4< THE DOG. 



" As the dog is of the most complying disposition; so also it 

 is the most susceptible of change in its form ; the varieties of 

 this animal being too many for even the most careful describer 

 to mention. Climate, food, and education, all make strong 

 impressions upon the animal, and produce alterations in its 

 shape, its colour, its hair, its size, and in every thing but its 

 nature. The same dog, taken from one climate and brought to 

 another, seems to become another animal ; but different breeds 

 are as much separated, to all appearance, as any two animals the 

 most distinct in nature. Nothing appears to continue constant 

 with them, but their internal conformation ; different in the 

 figure of the body, in the length of the nose, in the shape of the 

 head, in the length and direction of the ears and tail, in the 

 colour, the quality, and the quantity of the hair ; in short, dif- 

 ferent in every thing but that make of the parts which serves to 

 continue the species, and keeps the animal distinct from all 

 others. It is this peculiar conformation, this power of produc- 

 ing an animal that can reproduce, that marks the kind, and ap- 

 proximates forms, that at first sight appear in no degree calcu- 

 lated for conjunction. 



From this single consideration, therefore, we may at once pro- 

 nounce all dogs to be of one kind ; but which of them is the 

 original of all the rest, which of them is the savage dog from 

 whence such a variety of descendants have come down, is no easy 

 matter to determine. We may easily indeed, observe, that all 

 those animals which are under the influence of man, are subject 

 to great variations. Such as have been sufficiently independent, 

 so as to choose their own climate, their own nourishment, and 

 to pursue their own habitudes, preserve their original marks of 

 nature, without much deviation ; and it is probable, that the first 

 of these is even at this day very well represented in their des- 

 cendants. But such as man has subdued, transported from one 

 climate to another, controlled in their manner of living, and 



