allkn: dogs of iiiK ami;ki< an ahouicinks. 4()1 



I'l-cct like those of Avolves. None of tliest' dogs hiirked. Ovicdo 

 adds that siiuihir dogs were plentiful in many parts of the continent, 

 as in Mexico, Santa IMarta, and Nicaragua. He had eaten their 

 riesh and considered it excellent, resembling laiiili. In Nicaragua 

 and Mexico the Indians bred numbers of them and at their great 

 festivals dog-moat was considered the best dish of all. The natives 

 of Haiti hunted some species of Hutia with these dogs. 



Very little seems to have been written descriptive of this breed. 

 In his essay on the origin of dogs, Hunter (1787) mentions that a Mr. 

 Cameron, who had lived among the Cherokee Indians, informed him 

 that the dog found in their country was "very similar to the wolf." 

 Cameron thought it remarkable there were not sundry breeds of dogs 

 among these Indians, as in Europe. William Bartram (1792, p. 220), 

 during his travels in Florida, made special note of a " single black dog, 

 which seemed to differ in no respect from the wolf of Florida, except 

 his being able to bark as the common dog." It belonged to an Indian, 

 who had trained it to tend a troop of semiwild horses, " keeping them 

 in a separate company where the,>^ range; and when he is hungry or 

 wants to see his master, in the evening he returns to town, but never 

 stays at home at night." Barton (1805) appears to have made more 

 particular inquiry of Bartram concerning these Indian Dogs of 

 Florida, and describes them as " very similar to the Canis Lycaon, or 

 black wolf," yet they are not always black "but of different colours, 

 commonly of a bay colour, and about one third less than the wild 

 black wolf. It carries its ears almost erect, and has the same wild 

 and sly look that the wolf has." Barton adds that the dogs of the 

 Cherokees were already (1805) much intermixed with the European 

 dogs. 



Peter Kalm informed John Bartram that the dogs of the Canadian 

 Indians (?Montreal) were like those in Sweden with erect ears, and 

 Bartram himself (in a letter to George Edwards, 1757) recalled as a 

 boy seeing the Indian Dogs, with erect ears, accompanying their 

 masters on occasional visits to his father's house in Pennsylvania. 

 Barton (1805), who seems to have made diligent inquiry about these 

 dogs, further describes their aspect as "much more that of the wolf 

 than of the common domesticated dogs. His l)ody, in general, is 

 more slender than that of our dogs. He is remarkably small behind. 

 His ears do not hang like those of our dogs, but stand erect, and are 

 large and sharp-pointed. He has a long, small snout, and very sharp 

 nose." This breed, he says, was still preserved in the greatest purity 

 among the SLx Nations, from whom the Delawares acknowledge that 

 they received it. 



