96 INTRODUCTION. 
tion.* Writers more imbued with the spirit of 
system than with the phenomena they have to 
investigate and classify, may not assent to the pro- 
bability of this surmise ; but until they are better 
' prepared with facts, the question must remain un- 
determined. It may be added, that whilst natu- 
ralists, especially in the writings of the present 
century, have very generally acquiesced in the doc- 
trine of the varieties (quasi species) of man, as 
descending, after the great catastrophe of the deluge, 
from several of the highest ranges of mountains in 
Asia and Africa, have nevertheless not thought that, 
whether they were civilized or savage, they must 
have possessed dogs; and in that case, their domes-. 
tication being of so remote a period, anterior to the 
present zoological distribution of terrestrial animals, 
we have no sufficient data to fix the filiation upon 
any known type or types; and should it be an- 
* We may quote as examples in the Ruminantia, the Gayal 
(Bos gaveus), the hunched oxen of India, and the common 
breed, perhaps even the Yak of Tartary, all breeding together 
a prolific offspring, if proper precautions are used. See these 
articles in Griffiths’ version of the Animal Kingdom. 
It may be claimed also for the domestic cat: the parent 
race, if we may trust the cat mummeries of Egypt, appearing 
to be in that country derived from Felis maniculata, while the 
wild cat of Europe, extending into the East of Asia, is also a 
progenitor, as well as the Tabby, apparently derived from 
South America. Their mixed offspring is prolific, and can 
we say that they are of the same species? What shall we say 
of the wild horses of Europe, whose remains are found in suc- 
cessive deposits, up to the superficial mould ? 
