40 Canadian Record of Science. 



serve their ancient mode of life, continues to be very re- 

 markable, and it is nowhere more so, than at the very north- 

 ern extremity of the continent, the Esquimaux dogs being 

 not only extremely like the gray wolves of the Arctic circle, 

 in form and color, but also nearly equaling them in size. 

 The dog has generally a shorter tail than the wolf, and car- 

 ries it more frequently curled over the hip, but the latter 

 practice is not totally unknown to the wolf. ... I have, 

 however, seen a family of wolves playing together, occa- 

 sionally carry their tail curled upwards." 



The Hare Indian dog is also supposed to be a domestic- 

 ated race of the prairie dog, as shown by the following ex- 

 tract from Eichardson's " Fauna Boreali- American a " : — 



" Cants familiaris, var. B. lagopus, Hare Indian dog. This 

 variety of dog is cultivated at present, so far as I know, 

 only by the Hare Indians and other tribes that frequent the 

 border of Great Bear lake and the banks of the Mackenzie. 

 It is used by them solely in the chase, being too small to be 

 useful as a beast of burden or draught." It is smaller than 

 the prairies wolf. "On comparing live specimens, I could 

 detect no marked difference in form (except the smallness 

 of its cranium), nor in fineness of the fur, and arrangement 

 of its spots of color. ... It, in fact, bears the same re- 

 lation to the prairie wolf that the Esquimaux dog does to 

 the great gray wolf." 



Another variety of Indian dog is Eichardson's Cam's fam- 

 iliaris, var. D. novcecaledoniw, Carrier Indian dog. The Att- 

 nah or Carrier Indians of New Caledonia possess a variety 

 of dog which differs from the other northern races. "It 

 was the size of a large turnspit dog and had somewhat of the 

 same form of body; but it had straight legs, and its erect 

 ears gave it a different physiognomy." 



The Spitz dog, Mr. J. A. Allen informs us, is with little 

 doubt a domesticated subarctic variety of the prairie wolf. 



Sir John Eichardson, in the appendix to "Back's Narra- 

 tive," Paris, 1836, p. 256, remarks : " Indeed, the wolves 

 and the domestic dogs of the fur countries are so like each 

 other, that it is not easy to distinguish them at a small dis- 

 tance ; the want of strength and courage of the former being 



