NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 18 



mus lingering a little upon this pleasing portion of my 

 theme. ^ 



It would appear that for some, time, I know not why, (un. 

 less it be explained on the same principle that caused the 

 ostracizing of Aristides, for being called " The Just,") there 

 has been a strange infatuation among natural historians foi 

 withholding from the dog his claims to originality of creation, 

 for, in short, an "attainder of his lineage;" nearly all 

 who of late have written upon this subject, having zealously 

 endeavored to trace his descent to the treacherous, cowardly, 

 and rapacious wolf, that skulking, scavenger-like marauder, 

 the jackal, or the crafty and plotting fox ; some even referring 

 for his primitive type to the surly hyaena, with that animal's 

 unsocial and indomitable congeners. 



Some writers, on the other hand, go so far as to admit, 

 that a true and genuine dog was, indeed, originally created 

 among the other tribes of animals ; but they, at the same 

 time, maintain him to have been formed with a wild, un- 

 social, and savage disposition ; and to owe his present posi- 

 tion as the faithful and valued friend of man, to the reclaim- 

 ing power of " human reason," and to a train of adventitious 

 circumstances long subsequent to the creation of the animal 

 world, and consequently to the era of his primitive existence. 

 These are the persons who love to descant upon, as they are 

 pleased to call it, the " glorious, never-to-be-forgotten con- 

 quest of reason over instinct." 



Cuvier has said, speaking of the dog and his supposed sub- 

 jugation, " C'est la conquete la plus complete, la plus singu- 

 liere, et la plus utile que 1'homme a faite;" and his translator, 

 or rather commentator, Mr. Griffith,* has re-echoed, apparently 

 without attempt at inquiry, " This is the most complete, sin- 

 gular, and useful conquest man has made."f Alas! to this 

 absurd system of blindly following in the wake of the great, 

 we owe much of the ignorance which at present envelopes 

 the study of zoology. Let but a man, by rendering in some 

 one or more instances service to science, obtain a certain 

 position in the world of letters a certain name and, be- 

 hold ! we have succeeding writers crouching to his dicta as 

 though they were oracular, and, without taking the trouble 

 of investigating their correctness, adopting his opinions, nay, 



* Griffith's Cuvier. 



t Buffon has made a remark almost identical, even in expression, in h 

 Introduction to the Natural History of the HORSE." 



2 



