202 



THE BEASTS OF PREY. 



ety. The Dog is the only animal which has followed 

 Man all over the globe." 



The Dog is well worthy of being considered at 

 length, and spoken of with pleasure and love, not- 

 withstanding the fact that he is so well known. 

 Wherever Man has made a habitation the Dog is 

 found, and even the most uncivilized nations pos- 

 sess him as a companion and defender. But neither 

 tradition nor research has given us sufficient clues 

 as to his progenitors, and opinions the most diver- 

 gent have been promulgated as to the origin of the 

 most important of all domestic animals. There is 

 no other animal about which so many conjectures 

 and hypotheses have been advanced. 



The Dog and " If one wishes to separate the Dog 

 the Wolf from the other Wolves," says Blasius, 



Compared, "there still remain no further distin- 

 guishing features than the curve of the tail to the 

 left, which Linnaeus mentions. The historic fate of 

 the Dog resembles that of Man. The total subjec- 

 tion of the Dog to Man has led to consequences for 

 which we find no parallel in the animal world. The 

 existence of the Dog is so closely allied to that 'of 

 Man, and the Dog, like Man, has been obliged to 

 adapt himself to the most diverse and antagonistic 

 influences of nature to such dn extent, in order to 

 help to conquer and reign over the whole globe, that 

 his original state in nature may only be conjectured 

 theoretically, like, that of Man. But this relates 

 only to his physical properties. As to his intellect- 

 ual nature opinions cannot differ. In the structure 

 of his skeleton, his skull and his teeth, the Dog is 

 a Wolf; still neither his skull nor his teeth serve 

 to identify him with any one species of Wolf, nor 

 disclose any sharp line of demarcation between him 

 and the known species of Wolves. The European 

 Dogs waver in the peculiarities of their skull between 

 the Wolves and the Jackals, but in such manner that 

 the peculiarities either cross, unite or vary. 



Universality "The Americans had indigenous Dogs 

 of the before the Spaniards imported the Eu- 

 ros'- ropean species. In Mexico the Span- 

 iards found dumb Dogs. A. von Humboldt says 

 that the Indians of Jauja and Huanca adored Dogs, 

 before the Inca Pachacutec converted them to the 

 adoration of the sun. Their priests blew on Dog- 

 skulls, and the skulls as well as mummies of Dogs 

 were found in the oldest Peruvian torrtbs. Tschudi 

 has inspected these skulls and thinks them to be dif- 

 ferent from those of European Dogs; he believes 

 them to come from a distinct species, which he calls 

 Canis ingce. The native Dogs in Peru are called 

 Runa-allco, to distinguish them from the European 

 species which have degenerated into the wild state. 

 These Dogs are said to sustain particularly un- 

 friendly relations with Europeans. 



" It is surprising that the native Dogs show in 

 their skulls an approximation to the structure of the 

 Wolves of their own country, but it is a matter of 

 still greater surprise that they also show an affinity 

 in their general appearance to the wild species when 

 they have returned to the savage state. This relates 

 not only to the coloring, but also to the shape of the 

 animal, the pointed, erect ears, the hair and other 

 characteristics. Olivier has remarked that the Dogs 

 in the environs of Constantinople resemble Jackals. 

 In southern and eastern Russia there are number- 

 less half savage Dogs running around in packs and 

 bearing a striking resemblance to the Jackal in their 

 color, their bodily shape and the structure of their 

 ears. The observation of Pallas, that the Dogs live 



in decided friendship with these Jackals, is easily 

 understood in the face of such resemblances. It is 

 a known fact that Dogs and Wolves may interbreed 

 to any degree. Crosses between Dogs and Jackals 

 are no rarity. Pallas even mentions that crosses 

 between the Dog and Fox are well known to the 

 Russians, but he evidently does not found this state- 

 ment on his own observations. 



" The question as to whether the Dog is a distinct, 

 separate and independent species, like the Wolf, the 

 Jackal and the Fox, is difficult to settle in the affirm- 

 ative. No single species of wild animal shows such 

 divergence in the skull, in the structure of the whole 

 body, and in the proportions of actual size. But 

 neither do the domestic animals in which we must 

 suppose the original species to be still unaltered, or 

 only changed by domestication and culture, such as 

 the Horse, Ass, Cow, Goat or Hog, show any such 

 extremes, and still less may it be said that several 

 species are contained in this great variety of forms. 

 It is clear, then, that we cannot speak of one species 

 as being the stock from which the Dog sprang. , It 

 is also improbable that such a species would as yet 

 have remained undiscovered by scientific research. 



"And so, as long as one wishes to retain these 

 problematic points in the domain of natural history, 

 there remains but one conclusion, which agrees with 

 the opinion of Pallas : that the, .origin of .the: domes- 

 tic Dog must be sought in the domestication and 

 interbreeding of the different species of Wolves 

 indigenous to the different countries. Naturally 

 this supposition in relation to the point at issue is 

 but a hypothesis, but if it is founded on facts in 

 nature, it will be possible to make it a conviction by 

 direct comparison of the skulls of Dogs with those 

 of Wolves. It is clear that the fact that Dogs in- 

 terbreed without limits among themselves and with 

 Wolves and Jackals, is most readily reconciled with 

 this hypothesis. The great similarity between Jack- 

 als and Dogs which have returned to the savage 

 state, in their shape and coloring, and the ready 

 approximation and friendship of the two is also of 

 great importance. Horses returned to savagery also 

 show an approximation to wild Horses. Goats, 

 which for generations roam at large in the moun- 

 tains the greater part of the year, as often happens 

 in Dalmatia and some parts of Italy, much resemble 

 the wild Capra cegagrus; and colored Rabbits, when 

 given their liberty, after a lapse of several years 

 produce young which cannot be distinguished from 

 the wild species and are themselves perfectly wild." 

 Darwin on the "The reasons," says Darwin, "which 

 Origin have led various authors to infer that 



of the Dog. qu^ Dogs have descended from more 

 than one wild species are : Firstly, the great differ- 

 ence between the several breeds, and secondly, the 

 more important fact that, at the most anciently 

 known historical periods, several breeds of Dogs 

 existed, very unlike each other, and closely resem- 

 bling or identical with breeds still alive. Youatt 

 gives^-a. drawing of a beautiful sculpture of two Grey- 

 hound Puppies from the villa of- Antonius. On an 

 Assyrian monument, dating back to about 640 B. C, 

 an enormous Mastiff is figured, and such Dogs are 

 still imported into the same country. On the Egyp- 

 tian monuments from the Fourth to the Twelfth, 

 dynasties — that is, from about 3400 to 2100 B. C— 

 several varieties of the Dog are represented, most 

 of them allied to Greyhounds. At the later of these 

 periods a Dog resembling a Hound is figured, with 

 drooping ears, but with a longer back and more 



