84 ENTRODl I HON. 



the true distinction between species ami variety. Tin; " permanent 



variety " of Dr. Prichard, from bis own definiti is to all intents 



and purposes "a species." Says Hamilton Smith, (Naturalist's 

 Library : <>n Dogs,) no instance can bi shown " in the whole circle 

 of mammiferous annuals, where the influence of man, by edocation 

 and servitude, has been able to develop and combine facultii 

 anatomical forms so different and opposite as we S68 them ill dif- 

 ferent races of does, unless the typical species were first in pos- 

 session of their rudiments." (p. LOO.) Form and size may thus be 

 somewhat changed, but climate cannot have effected much, as the 

 two extremes are found in hot and cold regions. Food can do no 

 more, since the man living on vegetables or fish retains bis facul- 

 ties as well as he who lives on flesh. Food or climate will not BO 

 widen or truncate the muzzle, nor raise the frontals, nor produce a 

 1 1 <_» 1 1 1 and slender structure, nor take away the sense of smell, and 

 several other of the best qualifications of the dog, (as in grey- 

 hounds.) These qualities we cannot but consider as indications of 

 different types, whose combinable properties have enabled man to 

 multiply several required species. Ask sportsmen and breeders, 

 who are led by inferences from their own observations, and do not 

 follow the authority of high names; they will tell you the same. 

 In absence, then, of positive proof, we have every reason to doubt 

 that the differences of domestic dogs can be referred to a single spe- 

 cies, and especially that the wolf is the parent stock. There are, 

 indeed, several species of wolves, which might come in for a share 

 of the paternity of the dogs, which would hardly be in favor of the 

 latter beimr varieties of a single species, unless some one will ven- 

 ture to point out the exact species of wolf. If it be said there 

 is only one species of wolf, then it is useless to quote animal analo- 

 gies, for there is no such thing as a species in animated nature ; and 

 we might as well adopt Lamarck's or Monboddo's development the- 

 orv at once, from which such views as are maintained respecting 

 the varieties of dogs are not very distant. The influences which 

 could change, without intermixture, the bull-dog into the greyhound, 

 might well change a White into a Xcgro, or a monkey into a man. 

 We must admit several aboriginal species, with faculties to intermix, 

 including the wolf, dingo, jackal, buansu, anthus, &c, as parents of 

 our dogs ; that even the dhole or a thous may have been the parent 

 of the greyhound races ; and that a lost or undiscovered species, 

 allied to Canis tricolor or Hyaena venatica, may have been the source 

 of the short-muzzled, strong-jawed mastiffs. Smith, moreover, c 

 the dogs according to their apparent affinities with wild originals in 

 neighboring latitudes, — the Arctic dogs with the wolves ; south of 



