. THE 
- CANINE FAMILY IN GENERAL, 
OR THE 
GENUS CANIS, (Liny.). 
Doas, taken in a collective sense, constitute a family 
of digitigrade carnivora, distinguished from all others 
by an uniformity of characters, which leaves no 
doubt respecting the limits, but renders subdivision 
the more difficult. Where all the species are so 
nearly alike in their structure, naturalists have been 
compelled to adopt distinctive characters of inferior 
importance, and sometimes even of a trivial nature. 
M. Frederic Cuvier, and other acute and practised 
investigators, thoroughly convinced of the necessity 
of bringing to bear upon this question all the light 
that can be collected, have justly recommended the 
investigation of the different intellectual and sensi- 
tive instincts of canines, for the purpose of applying 
them in aid of the other means of classification and 
the distinction of species. But in what manner 
physiologists, who have advocated the intervention 
of man as the sole cause of the modifications dogs 
