Historical 15 



appreciated, it was well worth while to adopt man and his 

 surroundings, as its natural master and habitat. 



An interesting deduction on this point is made by some 

 writers, who state, that because in some of the most ancient 

 middens, no small bones of wild animals are discovered, 

 but only those of large size, the inference is, that the small- 

 sized bones were eaten by the camp dogs. 



In considering this question of the association of dog with 

 man during the earliest times, we seem again to deduce, 

 that the dog must always have been a distinct race, from 

 the fact, that the other animals of similar appearance, had 

 the same opportunities to act in a like manner towards 

 man, but did not do so. The instinct did not seem to be 

 there. To this day, the wolf and the fox, and other allied 

 animals, are practically untameable, and where the 

 dog instinctively licks your hand, the wolf licks the 

 blood. 



It seems certainly most probable, therefore, that all dogs 

 are descended from a common ancestor of the same species. 

 Opinion varies as to which is the most ancient breed, but 

 it seems likely that the sheep dog can claim precedence 

 over all others. Many people assume that the greyhound 

 is the most ancient, by the fact that specimens are repre- 

 sented on some of the oldest Egyptian monuments, or, at 

 all events, representations of dogs that most resemble 

 this breed. This might easily be, however, because they 

 were useful to the upper classes of that period for hunting 

 purposes, and, therefore, stood for the canine aristocracy 

 of the age. The same impression might be conveyed to 

 future remote generations of the present age — and quite 

 erroneously — if a number of canvases of the Royal Academy 

 were dug up, in which the fashionable ladies are depicted 

 with Pekinese^ spaniels, while the honest, homely, working 



