664 THE DOG. 



in England of a Bull-dog, in Malta of a dog little larger 

 than a rabbit, in another country of a Hound, in another of 

 a Greyhound, and so forth ; and that even in the very same 

 country which itself inhabits, all these different forms of the 

 Dog may exist from age to age, with as little tendency to 

 change as in the case of the Shepherd's Dog itself. The 

 theory of the French naturalist is unsupported by a single 

 fact known in natural science, and would scarcely merit 

 notice, were it not that it has been followed by many subse- 

 quent writers, and that even yet there are naturalists who 

 give it a tacit support. Much, indeed, must be ascribed to 

 the effects of climate, food, and domestication, in modifying 

 the characters of the Dog ; but it is plain that we ascribe to 

 these agencies far more than the case requires, when we as- 

 sume that such a dog as the Shepherd's Dog of France, liv- 

 ing no more in the state of nature than many others, can 

 have been the root of them all ; that in England it may be a 

 Bull-dog, in the Pyrenees an animal so like a wolf as not to 

 be distinguishable from one, and in the country which itself 

 inhabits, a Matin or a Poodle. 



The latest theory regarding the origin of the Dog, is that 

 which derives all Dogs from the Buansa of Nepaul, thence 

 termed Cams primcevus. But the Hound of Nepaul merits 

 still less the distinction of being the progenitor of all dogs 

 than the Shepherd's Dog of France. For we must suppose 

 that this hound has given origin to an animal so unlike itself 

 as this very Shepherd's Dog, that in Siberia it has become a 

 Sledge-dog, and in Malta a Shock-dog ; nay, that in the very 

 region which itself inhabits, it may become a Mastiff and a 

 Terrier, both of which inhabit the mountainous country of 

 Nepaul, apparently as constant in their proper characters as 

 the Wild Hound of the same country. 



Another hypothesis, greatly more reasonable, indeed, but 

 yet very far from answering the conditions of the problem to 

 be resolved, is, that all dogs are derived from the Common 

 Wolf. That certain dogs, perhaps the most useful of any, 



