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SECTION IX. DUSICYON. 
THE AGUARA DOGS. 
Burron, in reasoning upon the scanty data then 
collected concerning the chien des bois and crab- 
eating dogs, assumed that they were descended 
from genuine dogs, although residing in the woods, 
and by his own confession never yet entirely sub- 
dued, because “ they bred together,” merely to sus- 
tain his doctrine that all dogs were the offspring of 
sheep-dogs * The races we have seen on the spot 
did not remind us of shepherd’s dogs, nor of any 
other domestic species, excepting those of the resi- 
dent Indians, who all admitted theirs to be of the 
wild species of the woods. 
The group may be considered to represent, in the 
west, the Thoes of the old continent, and collectively 
to have. the forehead more rounded in proportion 
than their consimilars in the east; the tail consists 
of an imperfect brush, never reaching far below the 
* Tl y a plusieurs animaux que les habitans de la Guiane 
ont nommes chiens des bois, parcequ’on ne les a pas encore 
reduits comme nos chiens en domesticite constante, et ils me- 
ritent ce nous puisqu’ils s’accouplent et produisent avec les 
chiens domestiques.—BUFFON. 
