82 INTRODUCTION. 
admitted the wolf and the jackal to be constituents 
of his genus Canis; but it does not appear that he 
entertained an opinion that his Canis familiaris, or 
domestic dog, was identical with either. Buffon 
viewed the shepherd’s dog of Europe as the original 
species from whence all the others had sprung, and 
in prosecuting his investigation, drew up a kind of 
genealogical table, showing how the varieties were 
derived by means of changes of climate, food, and 
education, and multiplied by. crossing the races so 
produced to form all the others. 
There is both truth and ingenuity in these opi- 
nions of the eloquent writer; but it must neverthe- 
less be confessed, that his inferences being in a great 
measure fanciful and arbitrary, they should not have 
been permitted to exercise such an influence upon 
subsequent systematic writers, as evidently pervades 
their classifications, even though they have rejected 
his theory. 
Baron Cuvier, in his Regne Animal, considermg 
the species to be distinct, remarks that “ taming 
the dog is the most complete, the most useful, and 
the most singular conquest man has achieved, the 
whole species having become our property.” 
Since that time Mr Hodgson, residing in a public 
capacity at Katmandoo, near that central region of 
the world where many of our most ancient elements 
of social existence seem to have emanated; where 
totle, Calisthenes, Xenophon, Pliny, Oppian, Grotius, Pollux, 
&c., relative to Hybud dogs, sprung from lions, tigers, thoes, 
and foxes, will be examined in the sequel. 
