698 THE DOG. 



dogs, when in the streets, and following a carriage, are apt 

 to be bitten unobserved by rabid dogs, and when they return 

 to the stable, and fondle the horses by licking their lips, 

 which they are apt to do, they communicate the poison. 



This terrible malady, it would appear, is found in one of 

 the Canidse in the state of nature. The Common Wolf has 

 been repeatedly seen in the state of madness, not shunning, 

 like the domestic dogs, the path of man, but rather seeking 

 him out as a victim. It is not known whether it appears in 

 any of the other wild canidae, but it is certain that it prevails 

 most in the countries where the dogs are allied to the wolf. 

 Whether it may be excited in the system of the dog inde- 

 pendently of communication of the poison from animal to 

 animal, has not been determined ; but it is probable that it 

 may be so engendered, and there is even reason to believe, 

 that we owe much of the extension of this malady to those 

 brutal fighting-matches of dogs which are still pursued to an 

 incredible extent in our towns, and, above all, in those of our 

 mining and manufacturing districts. 



Frightful as this malady is, its existence should not make 

 us hate the Dog. There is doubtless an end or purpose, 

 although we may not discover it, in this as in other bodily 

 sufferings. It affords us at least a lesson of humility. It 

 teaches us, that the same agent that destroys the faculties 

 of the dog may take away the higher attributes of mind in 

 man, may place the same phantoms before the eyes of the 

 human victim and the brute, and reduce both for the time to 

 a common level of wretchedness. 



Whether the distinctive characters of dogs are the result 

 o'f pristine organization, or of changes produced in the natural 

 state, or of forms and habitudes acquired by domestication, 

 there is a remarkable distinction, we have seen, between the 

 different Races. From the intermixture of these races con- 

 tinued from age to age, and from the endless varieties pro- 

 duced in individuals by place, temperature, and the habitudes 

 to which they are inured, it has become impossible to refer 



