1880 DOGS AND THEIR HISTORY H 



ful preparation of a course of instruction for his students. 

 The dog had been selected as one of thetypes of mammalian 

 structure upon which laboratory work was to be done. 

 Huxley's own dissections had led him on to a complete 

 survey of the genus, both wild and domestic. As he writes 

 to Darwin on May 10 : — 



I wish it were not such a long story that I could tell you all 

 about the dogs. They will make out such a case for " Dar- 

 winismus " as never was. From the South American dogs at 

 the bottom (C. vetulns, cancrivorus, etc.) to the wolves at the 

 top, there is a regular gradual progression, the range of varia- 

 tion of each " species " overlapping the ranges of those below 

 and above. Moreover, as to the domestic dogs, I think I can 

 prove that the small dogs are modified jackals, and the big dogs 

 ditto wolves. I have been getting capital material from India, 

 and working the whole affair out on the basis of measurements 

 of skulls and teeth. 



However, my paper for the Zoological Society is finished, 

 and I hope soon to send you a copy of it. . . . 



Unfortunately he never found time to complete his work 

 for final publication in book form, and the rough, unfin- 

 ished notes are all that remain of his work, beyond two 

 monographs " On the Epipubis in the Dog and Fox " 

 (Proc. Roy. Soc. xxx. 162-63), and " On the Cranial and 

 Dental Characters of the Canidae " (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1880, 

 pp. 238-288). 



The following letters deal with the collection of speci- 

 mens for examination : — 



4 Marlborough Place, Jan. 17, 1880. 



My dear Flower — I happened to get hold of two foxes this 

 week — a fine dog fox and his vixen wife; and among other 

 things, I have been looking up Cowper's glands, the supposed 

 absence of which in the dogs has always " gone agin' me." 

 Moreover, I have found them (or their representatives) in the 

 shape of two small sacs, which open by conspicuous apertures 

 into the urethra immediately behind the bulb. If your Icticyon 

 was a male, I commend this point to your notice. 



Item. — If you have not already begun to macerate him, do 

 look for the " marsupial " fibro-cartilages, which I have men- 

 tioned in my " Manual," but the existence of which blasphemers 



