tage 58. 



INTR O DUCT ION. 



The Dog has, by all naturalists, been assigned a dis- 

 tinguished niche in Nature's scale; and whatever ob- 

 scurity may seem to hang around his direct origin, yet, 

 were we enabled satisfactorily to trace his history, even 

 as a cultivated animal, we should probably be carried 

 back to the earliest periods of human association*. 

 Such were the superior powers of mind and body dis- 

 played in the predatory habits of the whole canine 

 genus, that man, in his state of primitive simplicity, 

 could not long remain unobservant of them : and it was 

 one of the highest efforts of his intelligence that prompt- 

 ed him to the selection of this particular member of it ; 

 whereby he insured to himself a powerful assistant and 

 ally in his meditated conquest over the remainder of the 

 animal world. Neither is it, perhaps, too much to assert, 



■ A reverend author fancifully observes, " That the dog was pro- 

 " bably the next object, after woman, that shared the attention or 

 " espoused the cause of mankind." — 1> ascf.lles on Sportiiu}, 



B 



