666 THE DOG. 



animal, in a previous distribution of living forms, from which 

 all existing Canidae have been derived, the Wolf, the Jackal, 

 the Fox, and others, with all their varieties ; but this, it 

 is manifest, is a theory founded upon no basis of known 

 truths. We cannot say how species were formed, and must 

 wander in the regions of absolute conjecture, when we ven- 

 ture to assume that some one species, in a former distribu- 

 tion of living beings, gave origin to animals now distinct 

 from one another, as the Wolf, the Jackal, and the Fox. 

 This may have been, nay, probably was ; but when we at- 

 tempt to investigate the origin of the Dog and such animals, 

 it is useless for us to go farther than animal forms, as they 

 are exhibited to us in living species or remains. All that 

 we can hope to determine regarding the origin of Dogs is, 

 from what species, one or more, now existing, or whose re- 

 mains exist, they have been derived. If we assume that 

 some primal species of dog existed, we must assume that 

 this species gave origin to the Wolf, as well as to every spe- 

 cies of Canis which has been domesticated. 



There are, then, insuperable difficulties in the supposition 

 of the origin of all the various races of Dogs from any one 

 species. But knowing, as we do, that many species of Canis 

 exist in the wild state, and have been domesticated, and that 

 all the domesticated Canidae, so far as is known, breed with 

 one another; that tribes and nations of men have been 

 mingled together by migration, conquest, or otherwise, from 

 the remotest ages of the world ; it is reasonable to believe 

 that different kinds of dogs, the inhabitants of different coun- 

 tries, have been mingled together in blood. It is in this 

 way, and in this way alone, that we can satisfactorily ac- 

 count for those endless varieties which the races of dogs of 

 long-peopled countries present, and the constancy with which 

 certain races preserve the characters proper to them, dis- 

 tinct from others produced, under the same conditions, from 

 age to age. 



The subjugation of the various races of Dogs, may well be 



