THE PEDIGREE OF THE DOG 205 
regarded as a distinct species, under the name of Canis 
dingo, and is found both in the wild condition and also 
in a semi-domesticated state among the natives. In 
appearance it is somewhat like a rather small wolf, with 
pointed ears and a bushy tail; its usual colour being 
rufous tawny, although some individuals are much paler, 
and others so much darker as to be almost black. 
As, with the exception of numerous peculiar kinds of 
rats and mice and a few bats, Australia is populated with 
marsupials to the exclusion of ordinary mammals, it was 
long supposed that the dingo, which appears to be very 
closely related to the Indian pariah dog, was introduced by 
man. But of late years a quantity of its fossilised remains 
have been dug up in various parts of Australia in association 
with those of gigantic kangaroos, diprotodons, and other 
extinct marsupials, in beds where there appears to be no 
evidence of the presence of man. And it has consequently 
been urged that the dingo is as truly indigenous to 
Australia as are kangaroos and wombats. There is, 
however, great difficulty in accepting this view, as the 
rodents might have obtained an entrance by being carried 
on floating wood, or by some other means of transport; 
and if the dingo travelled by land to Australia, other 
placental mammals ought to have accompanied it. More- 
over, the dingo is neither a wolf nor a jackal, but in all 
essential characters a true dog of the domesticated type, 
which seems scarcely separable from Canis famzliaris. We 
have, therefore, the further difficulty of determining, if it 
be really a distinct species, from what Asiatic form it took 
its origin. This difficulty is enhanced when we recollect 
that throughout the Malay countries there are no wild 
species of the restricted genus Canis known, the so-called 
wild dogs of Java and Sumatra belonging, as already said, 
