HISTORY OB^ QUADRUPEDS. 325 



our attention to the present condition of those na- 

 tions not yet emerged from a state of barbarism, 

 where the uses of the Dog are but little known or 

 attended to, and we shall find that they lead a pre- 

 carious and wretched life of perpetual warfare with 

 the still more savage inhabitants of the forest, with 

 which they are obliged to dispute the possession of 

 their uncultivated fields, and not unfrequently to 

 divide with them the fruits of their labours. Hence 

 we may conclude, that the attention of mankind, in 

 the earliest ages, would be engaged in training and 

 rendering this animal subservient to the important 

 purposes of domestic utility; and the result of this 

 art has been the conquest and peaceable possession 

 of the earth. 



Of all animals, the Dog seems most susceptible 

 of change, and most easily modified by difference of 

 climate, food, and education ; not only the figure of 

 his body, but his faculties, habits, and dispositions, 

 vary in a surprising manner: nothing appears con- 

 stant in them but their internal conformation, which 

 is alike in all ; in every other respect they are very 

 dissimilar: they vary in size, in figure, in the length 

 of the nose and the shape of the head, in the length 

 and direction of the ears and tail, in the colour, 

 quality, and quantity of the hair, &c. To enumerate 

 the different kinds, or mark the discriminations by 

 which each is distinguished, would be a task as 

 fruitless as it would be impossible ; to account for 

 this wonderful variety, or investigate the character 

 of the primitive stock from which they have sprung, 

 would be equally vain. Of this only we are certain, 

 that, in every age, Dogs have been found possessed 

 of qualities most admirably adapted for the various 

 purposes to which they have been from time to time 



