American Varieties of the Dog, 39 



Origin of the American Varieties of the Dog. 1 



By Dr. A. S. Packard. 



The impression that the domestic dog of the old world 

 has descended from wild species distinct from the wolf may 

 be well founded, but in America the evidence tends to prove 

 that the Eskimo, and other domestic varieties of dogs, were 

 domesticated by the aborigines and used by them long an- 

 terior to the discovery of the continent by the Europeans, 

 the varieties in question originating from the gray wolf or 

 prairie wolf. First as to the : Eskimo dog. From the fol- 

 lowing extract from Frobisher it appears evident that the 

 Eskimo had the present breed of domestic dogs long ante- 

 rior to the year 1571. Frobisher's account of the Eskimo 

 themselves is, so far as we know, the first extant, and is full 

 and characteristic. After describing the natives he goes on 

 to say : " They frank or keepe certaine dogs not much 

 vnlike wolues, which they yoke togither, as we do oxen and 

 horses, to a sled or traile : and so carry their necessaries 

 over the yce and snow from place to place : as the captive, 

 whom we haue, made perfect signes. And when those dogs' 

 are not apt for the same vse : or when with hunger they are 

 constrained, for lack of other vituals, they eate them : so 

 that they are as needful for them in respect of their big- 

 nesse, as our oxen are for vs." 2 



Begarding the Eskimo dog, Bichardson remarks in his 

 "Fauna Boreali- America," p. 75 : "The great resemblance 

 which the domestic dogs of the aboriginal tribes of America 

 bear to the wolves of the same country, was remarked by 

 the earliest settlers from Europe (Smith's 'Virginia'), and 

 has induced some naturalists of much observation to con- 

 sider them to be nearly half-tamed wolves (Kalm). With- 

 out entering at all into the question of the origin of the 

 domestic dog, I may state that the resemblance between the 

 wolves and the dogs of those Indian nations, who still prc- 



1 From the American Naturalist, September, 1885. 



2 The Second Voyage of Master Martin Frobisher, 1577. Written 

 by Master Dionise Settle, Hakluyt, New Ed., London, 1810, iii. 62. 



