12 INTRODUCTION. 



BuFFON, who warmly espoused the origmality of the 

 dog, has endeavoured to prove, that all the varieties 

 met with are derived from one common parent, which 

 parent he considers to have been the Shepherd's Dog 

 (can. domesticus, Lin.). To confirm such an opi- 

 nion, this great but fanciful naturalist should have 

 traced this varied and wide-spread tribe to its direct 

 origin ; and, having so done, he should have retraced 

 it back through the several varieties we now witness it 

 under. But, independent of the reasons we have for 

 believing that the shepherd's dog himself has different 

 origins according to the quarter of the globe he is 

 found in, we have more direct proofs that most of the 

 larger breeds of European dogs are descended from the 

 dog called the great Dane; Buffon's hypothesis, there- 

 fore, appears completely without foundation. 



Those celebrated zoologists and comparative anato- 

 mists, Blumrnbach and Cuvier (whose systems do 

 not essentially differ from each other, but are both 

 modifications and improvements on the Linnaean ar- 

 rangement), assign the dog a specific and distinct ori- 

 gin. The former divides the order fercE into twelve 

 compartments, of which the genus canis occupies the 

 ninth. The latter divides the ferce into two lesser 

 orders; in one of these (carnivora) he places the 

 canine genus. In addition to the incisive formation of 

 the teeth, these authors draw a generic character from 

 the simplicity and shortness of the canine alimentary 

 track. If the limits of the inquiry would allow, to 

 these advocates for the originality of the dog might be 



the elephant, the boar, the dog, and some other quadrupeds, they 

 are long and pointed, they form an advantageous weapon of defence. 

 In these animals they might therefore, with propriety, be called 

 pugnatoty teeth. 



