92 INTRODUCTION. 
terminology. The French have adopted a clear dis- 
tinction, by naming the dog considered as a genuine 
wild species, wild dog (chien sauvage), and the dog 
run wild from a domestic state (chien maron), ma- 
roon dog, or more properly, perhaps, errant dog ; 
but as this word is again a Gallicism, it might be 
better to adopt a native term and call it Feral dog. 
The oblique position of the eyes in the wolf may 
be of some importance when compared with the 
domestic species ; but physiologists, we apprehend, 
would scarcely admit a dog’s anxiety to see his 
master and obey his voice, as sufficient cause for the 
alteration. 
There remains only one more remark to be made 
upon Mr Bell's arguments, namely, that which 
allows the gestation of the dog and wolf to be sixty- 
three days, whereas he fixes that of the jackals, 
according to Hunter, at fifty-nine. Now, the ex- 
periments conducted by Mons. I’. Cuvier, breeding 
between two different species of jackals, showed 
gestation to be sixty-two days; so that, in this 
respect, the three species may be considered equal, 
as they are likewise in the duration of blindness of 
the young litter,—jackals opening their eyes on the 
tenth or eleventh day, wolves and dogs between the 
tenth and twelfth days. 
We must be guarded even in drawing inferences 
from the conformation of the skulls of canines. A 
comparative series, duly authenticated, is a desidera- 
tum not as yet, we believe, existing in any cabinet : 
we know that the shades of difference gradually 
