Chap. I. THEIR PARENTAGE. 21 



shown *^ liow slowly the native birds of several islands have 

 acquired and inherited a salutary dread of man : at the Gala- 

 pagos Archipelago I pushed with the muzzle of my gun 

 hawks from a branch, and held out a pitcher of water for 

 other birds to alight on and diink. Quadrupeds and birds 

 which have seldom been disturbed by man, dread him no 

 more than do our English birds, the covins, or horses grazing 

 in the fields. 



It is a more important consideration that several canine 

 species evince (as will be shown in a future chapter) no 

 strong repugnance or inability to breed under confinement ; 

 and the incapacity to breed under confinement is one of the 

 commonest bars to domestication. Lastly, savages set the 

 highest value, as we shall see in the chapter on Selection, on 

 dogs : even half-tamed animals ai'e highly useful to them : 

 the Indians of North America cross their half-wild dogs with 

 wolves, and thus render them even wilder than before, but 

 bolder : the savages of Guiana catch and partially tame and 

 use the whelps of two wild species of Canis, as do the savages 

 of Australia those of the wild Dingo. Mr. Philip King in- 

 forms me that he once trained a wild Dingo puppy to drive 

 cattle, and found it very useful. From these several con- 

 siderations we see that there is no difficulty in believing tliat 

 man might have domesticated various canine species in dif- 

 ferent countries. It would indeed have been a strange fact 

 if one species alone had been domesticated throughout the 

 world. 



We will now enter into details. The accurate and sagacious 

 Richardson says, " The resemblance between the Northern 

 American wolves (Canis liqms, var. occidentalis) and the 

 domestic dogs of the Indians is so great that the size and 

 strength of the wolf seems to be the only difierence. I have 

 more than once mistaken a band of wolves for the dogs of 

 a party of Indians ; and the howl of the animals of both 

 species is prolonged so exactly in the same key that even the 



1' ' Journal of Researches,' «&c., of the antelope, see ' Journal EoyaJ 

 1845, p. 393. With respect to Canis Geograph. Soc.,' vol. xxiii. p. 94. 

 antarcticus, see p. 193. For the case 



