THE FIRST HUNTING DOG. 75 
cliarm of the nights in Algiers for amateurs who relish this sort of 
concerts. Every day, in the woods or fields, we meet many dogs 
of every species that profit by the dangerous liberty left them by 
their proprietors, of returning to the practice of the natural meth- 
od. Often the compact is concluded between individuals that are 
hardly acquainted, but who need only a word in order to appre- 
ciate and understand each other. The wild dog, or rather the 
dog returned to his wild state, such as inhabits the pampas of 
North America, or the lands of the Cape of Oood Hope — thus 
called from the violence of the storms that blow in those latitudes — 
the wild dog is the most skillful and amusing of all these carnivor- 
ous runners. The hunters of these difterent countries hold in high 
esteem those runaways from civilization, and try to get possession 
of their leaders. Thus might the wolf cub be trained to the service 
of man, for the wolf is eminently susceptible of attachment and of 
education. The first dog that hunted in company with man was 
a tawny greyhound, such as may still be seen in Syria, in Algiers, 
in Egypt, and which strangle the wild boar. They are less hol- 
low bellied than our fine races of Spanish greyhounds, and nearer 
neighbors to the wolf and the jackal. The type of the primitive 
dog is sometimes found admirably preserved in the dog of the Eu- 
ropean shepherd. It is a light animal, and cut for the course — 
chest high, belly hollowed, step oblique, ears fine and straight, air 
alert and spiritual. Nature has given it a coat of rough hair, a 
piercing sight, an exquisite scent, a jaw of diamond, .and a ham- 
string of steel. Its bristly tail sweeps the snow ; its eyes flame in 
the dark ; it keeps all the promise of its mien and more. All the 
hunting dogs that man now possesses proceed from this breed. I 
do not count the amphibious dogs, such as those of NeAvfoundland 
or the Esquimaux country. The head of each race shows the in- 
fluence of domestication upon it; the finer, more hanging, and trem- 
ulous the ear, the more the animal departs from the primitive 
type ; the straighter it is, the more it approaches this type. 
It is, as we know, just the contrary with the horse, whose ear 
bends under the influence of the wild state, and is refined and 
erects itself in proportion as education perfects its forms. 
All dogs are more or less hunting dogs. All hunting dogs are 
