274 DOG. 
mains in a state of uncertainty ; wild clogs appear to 
be found in great troops in Congo^ lower ^Ethiopia, 
and towards the Cape of Good Hope. They are 
said to be red-haired^ with slender bodies and 
turned-up tails, like greyhounds. It is also added, 
that they vary in colour, have upright ears, and 
are of the general size of a large fox- hound. 
They destroy cattle^ and hunt down antelopes, 
and many other animals, and commit great ra- 
vages among the sheep of the Hottentots. They 
are very seldom to be taken^ being extremely 
swift as well as fierce. The young are said to be 
sometimes obtained, but grow so fierce as to be 
very difficultly rendered domestic. 
It is not^ however, allowed by modern natu- 
ralists^ that these wild dogs constitute the true or 
real species in a state of nature^ but that they are 
rather the descendants of dogs once domesticated, 
and which have relapsed into a state resembling 
that of primitive Avildness; and a theory has for 
some time prevailed^ that the Wolf is in reality 
the stock or original from which the Dog has 
proceeded. The Count de Buffon, however, in 
the earlier part of his writings, maintains a con- 
trary opinion. 
The Wolf and the Dog (says Buffon) have ne- 
ver been regarded as the same species but by the 
nomenclators of natural history^ who, being ac- 
quainted with the surface of nature only, never 
extend their views beyond their own methods, 
which are always deceitful, and often erroneous 
even in the most obvious facts. The Wolf and 
