DOGS. 125 



from personal enquiry, that both the North and South American 

 Indians do not doubt their dogs being of the same origin with 

 the wild canines of their forests ; and,, lastly, we may appeal to 

 the work of Baron Cuvier, where, bearing in mind that he made 

 it a law not to assert, as fact, that which he had not verified 

 by personal inspection, speaking of dogs as a species, he, never- 

 theless, admits that ' some naturalists think that the dog is 

 a wolf, others that it is a tame jackal ; yet dogs, which have 

 returned to a wild state in desert islands, do not resemble 

 either the one or the other.' He then notices the matin, a 

 breed not known in England, but approaching our great farm- 

 yard and drover dogs, as possessing a skull most similar to 

 that of the wolf, though the ears are drooping. Speaking of 

 the jackal, he says, ' it is a voracious animal, which hunts in 

 the manner of the dog, and appears to resemble him more than 

 any other wild species, in conformation and the ease with 

 which it is tamed.' 



" Without recapitulating the various arguments adduced in the 

 foregoing pages, we are inclined to believe there are sufficient 

 data to doubt the opinion that the different races of domestic 

 dogs are all sprung from one species, and still more that the 

 wolf was the sole parent in question ; on the contrary, we are 

 inclined to lean, for the present, to the conjecture that several 

 aboriginal species, constructed with faculties to intermix, in- 

 cluding the wolf (Canis lupus, Linn.), the buansu (C. primeevus, 

 Hodgson), the ahthus (C. anthus, F. Cuv.), the dingo (C. Aus- 

 tralia}, and the jackal (C. aurens), were parents of domestic 

 dogs. That even a dhole (Chryseus scylax, Smith), or a Thoa 

 wild dog (Thous), may have been progenitors of the grey- 

 hound races j and that a lost or undiscovered species, allied 

 to Canis tricolor, or Hyana venatica of Burchell, was the 

 source of the short muzzled and strong jawed races of primitive 

 mastiffs. 



" We know already enough of the kindlier moral instincts of 

 several wild canines, to render their aptitude for domestication, 

 during the pressure of a series of ages, not very problematical ; 



