443 
review — blaine’s canine pathology. 
to suppose that even the powerful agencies of climate, food, and 
domestication, could have operated diversities so striking and so 
multiplied; but, on the contrary, some maintain that he was 
originally formed in such corresponding varieties as fitted him 
to inhabit the different countries in which he was placed, and 
which opinion it is not easy to controvert entirely. As regards 
the identity of the wolf and dog, I confess that, though originally 
hostile to such opinion, I am not equally so now. I would not 
willingly give up the opinion that the dog, in his native cha- 
racter, is an original animal, and most probably of one type, 
yielding to the powerful influences of change of temperature, of 
locality, of food, of treatment, &c., has suffered vast alterations 
in its form and proportions, but I would less willingly adhere to 
error. It may, it is true, be asked whether the first dogs might 
not by intermixture with other members of his genus have so 
diversified his kinds. The query is at once curious and im- 
portant, but at the same time it is one that I am not ready to 
uphold, nor prepared to deny. But when we regard attentively 
the effects produced by the powerful agencies already hinted at, 
particularly that resulting from climate, and that brought about 
by man when he assumes to himself the direction of the sexual 
intercourse, I cannot but incline to think, that the varieties of 
this animal, numerous and disproportionate as they are, might 
result from these united causes of themselves. This subject is 
not more interesting than intricate, and the more I examine it, 
the less am I satisfied with my own inferences. In one point 
only am I certain I am right, and that is, that the dog, let 
him be an original or a compounded animal, deserves our ad- 
miration.” 
This lengthy paragraph Mr. Mayer has “ compressed” into 
the following : — 
“ It is, however, to be lamented, that around the descent of 
no quadruped does there hang so much obscurity as over that 
of the dog ; indeed, some eminent naturalists have even doubted 
whether he is not wholly a fictitious animal. His parentage 
has been severally ascribed to the wolf, the jackal, and the 
hyena. We shall not attempt to reconcile these discordant 
views, as we agree in the opinion expressed by other natu- 
ralists, that the dog is descended, not solely from a species of 
wolf or jackal, but also from genuine wild dogs of more than one 
homogeneous species.” 
In the “ zoological arrangement” Mr. Mayer has judiciously 
given the preference to “ Jardine’s Natural History” over 
the Linnean classification, as retained by Blaine; the latter, 
