CHAPTER III. 



ANTIQUARIAN NOTES ON THE BRITISH DOG. 



jHERE are few more vexed queftions 

 in the archaeology of natural hiftory 

 than the origin of the dog. The 

 fearcher of bone caverns cannot light 

 upon any definite evidence, inafmuch as the 

 fkulls of dogs, wolves, and their congeners are 

 much the fame. The dog family (canis) makes 

 its firft appearance in the lower Pleiftocene era, 

 along with wolves, elephants, and oxen. There 

 is no trace of dogs or other domeftic animals 

 having been known to or ufed by the cave-men ; 

 but in the Neolithic age the dog was occafionally 

 employed for food, probably when old and paft 

 his work, a more humane, if lefs heroic, ending to 

 a life of hunting than was that of the worn-out 

 Argus when he once more faw hismafter ("Odyfley," 

 xvii. 326). In a Neolithic barrow, however, at 

 Eyford, Mr. Greenwell found a dog which had 

 been undoubtedly buried along with a woman 

 whofe Ikeleton was ftill, like that of the dog, in 



