PRE-HISTOBIC DOGS. 101 



and frightened away all spectres and apparitions. The Greeks immolated many Dogs in honour of Hecate 

 because by their baying the phantoms of the lower world were disturbed. A great number of Dogs 

 were also destroyed in Samothrace in honour of the same goddess. Dogs were periodically sacrificed 

 in February, and also in April and in May ; also to the goddess Rubigo, who presided over the corn, 

 and the Bona Dea, whose mysterious rites were performed on Mount Aventine. The Dog Cerberus 

 was supposed to be watching o,fc the feet of Pluto, and a Dog and a youth were periodically sacrificed 

 to that deity. The night when the capital had nearly been destroyed was annually celebrated by the 

 cruel scourging of a Dog in the principal public places, even to the death of the animal."* 



Homer, like the modern knglish, frequently uses the word " Dog " as an epithet of contempt 



" thou Dog in forehead ;" but the Dog was man's companion everywhere amongst those old Greeks. 

 When the " God of the silver bow " strikes beasts and men with pestilence, it is said 



" Mules first and Dogs he struck, but at themselves, 

 Dispatching soon his bitter arrows keen, 

 Smote them." 



Yet, mixed with these friendly Dogs there were evidently Pariah Dogs ; cowards are threatened 

 thus: 



" The Vulture's maw 

 Shall have his carcase, and the Dogs his bones." 



Two nobler breeds are also indicated, viz., Shepherd Dogs and Hounds : 



" As Dogs that careful watch the fold by night, 

 Hearing some wild beast in the woods, which Hounds 

 And hunters with tumultuous clamour drive 

 Down from the mountain-top, all sleep forego." 



Homer also makes indubitable reference to another breed, viz., the Boarhound: 



" As when Dogs and swains 

 In prime of manhood, from all quarters rush 

 Around a Boar, he from his thicket bolts, 

 The bright tusk whetting in his crooked jaws ; 

 They press him on all sides, and from beneath 

 Loud gnashings hear, yet firm, his threats defy." 



But more ancient than any of these records are the evidences which prove the existence of the 

 domestic Dog among the pre-historic savages of Northern Europe. In the Danish " kitchen-middens," 

 or heaps of household refuse, piled up by the men of the newer stone period a time when our 

 Scandinavian forefathers used chipped or polished flints instead of metal for their weapons are found 

 bone-cuttings belonging to some species of the genus Canis. Along with these remains are some 

 of the long bones of birds, all the other bones of the said birds being absent. Now it is known 

 that the bird-bones here found are the very ones which Dogs cannot devour, while the absent ones 

 are such as they can bolt with ease, and it has been ingeniously argued from this that the remains in 

 question did really belong to a domestic Dog, as, if the animals to which they appertained had been 

 Wolves, they would have made short work of the long bones as well as of the others. Other Dog- 

 bones are found in Denmark in later periods. At the time when the flint knives were succeeded by 

 bronze a large Dog existed, and at the time when iron was used one larger still. In Switzerland, 

 during the newer stone period, a Dog existed, which is probably the oldest of which we have any 

 record. It " partook of the character of our Hounds and Setters or Spaniels," and, in the matter of 

 its skull, " was about equally remote from the Wolf and Jackal." This Dog, too, like its Danish 

 contemporary, was succeeded in the bronze period by a larger variety. Thus we see that, at a time 

 when our ancestors were living " in dens and caves of the earth," in a state of civilisation about 

 equal to that of the African or Australian aborigines of the present day, the Dog was already 

 systematically kept, and " selected," that is, any good varieties which appeared were taken note of, and 

 kept up. 



* Youatt: "The Dog." 



