208 THE LAPLAND CUR. 



cur races are so intermixed as to bear but little of 

 purity of their type about them. Yet there is a 

 breed in the first mentioned country, rugged and 

 low on the legs, with many good qualities ; but the 

 Siberian, usually black, are not larger than a hare, 

 with ears half erect, slightly folded in the middle, 

 the body round, and the tail obtuse at the end, where 

 it is white; this variety is exceedingly voracious, 

 familiar, and filthy. 



The Lapland Cur is probably of the same race, — 

 black, or liver-coloured and rugged. It is a kind of 

 watch-dog, and used also in hunting ; but a people 

 depending entirely for subsistence on the produce of 

 reindeer, has not food to spare for large dogs, and 

 are unwilling to trust them in the vicinity of their 

 flocks. 



Although the race of cur origin may be traced 

 eastwards through Turkey, Persia, and slightly in 

 Egypt, where the outcasts are an intermixture 

 of all the forms of dogs, we find in their squalid 

 exterior only a predominant tendency to the more 

 original race of each country, having universally 

 long tails, erect ears, lank bodies, and sharp muzzles, 

 with yellowish, yellow-grey, and yellow and white 

 colours; but it cannot be said with absolute pro- 

 priety that they are of the cur races of Europe, tlieir 

 aspect becoming more and more like that of tlie 

 Indian Pariahs, in proportion as we advance east- 

 ward ; and if we consider that Central Asia, India, 

 and Syria have for more than thirty centuries been 

 traversed by nations, by great armies, and still more 



