NATURAL HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF DOGS. 567 
generally more mixed with other races of dogs, more mangy about 
the skin, and variously coloured in the fur*.” 
The domesticated Pariahs of India are, indeed, a very mingled 
race, sometimes only half reclaimed, and frequently exhibit in their 
outer aspect the most unequivocal signs of degradation. Though 
noisy and cowardly, they are not without a certain degree of 
sagacity, and are consequently trained by the Sheckarees to their 
own mode of sporting, and are sometimes employed by the villagers 
in their hunts. Bishop Heber was forcibly struck by finding “ the 
same dog-like and amiable qualities in these neglected animals as 
in their more fortunate brethren in Europe.” They are frequently 
in a condition of even greater neglect and wretchedness than those 
of the Levant ; and Captain Williamson informs us that alligators 
are kept in the ditches of some of the Carnatic forts, and that all 
the Pariah dogs found within the walls are thrown over as provision 
for those many-toothed monsters. 
The Pariahs, that is street dogs, of Egypt, though also greatly 
degenerated by an uncertain sustenance, and frequent intermixture 
with curs of low degree, still retain marks of pure and ancient 
blood, referrible to the Akaba greyhound of the deserts, a large and 
savage race, much prized by the wandering Bedouins, who employ 
it in the chase of the antelope, and as a guard upon their tents and 
cattle. This species of greyhound greatly resembles, in its general 
form and character, the representations of canine animals on the 
ancient monuments of Egypt. As all the wild species have the 
ears erect, and as so many of the domestic races have these parts 
folded, or drooping, it has been inferred that this deflected character 
is the result of domestication. There are figures of greyhounds, 
and other dogs, almost invariably with the ears erect, on the 
Egyptian catacombs of the Theban kings, above three thousand 
years old ; while the Greek sculptures of the age of Pericles, that is 
nearly a thousand years after the earliest pictures, only then began 
to exhibit a corresponding race with the organs of hearing half 
deflected. The ancient Persian sculptures of Takhti Boustan (of 
the Parthian era) represent no dogs with drooping ears. Colonel 
Hamilton Smith points out the only very ancient eastern outline of 
a dog with completely pendulous ears, in an Egyptian hunting 
scene, published by Caillaud, and taken, it is believed, from the 
catacombs above referred to. In this instance, however, it is not a 
greyhound, but a lyemer ( lymme , a thong) or dog led by a leash or 
slip rope, the accompanying hunter bearing his bow in hand. He 
regards it as representing the Elymean dog, perhaps first introduced 
to Egypt by the shepherd kings, or brought home by Sesostris, 
Naturalist's Library , Mammalia , vol. ix, p, 184. 
