Barking, how acqutred. 141 
aged carcase is handed over to the cat’s-meat man, and she 
goes on chewing the cud of. contentment year after year 
with infinite satisfaction to herself and much profit to her 
owner. But the poor dog, chained up in a back yard, and 
taught to regard humanity as something to be furiously 
assaulted on every occasion—to him the heavens become as 
brass and the earth as iron, and he goes to his grave with- 
out ever experiencing that supreme pleasure in which his 
free brethren rejoice daily—the society, lové, and friendship 
of man. 
That wild dogs may learn to bark, is unquestionable. Both 
the dingoes in the Zoological Gardens did so within a short 
time of their arrival—the keeper told me, from hearing the 
Eskimo dogs in the next kennel. I doubt, however, whether 
these were true-bred animals. They looked as if they had a 
Newfoundland strain in them. Dr. Rae tells me he never 
heard an Eskimo dog bark or “give tongue” on a trail; 
and Mr. Taunton, at whose kennels I saw “Sir John 
Franklin” a typical Eskimo dog, brought home by the 
“Pandora” expedition, assured me that this specimen never 
barked, though a litter of true-bred pups, sired by “Sir 
John,” all learned to do so. Neither of Mr. Taunton’s din- 
goes, “Lupus” and “Captain Burton,” the latter imported 
direct from Australia, and as noble a specimen as I ever 
saw, dead or alive, among hundreds, was ever heard to bark. 
The bark of the dingo, as I have heard it in the Gardens, 
was a short sharp sound, very different from that of any 
domestic dog of the same size. 
From these facts it may be inferred that the habit of 
barking may have been acquired by wild dogs in the first, or 
at least second, generation after their translation from the 
feral to the domestic condition; while that of “giving” 
tongue on a scent, implying as it does the suppression of 
the necessary instinct of silent caution, probably took much 
longer to develop, and it may have been induced by the 
shouts of the huntsmen cheering the dogs on to the chase. 
