DOGS : ANCIENT AND MODERN. 395 



the various existing breeds, the variations presented by the wild 

 types being still further increased by the hybridization of their 

 progeny ? Their variability, their universal commixture, the per- 

 fect fertility of the produce of the most widely separated varieties, 

 are arguments in favour of their being only one species. On the 

 other hand, the remarkable difference between some of the varieties 

 is the argument chiefly relied on for the plurality of stocks. As 

 there is sufficient evidence to show that the dog existed in a 

 domesticated state in pre-historic times,* neither history nor 

 tradition enables us to solve with certainty the question of origin 

 — a question upon which so much difference of opinion prevails 

 that it is doubtful whether it will ever be satisfactorily settled. 



I propose therefore to consider, j^irsi, what was the appearance 

 presented by some of the earliest known foi'ms of the domestic 

 dog amongst different nations ; secondly, what are the existing 

 wild species of dog from which it is both possible and probable 

 they descended; and thirdly, how far a knowledge of these existing 

 wild types, and their geographical distribution, will enable us to 

 classify the various modern domestic breeds, and account for 

 their origin. 



In historic times the earliest records of the dog are to be 

 found in figures on Egyptian monuments more than 30U0 years 

 B. c, and these show that even at that early period several different 

 breeds were known, such as the hound, mastiff, and a small long- 

 bodied, short-legged dog not unlike the modern Turnspit. 



From a critical and learned paper by Dr. Birch, " On the 

 Tablet of Antefaa II.," published in the ' Transactions of the 

 Society of Bi-itish Archaeology' (vol. iv. p. 172, 1876), it appears 

 that the oldest dog seen on the monuments, appearing at the 

 time of Cheops of the 4th dynasty, b. c. 3700, and called by some 

 " the Khufu dog," was an animal of moderate size, having a 

 pointed nose, upright ears, and curled tail, and resembling what 

 we should now-a-days call a Wolf-dog.f 



* Kemains of the dog of the Neolithic age have been discovered in the 

 kitchen-middens or refuse-heaps of Denmark and Switzerland, as well as in 

 the NeoUthic caves of N. Wales and the Neolithic tmnuli of Yorkshire. 



t Great difference of opinion prevails amongst Egyptologists with regard 

 to dates. The date 3733 b. c. is that assigned to Cheops, or Khufu, of the 

 4th dynasty, by Brugsch Bey in his ' Histoiy of Egypt under the Pharaohs,' 

 vol. ii. p. 312 (1879). 



