IXTUODUCTION. ^"J 



tempts have been made to classify these varieties or 

 breeds ; but many difficulties have prevented, and will 

 perhaps long prevent, a complete synopsis of the ca- 

 nine race. The obscurity attending the gradual changes 

 that have brought about many of these varieties, and 

 the undetermined outline of many of the breeds them- 

 selves, together with the capability of altering them, or 

 of creating new^ ones, all present obstacles not easily 

 surmounted. 



BuFFON '* has enumerated fourteen varieties of the 

 dog; but, however permanent some of these have re- 

 mained, the characteristic outlines of others have be- 

 come faint and indistinct. New breeds have sprung 

 up, or have been brought into notice ; and it would be 

 as easy now to enumerate twenty-four, as fourteen va- 

 rieties. 



Dr. Caius, an early British writer on natural history, 

 has also left us a synopsis of the dogs common in Eng- 

 land'5. His divisions are founded on the habits or 

 uses of the animal. Some breeds that he also notices 

 are now extinct, and their places are supplied by new 

 ones. 



Having thus endeavoured to trace back the genealogy 

 of the dog towards its source, I shall now return ; and 

 from the first races will endeavour to follow his general 

 difi*usion over the w orld, and to describe the probable 

 causes that have operated in producing the remarkable 

 alterations from the original, and the innumerable va- 

 rieties we daily observe. In those inhospitable climes 

 where the herbage is unequal to the support of the 

 horse, and where cultivation extends only to satisfy the 

 common wants of its inhabitants, it may be supposed 



^ BuFFoN Hisi, Nat. torn. v. 



'5 J. Caii de Canibus Britanincus, Loud, 1729. 



C2 



