NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 15 



And have other experimentalists fared better? How else 

 does it happen that the grim wolf still prowls amidst the 

 gloomy glades of his native forests, that crafty Reynard still 

 preserves his wild and marauding instincts, and that the 

 stealthy jackal is still but the prowling scavenger of the 

 eastern hamlet 1 Why does not the beautiful zebra habitu- 

 ally grace the equipages of our cities ? why does not the 

 graceful gazelle become the happy and contented ornament 

 of our parks ? Why does the furious bison still roam, in un- 

 shackled grandeur, the wilds of his native plains, while his 

 kinsmen, the patient ox, drew the baggage of the primeval 

 patriarchs, and the Brahminee bull walks in majestic tran- 

 quillity among the topes and lawns of Hindostan, and the 

 placid Indian cow furnishes her nutritious milk to thousands 

 of Gentoos ? I need, I think, hardly observe as all who 

 read must be already aware of the fact that far more pains 

 have been bestowed upon endeavoring to reclaim these 

 naturally feral creatures, than we have the slightest proof 

 were ever bestowed upon the imaginary reclamation of those 

 which are asserted to be their descendants. "If," says an 

 eloquent writer in Lardner's Cyclopaedia " if this power 

 really had been given to us in the sense the assertion evi- 

 dently implies, the instinct of animals would be under the 

 control of man, instead of being immutably fixed by the 

 ALMIGHTY that power to whom man himself is indebted for 

 his faculty of reason : not, indeed, that it might be made, a.& 

 in this instance, an idle and arrogant boast, but that it should 

 be used to give honor and reverence to his Maker. The 

 more the wondrous works of the Creator are studied, the 

 more will this truth become incontestable that it is He 

 only who has given to certain animals, or to certain tribes, 

 an innate propensity to live, by free choice, near the haunts 

 of man, or to submit themselves cheerfully and willingly to 

 his domestication." 



Why should we seek to set limits to the power of HIM who 

 framed the universe ? Why should we seek to affix bounds 

 to the power of that BEING whose power is infinite ? What 

 positive, tangible, or even analogical evidence exists that the 

 dog was not originally formed at the creation ; or that if form- 

 ed then, it was under a feral type, from which it was left, by 

 the Supreme, to the inventive powers of man to reclaim him ? 

 Is it riot far more reasonable to suppose, that a benevolent 

 Deity should have formed the dog for the express purpose of 

 becoming the ever faithful, constant friend and companion of 



