Early History of the Dog 7 
rendering them more plastic and easier of alteration, therefore the more 
liable to sport. Darwin need not have gone all over the world for a study 
of the development of varieties, for he had right in England one of the most 
interesting studies possible to be obtained, and that is the terriers, where 
they came from, what they were originally and how we got to the Yorkshire 
and the Airedale, the Scottish and the Irish, the Bedlington and the Dandie, 
the black-and-tan and the fox-terriers. 
The footsteps of the production of all these varieties will never be 
traced, but here is Darwin’s elucidation of the principle of the establishing 
of varieties of the domestic dog: 
“A breed, like a dialect of a language, can hardly be said to have a 
distinct origin. A man preserves and breeds from an individual with some 
slight deviation of structure, or takes more care than is usual in mating his 
best animals, and ‘thus improves them, and the improved animals slowly 
spread in the immediate neighborhood. But they will as yet hardly have 
a distinct name, and from being slightly valued their history will have been 
disregarded. When further improved by the same slow and gradual pro- 
cess they will spread more widely and will be recognised as something 
distinct and valuable, and will then probably first receive a provincial 
name. In semi-civilised countries, with little free communication, the 
spreading of a new sub-breed would be a slow process. As soon as the 
points of value are once acknowledged, the principle, as I have called it, of 
unconscious selection will always tend—perhaps more at one period than at 
another, according to the state of civilisation of the inhabitants— slowly to 
add to the characteristic features of the breed, whatever it may be. But 
the chances will be infinitely small of any record having been preserved of 
such slow, varying, and insensible changes.” 
The most prominent exponent of the wolf theory was the eminent 
naturalist Mr. Bell, who wrote on the subject over half a century ago. “In 
order to come to any rational conclusion on this head,” writes Mr. Bell, 
“it will be necessary to ascertain to what type the animal approaches most 
closely, after having for many successive generations existed in a wild 
state, removed from the influences of domestication, and of association with 
mankind. Now we find that there are several instances of dogs in such a 
state of wildness as to have lost that common character of domestication, 
variety of color and marking. Of these, two very remarkable ones are the 
Dhole of India and the Dingoe of Australia; there is besides a half-reclaimed 
