AI>LF.X: DOGS OK TIIK AMKHK AN A HOUIGINKS. 43."i 



distinguislu'tl l»y jiiaiiy minor charac'tcrs (siicli as tho l)roaflly con- 

 tinuous outer ciuiiuluni on ///'- and in^) from those of the Wolf and Dog. 

 Gidley (1918) has illustrated uiore fully some of the distinguishing 

 tooth-characters of se\eral canids, including fox, wolf, and coyote, 

 and has grouped them into a key, from which it is seen that domestic 

 ilogs and wolx-es are essentially alike in the cusp-characters and pro- 

 portions of their teeth, and ditVer from coyotes and foxes in a\erage 

 characters which though slight, are appreciable on direct comparison. 

 Miller (1912, p. 313) concludes that in a series of dog-skulls "repre- 

 senting such different breeds as the pug, fox-terrier, bloodhound, 

 mastiff, ancient Egyptian, ancient Pennian, Eskimo (Greenland and 

 Alaska) and American Indian, the teeth are strictly of the Avolf type"; 

 and this assertion I can fully endorse from a study of these and other 

 breeds. ^S'evertheless, though the Wolf and the Domestic Dog are 

 closely related, it does not follow that the latter is directly derived 

 from the former, though e\en as lately as 1911, Trouessart has uplield 

 the view first put forth by Jeitteles (1S77), that the Indian Wolf 

 (Canis pallipcs) might be the ultimate source of certain breeds of the 

 Dog. Studer (1906) suggests some large Dingo-like type as the lost 

 ancestor; while Xoack (1907) supposes that the original stock may 

 have been identical with a small Chinese Wolf of which he possessed 

 tw'O specimens from Tchili, regarded as like the Dingo in color. Xeh- 

 ring (1887) suggests that a small Japanese Wolf {C. japoniciis) is the 

 living ancestor of the Japanese Street-dog. The Dingo itself is of 

 doubtful origin, and though probably a relati\ely recent arrival in 

 Australia, may have been brought at the time the Continent was first 

 peopled by man. Krefft (1866) believes he has identified its "first 

 molar tooth . . . with other fossil remains in the l)reccia of the Welling- 

 ton caves," while ^IcCoy (1862) has "identified its bones mingled 

 with those of recent and extinct animals all in one state of preserva- 

 tion in the bone-caverns recently opened beneath the basalt flows at 

 Mount ]Macedon." In New Zealand, domestic dog-remains of a 

 different breed are found associated with those of the extinct giant 

 rails in the kitchen-middens and presumably came with the Maoris 

 (Hutton, 1898). 



The older naturalists nuiintained the view that cross fertiUty was a 

 test of specific identity, and recorded many cases in support of the 

 contention that the Dog was fertile with Wolf and Jackal, and that 

 hence it was of such mixed ancestry. Thus, Hunter (1787) recorded 

 the fertile cross between a male Dog and a female of the Wolf and of 

 the Jackal, whence he concluded that all were of one species. A more 



