318 THE HOUND. 



every virtue and faculty, size and shape, which we 

 find or improve in every dog upon earth, were ori- 

 ginally comprehended in the first parents of the 

 species, nothing having remained constant but 

 their natural conformation ; and all the variety 

 which we now behold in them is either the product 

 of climate or the accidental effect of soil, food, or 

 gituation, and very frequently the issue alone of 

 human care, curiosity, or caprice. This we take to 

 be the case with other departments of the creation. 

 For example, we only acknowledge two sorts of 

 pigeons, the wild and the tame. Of the first there 

 is but one, the cenas, or vinago of Ray. Of the 

 last, the varieties are innumerable. The tame and 

 the wild goose are likewise originally of the same 

 species, the influence of domestication alone having 

 caused the tame ones to differ from the parent 

 stock. Notwithstanding, however, the efforts and 

 effects of human industry and skill, there is fortu- 

 nately a lie plus ultra in nature which cannot be 

 passed ; and as there is a distinct specific difference 

 in all living creatures, a pigeon is still a pigeon, a 

 goose a goose, and a dog remains a dog. Still, 

 although no human device can add one new species 

 to the works of the creation, and nature is still 

 uniform in the main, as has been already observed, 

 in the foregoing remarks on the horse, she is 

 always ready to meet the demands of art, a fact 

 beautifully set forth in these lines of Hudihras : — 



" How fair and sweet the planted rose. 

 Beyond the wild in hedges grows ! 

 For without art the noblest seeds 

 Of flowers degen'rate into weeds. 



