GENERAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 



One thing is certain, that foxes do not 

 breed in confinement, except in very rare 

 instances. The silver fox of North America 

 is the only species recorded to have bred 

 in the Zoological Gardens of London ; the 

 European fox has never been known to 

 breed in captivity. Then, again, the fox 

 is not a sociable animal. We never hear of 



general appearance, structure, habits, in- 

 stincts, and mental endowments that no 

 difficulty presents itself in regarding them 

 as being of one stock. There is, indeed, 

 no definition framable which will include 

 all the varieties of the domestic dog and 

 exclude all the wild species — none even 

 which will include all the dogs properly 



SKULL OF A RETRIEVER. 



SKULL OF AN AMERICAN WOLF. 



foxes uniting in a pack, as do the wolves, 

 the jackals, and the wild dogs. Apart from 

 other considerations, as Bartlett pointed 

 out, a fox may be distinguished from a dog, 

 without being seen or touched, by its smell. 

 No one can produce a dog that has half the 

 odour of Reynard, and this odour the dog- 

 fox would doubtless possess were its sire 

 a fox-dog or its dam a vixen. 



III. — Relationship with the Wolf and the 

 Jackal. — Whatever may be said concerning 

 the difference existing between dogs and 

 foxes will not hold good in reference to 

 dogs, wolves, and jackals. The wolf and 

 the jackal are so much alike that the only 

 appreciable distinction is that of size, and 

 so closely do they resemble many dogs in 



so called, both wild and tame, and at the 

 same time exclude the wolf and the jackal. 

 Wolves and jackals can be, and have re- 

 peatedly been, tamed. Domestic dogs can 

 become, and again and again do become, 

 wild, even consorting with wolves, inter- 

 breeding with them, assuming their gre- 

 garious habits, and changing the character- 

 istic bark into a dismal wolf-like howl. The 

 wolf and the jackal when tamed answer to 

 their master's call, wag their tails, lick 

 his hands, crouch, jump round him to be 

 caressed, and throw themselves on their 

 backs in submission. When in high spirits 

 they run round in circles or in a figure of 

 eight, with their tails between their legs. 

 Their howl becomes a businesslike bark. 

 They smell at the tails of other dogs and 



