4 ORIGIN OF THE DOG. 



naturd Lib Hi, Line 717. ) speaking of this breed persuing deer 

 calls it " Can-is Hyvcano defemine" That these fierce dogs begot 

 in the ;;c Hyrcanian forests were any hybrid with the tiger is 

 simply impossible ; canines and felines being unable to breed 

 together, but it is just possible that they were a cross with the 

 hyaena or else some race of mastiff like dogs, then existing wild 

 in the woods of Asia and since become extinct. 



Cuvier says in his Animal Kingdom that domesticating the 

 dog is the must complete, the most useful, and most singular 

 conquest man has achieved, the various species having become 

 our property. 



With regard to the original wild varieties from which our 

 numerous races of domesticated dogs have sprung, I may 

 suggest that in all probability several have become extinct, 

 possibly before the flood. We know that the wild originals 

 of some of our oxen, for example the Bos Longifrons, have 

 become so, and the domestic long-horn cattle of Britain, are 

 not at all unlikely to become extinct, unless preserved as curi- 

 osities, although the leading variety in England only one 

 hundred years ago. ' The unreclaimed ancestors of our do- 

 mestic dogs would be a pest to man, and from their nature, 

 would not shun his presence and thus be not difficult to destroy, 



*Hyrcania, of Scythio origin and said to denote waste or uncultivated 

 country. It was a mountainous district covered with forest, situated at 

 the north-eastern corner of the Caspian sea, and was in fact the country 

 round the modern Astcrabad, stretching northwards toward the modern 

 Ust Urt plain, towards the Oxus Zadracart near the modern Jargan was 

 the ancient metropolis. Wild horses, asses, buffaloes, dee]-, antelopes, 

 hears, hyaenas, and wolves still rou.ni in the plains, and the margins of the 

 lakes and rivers which are lined with tall sedges and feathery reeds, 

 abound in wild boars and beasts of prey. Virgil (./Enid Lib iv, Line 307) 

 mentions the Hyrcanian tigers. In such a district wild dogs of a mastiff 

 type would be able to exist. 



