CANIS LUPUS. 



129 



my own observations have uniformly led me to the same 

 conclusions. pig, 47. 



Cuvier,* premising that the 

 accurate Daubenton, who seems 

 first to have instituted the com- 

 parison, had expressed how 

 difficult it was to distinguish 

 the skeleton of a Wolf from 

 that of a " Matin," (Wolf-dog 

 or Irish Greyhound,) or a shep- 

 herd's dog of the same size,-f- 

 proceeds to say that, more in- 

 terested than Daubenton in dis- 

 covering such distinguishing 

 characters, he had long laboured 

 for that especial object, compar- 

 ing carefully the skulls of many 

 individuals of those races of 

 Dogs with the skulls of Wolves. 

 He limits his observations, how- 

 ever, to the points of difference 

 which had attracted Dauben- 

 ton's notice, observing that the Wolf has the triangular 



* Ossem. Fossiles, torn. iv. p. 458. 



+ I do not find in the excellent description of the Wolf in Buffon's " Histoire 

 Naturelle," (4to. 1758, torn. vii. p. 53) the expression which Cuvier cites. Dau- 

 benton says, that the skeleton of the Wolf perfectly resembles that of the Dog in 

 the number and position of the bones and teeth : the only appreciable difference 

 being in the figure of certain bones, and in the size of the teeth and claws. The 

 bony crests prolonged from the back part of the skull are longer in the Wolf 

 than in the Matin. The teeth, especially the canines, are larger, and all the 

 bones are rather stronger (un peu plus gros). The anterior part of the sternum is 

 less curved upward than in the dog. Daubenton also alludes to an accidental 

 anchylosis of the last lumbar vertebra to the right iliac bone in one skeleton of a 

 Wolf examined by him ; p. 64. I cannot, however, appreciate any difference in 

 the curvature of the sternum in the skeleton of an Arctic Wolf, as compared with 

 a Newfoundland Dog. 



Fossil humerus of Wolf. 



