 

 parent stock, or did they spring from 

 separate and unrelated parents ? Did the 

 great Neolithic dog of Northern Europe, 

 the Sheepdog of Job's time, the Grey- 

 hounds, the Wolfhounds, and Lapdogs of 

 Egypt and Nineveh, the Mastiffs of Car- 

 thage, the divinely honoured animals of 

 Peru, and the pariah dogs of the Far East, 



descend from a single pair, or have various 

 wild and indigenous species of Canidce. been 

 methodically tamed, and by degrees con- 

 verted into true domestic dogs by these differ- 

 ent peoples in different parts of the world ? 



Half a century ago it was believed that 

 all the evidence which could be brought 

 to bear upon the problem pointed to an 

 independent origin of the dog. It was 

 assumed that, as distinct breeds existed in 

 remote periods of the world's history, there 

 was actually no time prior to those periods 

 for him to have been evolved from a savage 

 ancestor such as a wolf or a jackal, and 

 that it was highly unlikely that a number 

 of isolated primitive races of men should 

 have separately tamed different wild Canidce. 

 Youatt, one of the best authorities on the 

 dog, writing in 1845, argued that " this 

 power of tracing back the dog to the very 

 earliest periods of history, and the fact 

 that he then seemed to be as sagacious, 

 as faithful, and as valuable as at the present 

 day, strongly favours the opinion that he 

 was descended from no inferior and com- 

 paratively worthless animal ; and that he 



MUMMY HEAD OF AN EGYPTIAN HOUND MEASURING 

 NINE INCHES FROM NOSE TO OCCIPUT. FOUND 

 AT THEBES AND PRESERVED IN THE BRITISH 

 MUSEUM. 



was not the progeny of the wolf, the jackal, 

 or the fox, but was originally created, 

 somewhat as we now find him, the asso- 

 ciate and friend of man." 



When Youatt wrote, most people believed 



