222 



DESCRIPTION OF THE 



The Greyhound and the Bull Dog, like the Georgian and the Negro, 

 are, it is supposed, in their respective kinds, specifically the same ; and 

 the test of this specific identity is that the progeny is prolific. But the 

 application of this test to the Canine race having been found to identify 

 the Wolf, the Jackal, and the Fox, with the Dog, the Zoologists of the 

 last age, who unhesitatingly admitted the test, and who had no knowledge 

 of a Wild Dog, properly so called, assumed, of necessity, some of them, 

 the Wolf, others, the Jackal, and others again, the Fox, as the primaeval 

 type of the Canine race. The superior Zoological Science of the present 

 age has perchance suggested some little doubts as to the soundness of the 

 test of species above named; and, certainly, if we pursue this hypothesis 

 into all its known consequences, we shall see room for hesitation. Al- 

 though, therefore, anatomical investigation has failed to discover any 

 material difference of organization or habit between the Wolf, Jackal, Fox 

 and Dog, and although these several races will breed together, yet the 

 present masters of the subject of Canine genealogy (M. F. Cuvier and M. 

 Desmarest) notwithstanding their continued want of an unquestionable 

 Wild Dog, have refused to supply the deficiency of an original type by 

 adopting as such the Wolf, the Jackal, or the Fox, 



By M. F, Cuvier whose arrangement of the Canine, has been 

 ratified by all the first Zoologists in Europe, — the Dogs are disposed 

 according to their approximation to the primitive type so far as that type 

 was discoverable in the wildest race known then to exist, and of which 

 there were specimens accessible to him. The race iu question is the 

 Dingo of Australia. 



But, as the Dingo is, unquestionably, at least half reclaimed, I pre- 

 sume that a careful account of an entirely wild species of Dog, will be 

 very acceptable to all who take an interest in the subject. And which of 



