THE SEA OTTER. 121 



is one-third the length of the body. " Its blackish fur, with 

 a marked velvetty character, is," says Cuvier, " the most valu- 

 able of all the otter furs j it is often whitish on the head. The 

 English and Russians go in search of this animal in the whole 

 of the northern portion of the Pacific Ocean, for the purpose 

 of making a traffic with its skin in China and Japan." 



DOGS. 



In treating of the several kinds of dogs, it would naturally 

 be expected that I should take some notice of the disputed point 

 relating to their early origin. On this interesting topic the 

 remarks of Colonel Hamilton Smith so perfectly accord with 

 my own views, that I shall lay them before the reader: 



" In the social condition of nations long congregated and 

 civilized, and necessarily under the impulses of utilitarianism, 

 dogs do not obtain that universal consideration which is granted 

 to other animals, in many respects their inferiors ; and it is 

 true, that many tribes of the south-east abhor their presence, 

 and view them only as scavengers, little better than the jackal 

 and hyaena. 



But when the intellectual endowments of the domesticated 

 races of dogs are permitted to weigh in the scale, when we begin 

 to consider the faculties which the bounty of Nature has bestowed 

 upon them, the sincerity and disinterestedness of their attach- 

 ment, the sagacity, strength, velocity, courage, and perfect obe- 

 dience which they proffer to man, we cannot refuse them our 



