Early History’ of the Dog 9 
latitude dogs, as is evident from the fact that Prince Andrew Shirinsky 
Shihmatoff divides the varieties found in the Russian Empire into no less 
than ten divisions. In 1896 he published for the benefit of a Moscow 
charitable institution an album full of beautiful reproductions of the various 
divisions of what he called Laikas. The copy we have seen had an intro- 
duction in English, but there was no description of the various varieties or 
of the photographs beyond the name of the variety. In the introduction 
Prince Shihmatoff stated that he had purchased hundreds of the Laikas from 
all over the empire and studied them carefully, with the result that he gave 
names to eleven species—in European Russia, the Finno, Korel, Lapland, 
Cheremiss, Zorian, and Vogool; and in Siberia the Samoyed, Ostiah, Bash- 
kir, Tunguse, and Chootch. All possessed the same general characteristics 
which we would. call Eskimo—that is, the dense coat, erect ears and tightly 
curled tail. In many of the photographs the tail was not so curled, but that 
is not an unusual thing in dogs standing. Any hound almost, when it 
stands, will drop its stern, but raise it at once to the conventional hound 
position when in motion. Not one of these Laikas approached any closer 
to the wolf than did his close relatives, so that there is a strict dividing line 
between dog and wolf that nature does not cross. Not alone that, but we 
do not find wolves attacking each other, nor dogs going on marauding 
parties against their kin, but between the wolf and the dog the animosity is 
intense. Journals of Arctic voyages give many instances of wolves attacking 
the dogs. Captain Parry, in the journal of his second voyage, writes: 
“A flock of thirteen wolves, the first yet seen, crossed the bay from the 
direction of the huts and passed the ships. These animals, as we after- 
ward learned, had accompanied the Eskimos on their journey to the 
island on the preceding day, and they proved to us the most troublesome 
part of their suite. These animals were so hungry and fearless as to take 
away some of the Eskimo dogs in a snow house near the Hecla’s stern, 
though the men were at the time within a few yards of them.” He also 
tells that on one occasion a Newfoundland dog was being enticed to play 
with some wolves on the ice, and would doubtless have fallen a victim to 
them had not some of the sailors gone to him and brought him back. Mr. 
Broke, in his record of Swedish travels, states that during his journey from 
Tornea to Stockholm he heard everywhere of the ravages committed by 
wolves. “Not,” he says, “upon the human species or the cattle, but 
chiefly upon the peasants’ dogs, considerable numbers of which have been 
