Quadrupeds. 1103 



peculiar manner of carrying the tail, may be pretty confidently traced 

 to the Eskimaux dog. Their extraordinary quickness and intelligence 

 may be referred to the same origin, of which a single example may 

 give an idea. Newfoundland dogs have both shown their quickness 

 of perception and their powers, by their readiness in opening doors, 

 and even in turning the handles of locks. A young Eskimaux dog, 

 of the purest breed, brought to this country at the request of my friend 

 Dr. R. King, had left the ship to be introduced to the economy of a 

 house but a very short time before he perfectly understood the use 

 of the handles of the lock. Like the Eskimaux dog, the Newfound- 

 land dog becomes a very good retriever. 



In an historical point of view, nothing is more reconcileable than 

 this supposed origin of the Newfoundland dog. The native dog of 

 the country would almost necessarily be of the Eskimaux stock, in ac- 

 cordance with the geographical distribution of that group, which I 

 mentioned at the commencement of this paper. We have completely 

 exterminated the original inhabitants of the Newfoundland, and so 

 complete has been the destruction, that it is now very difficult to ob- 

 tain any traces of them, and it has become an ethnological problem, 

 to what division of the human race they belonged. By some, they 

 have been supposed to be a branch of Indians from the neighbouring 

 part of the continent. In opposition to this, it has been ably con- 

 tended that they were Eskimaux. The remains which are left of their 

 arts, and what we know of their habits, strengthen this assumption. 

 If it can now be shown that Newfoundland dogs are to be traced to 

 the dog of the Eskimaux as one of their ancestors, a fresh argument 

 will be furnished in favour of the last stated conjecture as to the hu- 

 man inhabitants. The early intercourse which subsisted between 

 France and the northern parts of America, readily accounts for the 

 peculiar character of the European portion of the Newfoundland dogs' 

 descent. We are not, however, to suppose that in every instance a 

 similar admixture of race will produce the same character of offspring, 

 and still less that the mixed race will become an equally permanent 

 variety. This remark, in both particulars, seems to be borne out by 

 the dogs of Newfoundland. 



This analysis of the Newfoundland breed, if correct, seems to afford 

 a clew to some of the varieties of European dogs. The long hair and 

 some similarity of form observed between the water-spaniel and the 

 Newfoundland dog, though not to be admitted as indicating any close 

 affinity between the two, seems very fairly to point to the dogs of the 

 north of Europe of the first group which I have mentioned, as having 



