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 



