Early History of the Dog 5 
When one turns to Darwin it is with a feeling that here at least we will 
have ground for whatever is suggested as probable, and it is a belief well 
founded, for there is sound reasoning backing up his conclusions. It 
will be well for those interested in this branch of the subject to read Chapter I. 
in “Origin of Species,” and so grasp all he says on the subject of variation 
of domestic animals and their character. Darwin was not a believer in 
mixtures of an impossible nature, nor that the wolf was the original dog. 
At least there is no indication of that in the chapter referred to. He says. 
plainly that he does not believe that the entire amount of difference in 
breeds of dogs is due to production under domestication, but that some 
small part is owing to their having been descended from distinct species. 
The difficulty here is that the varieties of wild dogs that we know of are 
practically alike. They vary only to a slight degree, while preserving 
general characteristics, whether found in India, Africa or Australia. Every 
one of these wild dogs has the family resemblance which suggests a possibly 
common ancestry; and how one more than another could have been the 
ancestor of the bulldog, another of the greyhound, and either one of those 
or still a third variety have been the origin of the toy spaniel, it is not easy 
tosee. Darwin says in the next sentence that in other domesticated animals 
there is presumptive or even strong evidence that they descended from a 
single wild stock. 
Of course we know that all our varieties came from an original stock; 
and if we read Darwin as saying that as all these wild dogs were so much 
alike and so closely allied in type we can hardly ascribe to any one variety 
the sole ability to have produced the domestic dog in all its varieties, but 
that from any one of them might have come the “monstrosities” which man 
fostered into varieties, we will get at a clear understanding and place our- 
selves on tenable ground. This seems to have been Darwin’s opinion, 
for a few sentences later we read, “Looking at the domestic dogs of the 
whole world, I have, after a laborious collection of all known facts, come 
to the conclusion that several wild species of Canide have been tamed, and 
that their blood, in some cases, mingled together, flows in the veins of 
our domestic breeds.” 
Later on Darwin disputes the claims of some that varieties developed 
as a result of crossing aboriginal species. Quite right, for by such means 
you arrive only at an intermediate stage or else a reversal, and that reversal 
will be to the original stock. For instance, you can make the Boston 
