36 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 



at its death, which occurred when it was two years old, measured 

 only five inches and a half in length, the precise extent from 

 the comer of the eye to the tip of the nose of the great Saxon 

 boar-bound. Man himself has varied from two feet to eight and 

 a half in his height. 



Domestication is no less an important agent in the alterations 

 it produces on those animals, because it subjects them to have 

 their food selected, their exertions forced or restricted, and 

 their temperature raised or diminished at the will of the owners. 

 Variations produced by these united means would offer to man 

 the temptation of perpetuating them, which he would do by re- 

 gulating the sexual intercourse, and propagating from such dupli- 

 cates only as approached a given form. In other instances an 

 accidental variation occurred, or a singular deformity was seized 

 on and propagated by future similar selections, until it became 

 permanent, and then it constituted a breed. To something of 

 this kind we owe the wry-legged terriers, so useful in the shooting 

 of rabbits. It is probable, also, that a crooked or rickety mastiff 

 offered the foundation for the bull-dog breed. 



I have thus far principally treated of the form and varieties of 

 the dog : I would fain say something of his qualities also, that I 

 might thereby more effectually advocate his cause ; aijd that, by 

 exciting inquiry into his real character and virtues, I might 

 awaken a due consideration for him in the minds of those (of whom 

 there are but too many) who now regard him with indifference, 

 perhaps with contempt, or it may be with aversion. It is proba- 

 ble that such feelings arise, in many, less from the natural im- 

 pulses of the heart than from a mistaken opinion of the actual 

 rank that these animals ought to hold, by their services, their en- 

 dearing qualities, and the entertainment they afford. If it were 

 customary to consider the higher orders of brute animals in gene- 

 ral not as mere machines, endowed with instinctive faculties only 

 for the mere preservation of their existence and extension of their 

 species ; but, on the contrary, if they were universally regarded in 

 their true light, as beings highly intellectual, actuated by the noblest 



