NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. SI 



the wolf. Much ambiguity, nevertheloss, still surrounds such .1 con- 

 clusion. The dog and wolf have intermixed, and have produced pro- 

 lific offspring ; yet when it is well known that in a state of nature the 

 utmost abhorrence to each other exists, I cannot admit that such 

 can be a frequent, although 1 am not able to deny its being an oc- 

 casional, source of some mixed breeds, but of the perpetuity of 

 which I am not informed. The real identity between these ani- 

 mals may be questioned by the angular form of the bony assem- 

 blage of the head of the wolf, the auditory portions of whose tem- 

 poral bones are placed higher and more anteriorly in the skull : 

 his orbitary fossae are also more inclined, his teeth are longer, 

 stronger, and present some differences in form ; his cubitus is 

 longer and more obliquely placed than the dog's, and his tail is 

 always pendulous. 



The fox differs essentially from the dog, in being a solitary 

 nocturnal animal, mostly sleeping during the day. He never con- 

 gregates, not even in self-defence ; thus no traveller that we are 

 aware of has met with a pack of foxes. Another vulpine trait 

 marks him, which is not common to dogs. He is a nocturnal 

 animal, and his visual organs are adapted to see readily, when the 

 light would not be sufficient for the marauding purposes of stealth 

 and destruction in the dog. The fox, as is well known, has a sin- 

 gular conformation of the pupils which presents a linear opening 

 for the reception of the transmitted rays; his teeth also differ in 

 direction ; and though the intermixture between him and the dog 

 has been forced, it has been an unnatural one ; nature having in 

 them, as in wolves, marked their want of identity by a settled 

 general aversion. The character of the fox has none of the traits 

 of the dog ; no efforts have been able to wholly reclaim him : the 

 suspicious watchfulness and the sudden treachery of a predatory ani- 

 mal never wholly leave him. He is also, to a certain degree, like 

 the chacal, mephitic throughout his numerous varieties, and which 

 property is so purely vulpine, that it is not, I believe, imparted to 

 his bastard progeny. The modulations of voice of the fox, through- 

 out its variations, are totally unlike that of the dog : also he whines 



