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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



MacMillan of one of his female Eskimo 

 dogs, standing with lowered tail watch- 

 ing a litter of puppies which she is nurs- 

 ing. The puppies, which are spotted, are 

 evidently not pure breed, but the mother 

 looks as much like a timber wolf as any 

 timber wolf I ever saw. 



In the same way some of the dogs 

 which in former years were found among 

 the Indians farther south closely resem- 

 bled coyotes. 



Many of the pariah dogs of India look 

 much like the wolves of that country ; in 

 southeastern Europe and the south of 

 Asia many of the breeds of dogs bear a 

 close resemblance to the jackals of the 

 same districts, and some of the South 

 American dogs show a marked similarity 

 to the small South American wolves. It 

 was such considerations which led Dar- 

 win to the following conclusion : 



"It is highly probable that the domestic 

 dogs of the world are descended from 

 two well-defined species of wolf, namely, 

 Canis lupus and Canis latrans, and from 

 two or three doubtful species, namely, the 

 European, Indian, and North African 

 wolves ; from at least one or two South 

 American canine species ; from several 

 races or species of jackals, and perhaps 

 from one or more extinct species." 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



As we have noted, there is good evi- 

 dence that men and dogs were associated 

 in very remote times. Among the re- 

 mains left by the ancient cave-dwellers, 

 half-petrified bones, some human, some 

 canine, are found lying together. Rem- 

 nants of dog bones have been found in 

 the Danish "kitchen-middens" — heaps of 

 household rubbish piled by the people of 

 the newer Stone Age — and dog bones of 

 later periods have also been found in 

 Denmark. 



Of course, it is often impossible to 

 form any idea of the appearance of these 

 dogs in life; but in Switzerland there 

 have been found records which show that 

 a large dog differing widely from the 

 wolf and the jackal, and which is said to 

 have borne a resemblance to our hounds 

 and setters, was at least partially domes- 

 ticated by the lake-dwellers. 



That the men of the so-called Reindeer 

 period had dogs which they used in the 

 chase, and perhaps for other purposes, is 

 evidenced by the crude pictures which 

 they cut in the rocks to record their 

 mighty deeds and adventures. 



One such picture, 5 feet high by 12 feet 

 long, cut thousands of years ago in the 

 solid quartz at Bohuslau, on the shores of 

 the Cattegat, depicts what seems to be a 

 hunting party consisting of men, dogs, 

 and horses, just landed from a boat and 

 engaged in the pursuit of reindeer. 



Other prehistoric artists have engraved 

 rude figures of dogs on the surface of 

 bones and horns ; and these, no doubt, 

 were aboriginal dogs. In fact, with the 

 exception of a few islands, namely, the 

 West Indies, Madagascar, some of the 

 islands of the Malay Archipelago, New 

 Zealand, and the Polynesian Islands, there 

 are few parts of the world where we can- 

 not find evidence that the dog in some 

 form existed as an aboriginal animal. 



THE DOG DOMESTICATED IN EARLY TIMES 



In most parts of the world the dog has 

 been more or less domesticated from very 

 early times, though it is not until we be- 

 gin to study the records of such highly 

 civilized peoples as the ancient Assyrians 

 and Egyptians that we find dogs which 

 we can recognize as belonging to distinct 

 breeds. 



The Assyrians had at least two, the 

 greyhound and the mastiff, the former 

 much like our coursing dogs, the latter a 

 large, heavy-built, powerful beast, but 

 evidently much more active than the mas- 

 tiffs seen in modern kennels and at the 

 bench shows. 



In the Nimrod Gallery of the British 

 Museum may be seen a bas-relief tablet 

 showing Assur-bani-pal and his attend- 

 ants with Assyrian mastiffs straining at 

 the leash, and another showing similar 

 mastiffs hunting wild horses. 



The ancient Egyptians seem to have 

 been at least as familiar with dogs as we 

 are, and on the Egyptian monuments of 

 5,000 years ago are figured several widely 

 differing breeds, showing that even in 

 those days dogs were used not only in the 

 chase, but as companions and household 

 pets. 



