Historical 13 



five or six times round the wall, and never set it down, 

 save to take breath, to devour the meat, or to attack the dog 

 when he approached. After the second year these quarrels 

 and combats became more frequent and more serious. 

 In the third year it was hoped to breed from them, but this 

 condition, instead of softening them and making them 

 approach each other, rendered them more intractable and 

 ferocious. Nothing now was heard but dismal howlings 

 and cries of resentment." 



Finally this sad story is closed with an account of the 

 destruction of the wolf by the dog. 



Buffon also tried experiments in the same way with foxes 

 and dogs, but the result was the same — strong antagonism 

 or indifference. It therefore seems impossible to credit 

 that any races, with such intensely strong natural anti- 

 pathy to each other, can at any time have been united in 

 a common ancestor. And the fact that, although so like 

 each other in structure and appearance, this great anta- 

 gonism does exist, seems to emphasize with corresponding 

 significance the curious differences in the appearance of dogs 

 themselves, and yet the entire absence of enmity. For 

 instance, the St. Bernard dog and the Pekinese spaniel 

 are, in appearance, as opposite as possible, and yet they 

 each recognize in each other the same species. 



There is no doubt but that scent enters very largely into 

 this question of species. As human beings, we have, to a 

 great extent, lost all understanding of the properties of 

 scent, as understood by the dogs, and animal creation 

 generally. They are far ahead of us in this respect. The 

 greater part of their powers of recognition come from this 

 quality of scent, and they also use it as a means of com- 

 munication from the one to the other, and, in fact, it 

 assumes the importance of a form of language with them. 



