32 DOGS. Chap. I. 



which in external appearance so closely resembles the Euro- 

 pean wolf, ought to be crossed with this wolf; and the pariah- 

 dogs of India with Indian wolves and jackals ; and so in other 

 cases. That the sterility is very slight between certain dogs 

 and wolves and other Canidse is shown by savages taking the 

 trouble to cross them. Buffon got four successive generations 

 from the wolf and dog, and the mongrels were perfectly fertile 

 together. 47 But more lately M. Flourens states positively as 

 the result of his numerous experiments that hybrids from the 

 wolf and dog, crossed inter se, become sterile at the third gene- 

 ration, and those from the jackal and clog at the fourth 

 generation. 48 But these animals were closely confined; and 

 many wild animals, as we shall see in a future chapter, 

 are rendered by confinement in some degree or even utterly 

 sterile. The Dingo, which breeds freely in Australia with our 

 imported dogs, would not breed though repeatedly crossed in 

 the Jardin des Plantes. 49 Some hounds from Central Africa, 

 brought home by Major Denham, never bred in the Tower" of 

 London ; 50 and a similar tendency to sterility might be trans- 

 mitted to the hybrid offspring of a wild animal. Moreover, it 

 appears that in M. Flourens' experiments the hybrids were 

 closely bred in and in for three or four generations ; but this 

 circumstance, although it would almost certainly increase the 

 tendency to sterility, would hardly account for the final result, 

 even though aided by close confinement, unless there had been 

 some original tendency to lessened fertility. Several years 

 .ago I saw confined in the Zoological Gardens of London a 

 female hybrid from an English dog and jackal, which even in 

 this the first generation was so sterile that, as I was assured by 



4 ' M. Broca has shown (' Journal de the jackal are well known. See also 



Physiologic' torn. ii. p. 353) that Isid. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 'Hist. Nat. 



Buffon's experiments have been often Gen.,' torn. hi. p. 217, who speaks of 



misrepresented. Broca has collected (pp. the hybrid offspring of the jackal as 



390-395) many facts on the fertility of perfectly fertile for three generations, 



crossed dogs, wolves, and jackals. 49 On authority of F. Cuvier, quoted 



48 'De la Longevite Humaine,' par in Bronn's ' Geschichte der Natur, 



M. Flourens, 1855, p. 143. Mr. Blyth B. ii. s. 164. 



says (' Indian Sporting Keview,' vol. ii. 50 W. C. L. Martin, 'History of the 

 p. 137) that he has seen in India several Dog,' 1845, p. 203. Mr. Philip P. King, 

 hybrids from the pariah-dog and jackal ; after ample opportunities of observation, 

 and between one of these hybrids and a informs me that the Dingo and Euro- 

 terrier. The experiments of Hunter on pean dogs often cross in Australia. 



