206 European Notices of Indian Canines. 



of the Doab; that their avoidance of mountain and forest 

 is most marked, and on this side of the Ghogra or Kali river 

 is, / know, absolute ; that jackalls have, like the dogs pro- 

 per and wolves, ten teats or mammas ; and, lastly, that my type 

 of the true wild dogs of India possesses the vulpine odour in 

 all its rankness, and has fourteen mammas. If Colonel Smith 

 had consulted more carefully the 18th vol. of the Asiatic 

 Transactions, pp. 221 — 237, where there is a very full account 

 of the animal which he selects as the type of his new group, 

 he would not only have perceived that the vulpine odour 

 had been noticed as characterising it ; but he would have 

 avoided the important error in his definition of the group of 

 assigning to it a number of mammae more restricted than 

 that of the ordinary canines. We have seen that Colonel 

 Smith has erroneously assigned six teats to the Sacalii, or 

 jackalls, and eight to the Chrysai, or present group. But 

 the facts are, that the jackalls, as well as the wolves and 

 dogs proper, have ten teats, whilst our type of his Chryscei 

 has not a less number, but a greater — has, in short, fourteen 

 mammas. The restricted maximum number of ten characteris- 

 ing all the dogs proper, or Caninae, and which number is 

 reduced in the foxes (of India at least) to six, appears to 

 render the material increase of that number in our Canis 

 primcevus essentially significant, (lycaon, and other aberrant 

 canines not exceeding the typical number.) And as we also 

 find one law of dentition likewise prevailing throughout the 

 former, and another characterising the latter, we are rea- 

 sonably led to regard the latter as a separate type; even 

 though we may be averse to the unnecessary multiplication 

 of genera or sub-genera. Accordingly, and influenced by the 

 above considerations, I in 1837 raised my Canis primcevus 

 to the rank of a distinct form, giving it the name of Cuon, as 

 a convenient appellation, which would serve to point out its 

 intimate affinity with the dogs proper, or genus Canis of au- 

 thors. This method of appropriating Greek words is sane- 



