164 
THE PARIAH DOG. 
Chryseus pahariah, Noxis. 
Chien marron of the French at Pondicherry. 
Ir may be questioned whether the races of Pariali 
dogs of India be merely a low degraded kind of 
mongrels, descended from a nobler breed of domes- 
ticated dogs, or be the offspring of an indigenous 
wild species of the jungles. Naturalists in general, 
preoccupied with the views which Buffon dissemi- 
nated on this subject (views we shall have occasion 
to show the great and eloquent naturalist affirmed 
and contradicted sometimes within a few pages), 
have assumed without proof and often against pro- 
bability, as a fact, that where wild and domestic 
races nearly allied were found, the former were only 
feral or bewildered descendants of the latter. In 
the present case, however, the wild Pariah is found 
in numerous packs, not only in the jungles of India 
Proper, but also in the lower ranges of the Hima- 
laya mountains, and is possessed of all the characters 
of primeval independence, without having assumed 
the similitude of wolves or of jackals, which syste- 
matists seem to think must be the result of returning 
from slavery to freedom. There is nowhere any 
