THE HUMAN SPECIES. 169 



hybrids, obtained from the union of a Wolf and Dog-, reared by 

 Buffon ; an experiment often referred to, but not carried out 

 with the care and perseverance required to render it of sub- 

 stantial weight. 



We have, for example, among carnassiers, the Wolf, Dhole, 

 Chakal, and Dog; that is, all the diurnal canidae, if the dogma 

 were true, would form only one species, diversified merely by 

 the effects of chance, food, and climate, though all of them 

 reside together in the same regions, such as India, and main- 

 tain their distinctions; or the species Canis alone, as now clas- 

 sified, must offer the union of three or more, aboriginally 

 different. This is plainly indicated by the great inequality in 

 the number of mammae; for they are not always in pairs, and 

 vary from one individual to another, — from five and six, to 

 seven, eight, nine, and ten.* No condition of existence that 

 we know of can produce such an anatomical irregularity, with- 

 out a presumption that it arises from the intermixture of dif- 

 ferent types ; and the opinion is further borne out, by other 

 structural differences in dogs, strictly so called, amounting to a 

 greater diversity of forms than there are between that species 

 and the Wolf, Dhole, or Chakal ; differences which maintain 

 themselves, with very slight modifications, in the extreme cli- 

 mates, whither Man has conveyed the various races, large or 

 small, and amounting, in some cases, to greater hindrance to 

 the continuation of so-called varieties than are recorded to 

 have obstructed the experiment between Wolf and Dog already 

 noticed. 



The FtiidcB offer another instance of blending two or more 

 species without apparent difficulty. The breeds of the domes- 

 tic cats produce, with the wild species of the Himalaya Moun- 



* On the property of a relative, there was lately a bitch, of the Spanish 

 mastiff breed, twenty-nine inches at the shoulder, who brought forth 

 twelve puppies at one birth ; indicating even a greater disturbance in the 

 original species, and proving that mastiffs are by no means as sterile as 

 js pretended. 



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