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, referable 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 gaze-hound 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

* Naturalist's Library, Mammalia.-Vol. ix., p. 184.

The New Holland Dingho.

47

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, after his expedition to the Oxus. It may be said generally that the ears of domestic dogs were originally upright and pointed in all the races with long hair and a sharp muzzle; half erect in those with similar heads, but short hair, and pendulous in the blunter-headed kinds.

We may next notice, as in some measure allied both to the red dogs and Dholes, a remarkable wild species of Australia, called the New Holland Dingho,-Canis Australasia of recent writers. Some maintain that it is an imported species, and the very peculiar zoology of the great southern island where it now occurs does not discourage that idea. It is perhaps the only link among the larger quadrupeds which in any way connects the animal products of that country with those of other regions; and its anomalous character and conduct in its present locality has been deemed an argument in favour of its being regarded as an imported rather than an indigenous species. Of this, however, there is no proof, either direct or traditional; and, in the meanwhile, we find it where it is, with all the essential attributes of a wild animal. It is found over all Australia, so far at least as we have actual knowledge of that terra fere incognita, and hunts either in pairs or in small families of five or six together. It is a large and powerful creature, not less active than ferocious, and when attacking sheep it seems to delight in killing as many as it can, more from an inconsiderate wantonness than the cravings of natural hunger. At a station called New Billholm, about 170 miles back from Sydney, one of them slew 15 fine ewes in a single morning. When Van Diemen's Land was first colonized by European shepherds, the flocks there also suffered greatly; and such was the strategy, as well as fierceness of the wild dogs, that neither guards nor watch-fires had much effect. Twelve hundred sheep and lambs were carried off or destroyed, in one settlement, in three months: seven hundred in another.

When these wild creatures fall in with domestic dogs they immediately devour them, and in such onslaughts they are much more courageous than wolves, in so far as they will follow sporting dogs, no doubt from the most malign of motives, almost to their master's feet. A Dingho, brought to England, the manners of which were presumed to have been greatly ameliorated by a long voyage, was no sooner landed than it sprung upon an unsuspecting ass, and would have destroyed it on the spot had no one come to the rescue. Another, which was kept in the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, would rush at the bars of cages, even when he saw that the inmate was a jaguar, a panther, or

a bear each of them naturally more than his match, wherever there was a fair field and no favour. In confinement, these animals have been described as being for the most part mute, neither howling, nor barking, nor giving utterance to their feelings through any other medium than their teeth. Several individuals have existed in the gardens of the Zoological Society of London, for many years, and have never acquired the bark of the other dogs by which they are surrounded. Mr. Youatt, however, informs us, that when a stranger makes his appearance, or when the hour of feeding arrives, the howl of the Dingho is the first sound that is heard, and is louder than all the rest. We know, that in a state of freedom, they give forth, from time to time, a prolonged and melancholy cry. In spite of their savage nature it seems that they bear a strong affection to each other-a good sign surely both of man and beast. For example, Mr. Oxley, surveyor-general of New South Wales, records as follows:

"About a week ago we killed a native dog, and threw his body on a small bush; in returning past the same spot to-day, we found the body removed three or four yards from the bush, and the female in a dying state, lying close beside it; she had apparently been there from the day the dog was killed. Being so weakened and emaciated as to be unable to move on our approach, it was deemed mercy to despatch her."+

We may add, that the Dingho has been domesticated by the natives in their own wild way, and aids them in the chase of the emu and kangaroo. It is said to breed less easily with the common dog than the latter does with the wolf, although occasional unions have taken place. The mixed race retains much of the wild habits of the Dingho. Professor Low possesses a female which produced a litter to a common dog. The progeny were handsome and playful, but by no means remarkable for docility. They inherited the natural disposition to dig in the ground, as if desirous to burrow, and when mere puppies began to attack poultry—a habit which never could be cured. Many of our readers may have seen a fine example of this mixed breed in the Edinburgh Zoological Gardens.

We do not deem it necessary to add to the foregoing examples of the existence of sufficiently well-authenticated wild animals of the canine race, distinct from each other, and living in a state of nature more or less remote from man and man's dominion. We have many more at our command, but the subject is clear enough

• The Dog, p. 20. + Journal, &c., p. 110. + Domesticated Animals, p. 650,

Complex Paternity-Intermixture of Species.

