THE GREAT DOG-SUPERSTITION 275 
by without a thought. There is nothing in him to 
attract, but on the contrary much to repel. In a 
state of nature he is an animal of disgusting habits, 
with a vulture-like preference for dead and decom- 
posing meat. Cowardly he also is, yet when 
unopposed displays a bloodthirstiness almost with- 
out a parallel among true beasts of prey. Nor 
does he possess any compensating beauty or 
sagacity, and compared with many carnivores he 
is neither sharp-sighted nor fleet of foot. Some 
keen genealogist might be tempted to ask, Which 
wild dog is here meant? He may follow his fancy 
and choose his own wild dog — jackal, dhole, 
baunsuah, wolf; or take them all, and even 
include the coyote, as Darwin did. The multiple 
origin of the domestic dog is by no means an 
improbable theory; but it is also highly probable 
that the jackal had by far the largest share in his 
parentage. There are also reasons for believing 
that most of the wild dogs, including the dingo, 
have sprung from tame breeds; and, as a fact, 
the wild dogs with which the writer is most familiar 
are known to be the descendants of domestic 
animals which ran away from their masters and 
adopted a feral life. 
Out of this same coarse material man, uncon- 
sciously imitating Nature’s method, has fashioned 
his favourite; or rather, since the dog has become 
so divergent in his keeping, his large group of 
favourites, with their various forms and _ propen- 
sities. Only now, too late by some thousands of 
