NATURAL HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF DOGS. 521 
the majority of naturalists, and as each of those great divisions of 
the globe gives us more than a single wolf, we start in this way 
with a somewhat complex paternity from the beginning. 
There are many wild dogs, strictly so called, of very different 
character and conduct in various countries, but none of them, 
even after centuries of freedom (supposing that they are only 
emancipated varieties), have reverted to the wolfish state. The 
true pariah dog of India is well known, as a wild species, to be 
an inhabitant of woody districts, remote from man, among the 
lower ranges of the Himalaya mountains, where the wolf is like- 
wise known, but with which it does not intermingle in the natural 
state. If the dhole of India, the buansa of Nepaul, the dingho 
of New Holland, and the aguaras or wild dogs of South America 
w’ere neither more nor less than wolves, what prevents their 
assuming the aspect of their progenitors, seeing that they pass 
their lives in a state of entire freedom from all control, and un- 
subjected to the modifying influences of artificial life. Although 
many wild dogs, commonly so called, may have sprung from the 
alienated descendants of domesticated kinds, there is no doubt 
of the existence of species, wild ab origine , and more nearly- 
allied to several of our subjugated kinds than is the wolf itself. 
At the same time, the latter is in one sense a wild dog, and is 
certainly entitled in that character to be regarded as the stock of 
more than one domestic breed, at least of the northern parts of 
Europe and America. But when, after a careful and extended 
survey of canine species and varieties, we find not only a diversity 
borf;h of wild and tame species, but a diversity in which the nature 
and attributes of the domesticated breeds of certain countries in a 
great measure correspond with the nature and attributes of the un- 
reclaimed animals of those same countries, we are led to consider 
whether such facts cannot be accounted for rather by a connexion 
in blood than a mere coincidence. If, for example, Pallas and 
Guldenstaedt have shewn that the dogs of the Kalmucks scarcely 
differ in any thing from the jackal, why should we go to the wolf, 
although it should exist within the natural range of these Northern 
Asiatics ? Still more, if Professor Kretschmer (in Ruppel’s Atlas), 
in describing the Frankfort Museum, shews that another jackal 
(Canis Anihus) is the type of one of the dogs of ancient Egypt, 
and proves not alone from the correspondence of antique figures, 
both in painting and sculpture, but by the comparison of a skull 
from the catacombs of Lycopolis, that these creatures so resemble 
each other as to be almost identical, — why should we refer so 
exclusively to the muscular wolf as the progenitor of such compa- 
ratively feeble forms I Or is it likely, from what we know of 
other animals, and the limits of variation which Nature has as- 
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