49

without them. We think it cannot be doubted that the dog, viewed in the complex and multifarious states in which it now exists, each in its own way so wisely subservient to one or other of the exigencies of its human lord and master, has not been derived originally either from any one wild species, like the wolf, or more directly from any single reclaimed stock, like the shepherd's dog. The vast and varied range of character, mental and physical, which the domesticated kinds exhibit, demands, as it were, a more comprehensive as well as complicated origin; and even when we keep in view the obvious relationship which the natural features of many of the subdued races bear to those of their wild allies, it is still extremely difficult to account for the origin of many of our peculiar breeds. But of course the difficulty is not only greatly increased, but rendered altogether insuperable, by assuming a simple rather than a complex source.

We must bear in mind, that canine animals being more completely under the dominion of man, and more personally attached and devoted to him, than any other beings, they have experienced greater modifications in form and habits, in consequence of that subservience, than any others. The great migratory movements of different tribes of the human race, each carrying with it one or more established kinds, into climes and countries in some measure foreign to their original constitution, would naturally produce crosses from casual contact with other kinds; and the offspring of such unions, as well as the parents which produced them, still acted on by the physical influences of each locality, the amount and nature of their food, the habitual modes of life of their human masters, and the nature of the education bestowed upon them, whether by precept or example,-these and other circumstances would constantly tend to increase the range of natural variation, till the different ends of the scale came at last to exhibit creatures of such different external and instinctive characters, as to give them the semblance of having little or nothing left in common. It must also be borne in mind, that not only is an individual dog capable of being highly instructed in his own vocation, but that his intellectual attributes, as we may call them, become so deeply incorporated, as to descend by inheritance to after generations, each bearing within it the same impressible nature, with a similar power of handing down to posterity a still more refined and delicate instinct, proportioned to the accomplishments it may have itself acquired both by descent and tuition. Hence the value of what are called breeds, and the almost unfailing instincts with which certain well-born dogs enter on their calling, even in earliest life, and perform their proper and peculiar functions from the very first, with scarcely any instructions from their masters. When symmetri

VOL. VII. NO. XIII.

Ꭰ

cal corporeal forms, and improved or more accommodating instincts, are thus capable of being communicated by inheritance, and when the immense advantages arising to ourselves from a judicious selection or careful combination of similar or dissimilar kinds is kept in view, it is not difficult to conceive how, in the course of ages, very distinct and strongly contrasted varieties should not only originate, but continue and increase.

We admit that this intermixture of originally distinct species, such as wolves, wild dogs, jackals, and others, and the productive union of the hybrid offspring with each other, is opposed by a physiological dictum maintained by many, and among others by the illustrious John Hunter, certainly one of the greatest of philosophical anatomists,-to wit, that mule animals, or the descendants from two distinct kinds, are not themselves prolific. This law of nature, it is maintained, has been instituted with a view to prevent that confusion which would arise from the intermingling of species in a state of nature,—a confusion speedily checked and extinguished, should it by chance occur, by the barrenness of all hybrid animals. We should be extremely sorry to oppose any law of nature, and do not mean to do so at this or any future time; but with the facts before us already stated, and many more in retentis, we maintain that, at least as respects dogs, it is not a law of nature at all. As we cannot bend facts, and do not desire to demolish them, in order to suit a theory to which they are resistant, we must give up the theory itself, by whomsoever it may have been maintained. In doing so, we of course leave others to form their own opinion from the facts adduced, merely reserving to ourselves our liberty of conscience and right of private judgment, being unwilling to be coerced against our own convictions by any 66 mighty Hunter," or the dogmatical repetition of the same sentiment by others of less renown. believe that in the unreclaimed state, although the so-called law is not imperative, the practical result is so far conformable, that hybrid animals, themselves extremely rare, either do not breed at all, or if they do, both they and their progeny speedily disappear, in consequence of their mixed characters being absorbed, as it were, by the prevailing mass of one or other of the parent kind around them. They form no " tyrant minority," and soon cease to exercise any influence whatever on the normal or unmixed blood by which they are encompassed. But in a state of domestication, the condition of affairs has undergone a change from the voluntary and natural to the forced and artificial, and all surrounding circumstances being in favour of the encouragement of hybrids, they consequently increase from age to age, instead of becoming almost immediately extirpated.

We

It cannot be doubted that the subjugation of the dog, from