22 
THE DOG. 
It seems certain that the shepherd’s dog 
if not the original stock, is one of the pures' 
races of the domesticated animal. Its prickeii 
ears, rough, long, thick hair, and especiallj 
its lounging, wolfish gait, are so many poinh 
of resemblance to several of the unreclaimed 
and perhaps more ancient races ; as the dhol^’ 
or wild dog of India, the dingo of New Hoi' 
land, the North American and Esquimau>' 
dog, and the African hyana venatica of Mf- 
Burchell, which last forms the closest imagi' 
nable connecting link between the dog and 
the hyaena. In the process of long domesti' 
cation in civilized countries, the shepherd’s 
dog becomes more or less divested of these 
characteristics ; the ears become more or lesS 
pendulous, the hair short and thick, the fio-ure 
of the legs more determined, and the pace 
bolder and more rapid. In England he cer- 
tainly rises into the mastiff^ in France into the 
matin, in Germany into the hound. The in- 
