18 



DOGS. 



Chap. I. 



and their ears stick out at right angles." With this most ancient 

 variety a pariah-like dog coexisted. 



We thus see that, at a period between four and five thou- 

 sand years ago, various breeds, viz. pariah dogs, greyhounds, 

 common hounds, mastiffs, house-dogs, lapdogs, and turnspits, 

 existed, more or less closely resembling our present breeds. 

 But there is not sufficient evidence that any of these ancient 

 dogs belonged to the same identical sub-varieties with our 

 present dogs. 7 As long as man was believed to have existed 

 on this earth only about 6000 years, this fact of the great 

 diversity of the breeds at so early a period was an argument of 

 much weight that they had proceeded from several wild sources, 

 for there would not have been sufficient time for their divergence 

 and modification. But now that we know, from the discovery 

 of flint tools embedded with the remains of extinct animals 

 in districts which have since undergone great geographical 

 changes, that man has existed for an incomparably longer period, 

 and bearing in mind that the most barbarous nations possess 

 domestic dogs, the argument from insufficient time falls away 

 greatly in value. 



Long before the period of any historical record the dog was 

 domesticated in Europe. In the Danish Middens of the Neolithic 

 or Newer Stone period, bones of a canine animal are imbedded, 

 and Steenstrup ingeniously argues that these belonged to a 

 domestic dog ; for a very large proportion of the bones of birds 

 preserved in the refuse, consists of long bones, which it was 

 found on trial dogs cannot devour. 8 This ancient dog was 

 succeeded in Denmark during the Bronze period by a larger 

 kind, presenting certain differences, and this again during the 

 Iron period, by a still larger kind. In Switzerland, we hear 



7 Berjeau gives fac-similes of the 

 Egyptian drawings. Mr. C. L. Martin, 

 in Ms ' History of the Dog,' 1845, copies 

 several figures from the Egyptian monu- 

 ments, and speaks with much confidence 

 with respect to their identity with still 

 living dogs. Messrs. Nott and Gliddon 

 (' Types of Mankind,' 1854, p. 388) give 

 still more numerous figures. Mr. Glid- 

 don asserts that a curl-tailed greyhound, 



like that represented on the most ancient 

 monuments, is common in Borneo ; but 

 the Kajah, Sir J. Brooke, informs me 

 that no such dog exists there. 



8 These, and the following facts on 

 the Danish remains, are taken from 

 M. Morlot's most interesting memoir 

 in 'Soc. Vaudoise des Sc. Nat.' torn. 

 vi., 1860, pp. 281, 299, 320. 





