SPECIES AND VARIETIES. 657 



slaves. In the state of liberty, however, the union is not 

 unfrequent. The fact, though questioned by naturalists, 

 has been long known to shepherds. By tying the female 

 sheep-dogs, when they are in heat, at a distance from houses, 

 they have been again and again impregnated by the wild 

 foxes which are attracted to them. The result of the union 

 is a race partaking of the characters of both parents. They 

 are less fitted for being sheep-dogs than the cultivated breeds, 

 but they are sagacious and bold, and manifest a peculiar ap- 

 titude for attacking weasels, rats, badgers, and other ani- 

 mals termed vermin ; and are, in truth, a kind of terriers. 



Certain Canidae, it has been seen, of the Old World have 

 found their way to the New, and multiplied in the boundless 

 regions where they have acquired a habitation. The Com- 

 mon and the Black Wolves, it is easy to conceive, may still 

 find their way thither when the Arctic Regions are covered 

 with ice ; but being placed under new conditions with re- 

 spect to climate and the nature and abundance of their food, 

 the animals undergo modifications, from the extent of which 

 some naturalists have conceived that the common wolves of 

 North America are specifically distinct from those of Asia 

 and Europe. But the differences are in external aspect and 

 trivial characters, and are less in degree than those which 

 present themselves between the wolves of one part of Europe 

 and another. But whatever the conclusion arrived at with 

 respect to the identity or non-identity of certain groups shall 

 be, it is perfectly certain, that wolves of the higher latitudes 

 of North America have been reclaimed, and become the dogs 

 of the rude inhabitants. The wild and the tame of the 

 species present no greater differences than we see in the case 

 of other animals in the state of nature and of domestication. 

 The intrepid Arctic travellers, who have recently added so 

 wonderfully to our knowledge of these desolate regions, have 

 assured us, that the sledge-dogs of the natives, and the 

 wolves of the country, are the same. They inform us that 

 they have more than once mistaken the bands of wild wolves 



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