Early History of the Dog 27 
“There are many species which the natives of Guinea have named Dogs 
of the Woods (Chiens des Bois), because they are not yet reduced, like our 
dogs, to a state of domestication, and they are thus rightly named dogs, 
‘because they breed together with domestic races.” 
Colonel C. Hamilton Smith, whom we have already quoted in connec- 
tion with the wild dogs of India, wrote also from personal observation of 
South American dogs: “The semidomesticated dogs of South America 
are sufficiently tamed to accompany their masters on the hunt in the forests, 
without, however, being able to undergo much fatigue; for when they find 
the sport not to their liking, they return home, and await the return of the 
sportsman. In domesticity they are excessive thieves and go to prowl in the 
forest. There is a particular and characteristic instinct about them to 
steal and secrete objects without being excited by any well-ascertained 
motive. They are in general silent and dumb animals, and in domestica- 
tion others learn a kind of barking. . . . The native Indians who have 
domestic dogs of European origin, invariably use the Spanish term Perro, 
and greatly promote the increase of the breed, in preference to their own, 
which they consider to be derived entirely, or with a cross from the Aguaras 
of the woods, and by this name of Aguara it is plain, throughout almost all 
the interior of South America, that the whole group of indigenous canines 
is understood.” 
In addition to the common dog of the North American Indians, there 
seems also to have been a distinct variety in Florida which was called the 
black wolf dog, and Colonel Smith was of the opinion that it came from a 
cross of the Newfoundland dog and the common Indian dog, which he called 
Lyciscus Cagottis, and placed in the same genus as the prairie wolf, Caygotte 
being the Mexican Spaniards’ name for the Indian’s dog. Colonel Smith 
also put all the Aguara dogs into a group under the name of Dasicyon, with 
the divisions of D. sylvestris, the dog of the woods; D. canescens, the hoary 
aguara, and D. antarcticus, the Falkland Islands variety, and D. Fulvtpes, 
the dunfooted aguara, which is a short-legged foxy-looking animal. 
This terminates the history of the dog up to the period at which he 
assumes breed characteristics. From here on the subjects must be treated 
specifically by varieties, each under its own heading, as a distinct member 
of the large and wonderfully differing family of the dog. 
