The Dog, independently of his beauty, vivacity, strength, and swiftness, has all the interior qualities which can attract the regard of man. The tame dog comes to lay at his master's feet his courage, strength, and talents, and waits his orders to use them; he consults, interrogates, and beseeches; the glance of his eye is sufficient; he understands the signs of his will. Without the vices of man, he has all the ardor of sentiment; and what is more, he has fidelity and constancy in his affections; no ambition, no interest, no desire of revenge, no fear but that of displeasing him; he is all zeal, all warmth, and all obedience; more sensible to the remembrance of benefits than of wrongs, he soon forgets, or only remembers them to make his attachment the stronger; far from irritating, or running away, he even exposes himself to new proofs; he licks the hand which is the cause of his pain, he only opposes it by his cries, and at length entirely disarms it by his patience and submission. More docile and flexible than any other animal, the dog is not only instructed in a short time, but he even conforms himself to the motions, manners, and habits of those who command him; he has all the manners of the house where he inhabits; like the other domestics, he is disdainful with the great, and rustic in the country, always attentive to his master; and striving to anticipate the wants of his friends, he gives no attention to indifferent persons, and declares war against those whose station makes them importunate; he knows them by their dress, their voice, their gestures, and prevents their approach. When the care of the house is entrusted to him during the night, he becomes more fiery and sometimes ferocious; he watches, he walks his rounds, he scents strangers afar off; and, if they happen to stop, or attempt to break in, he flies to oppose them, and, by reiterated barkings, efforts and cries of passion, he gives the alarm. As furious against men of prey as against devouring animals, he flies upon, wounds, and tears them, and takes from them what they were endeavoring to steal; but, content with having conquered, he rests himself upon the spoils, will not touch it even to satisfy his appetite, and at once gives an example of courage, temperance, and fidelity. Thus we may see of what importance this species is in the order of nature. By supposing for a moment that they had never existed; without the assistance of the dog, how could man have been able to tame, and reduce into slavery, other animals? How could he have discovered, hunted, and destroyed, wild and obnoxious animals? To keep himself in safety, and to render himself master of the living universe, it was necessary to begin by making himself friends among animals, in order to oppose them to others. The first art, then, of mankind, was the education of dogs, and the fruit of this art was the conquest and peaceable possession of the earth. The dog, faithful to man, will always preserve a portion of empire, and a degree of superiority over other animals; he commands them, and reigns himself at the head of a flock, where he makes himself better understood than the voice of the shepherd: safety, order, and discipline are the fruits of his vigilance and activity; they are a people who are submissive to him, whom he conducts and protects, and against whom he never employs force, unless it be to maintain peace. But it is above all in war, against those animals which are his enemies, or which are independent, that his courage shines forth, that his understanding is displayed, and that his natural aud acquired talents are united. As soon as the sound of the horn, or the voice of the huntsman, has given the signal of an approaching war, filled with a new ardor, the dog expresses his joy by the most lively transports, and shows by his motions, and cries of impatience, his desire to combat and to conquer; then, walking in silence, he searches to know the place where his enemy is, to discover and surprise him; he seeks out his traces, he follows them step by step, and, by different cries, indicates the time, the distance, the species, and even the age of what he is in pursuit of. In deserts, and depopulated countries, there are wild dogs, which in their manners differ only from wolves, by the facility with which they are tamed; they unite also in large troops, to hunt and attack by force wild boars and bulls, and even lions and tigers. In America, the wild dogs spring from a breed anciently domestic, having been transported from Europe; and having been either forgotten or abandoned in these deserts, they are multiplied to such a degree, that they go in troops to inhabited places, where they attack the cattle, and will sometimes even insult the inhabitants. They are then obliged to drive them away by force, and to kill them like other ferocious animals; and, in fact, dogs are such till they become acquainted with man: but when we approach them with gentleness, they grow tame, soon become familiar, and remain faithfully attached to their masters; instead of which, the wolf, although taken young, and brought up in the house, is only gentle in his youth, never loses his desire for prey, aud, sooner or later, gives himself up to his fondness for rapine and destruction. The dog may be said to be the only animal whose fidelity may be put to the proof; the only one which always knows his master and his friends; the only one which, as soon as an unknown person arrives, perceives it; the only one which understands his own name, and which knows the domestic call; the only one which has not confidence in himself alone; the only one which, when he has lost his master, and cannot find him, calls him by his lamentations; the only one which in a long journey, a journey that, perhaps, he has been but once, will remember the way, and find the road; the only one, in fine, whose talents are evident, and whose education is always good. Of all animals, moreover, the dog is most susceptible of impressions, and most easily taught by moral causes; he is also, above all other creatures, most subject to the variety and other alterations caused by physical influence. The temperament, the faculties, and habits of the body vary prodigiously, and the shape is not uniform: in the same country, one dog is very different from another dog, and the species is quite different in itself in different climates. Volumes have been filled with anecdotes of the sagacity and affection of dogs, and as many more might be filled. We will confine ourselves to a few, in addition to those which we have already | them eye witnesses of the circumstances, they begiven. "At a convent in France, twenty paupers were served with a dinner at a certain hour every day. A dog belonging to the convent did not fail to be present at this regale, to receive the scraps which were now and then thrown to him. The guests, however, were poor and hungry, and of course not very wasteful; so that their pensioner did little more than scent the feast of which he would fain have partaken. The portions were served by a person, at the ring of a bell, and delivered out by means of what in religious houses is called a tour; a machine like the section of a cask, that by turning round upon a pivot, exhibits whatever is placed on the concave side, without discovering the person who moves it. One day, this dog, which had only received a few scraps, waited till the paupers were all gone, took the rope in his mouth, and rang the bell. His stratagem succeeded. He repeated it the next day with the same good fortune. At length the cook, finding that twenty-one portions were given out instead of twenty, was determined to discover the trick: in doing which he had no great difficulty; for, lying in wait, and noticing the paupers as they came for their different portions, and that there was no intruder except the dog, he began to suspect the truth; which he was confirmed in when he saw the animal continue with great deliberation till the visiters were all gone, and then pull the bell. The matter was related to the community, the dog was permitted to ring the bell every day for his dinner, on which a mess of broken victuals was always afterward served out to him. "Mr. C. Hughes, a country comedian, had a wig which generally hung on a peg in one of his rooms. He one day lent the wig to a brother player, and some time afterwards called on him. Mr. Hughes had his dog with him, and the man happened to have the borrowed wig on his head. Mr. Hughes stayed a little while with his friend; but when he left him, the dog remained behind. For some time he stood, looking full in the man's face; then, making a sudden spring, he leaped on his shoulders, seized the wig and ran off with it as fast as he could; and, when he reached home, he endeavored, by jumping, to hang it up in its usual place. The same dog was one afternoon passing through a field near Dartmouth, where a washerwoman had hung her linen to dry. He stopped and surveyed one particular shirt with attention; then seizing it, he dragged it away through the dirt to his master, whose shirt it proved to be. "In the year 1791, a person went to a house in Deptford, to take lodgings, under pretence that he had just arrived from the West Indies; and, after having agreed on the terms, said he should send his trunk that night, and come himself the next day. About nine o'clock in the evening, the trunk was brought by two porters, and was carried into a bedroom. Just as the family were going to bed, their little house dog, deserting his usual station in the shop, placed himself close to the chamber-door where the chest was deposited, against which it scratched and barked with redoubled fury. They attempted to get the dog out of the room, but in vain. Calling in some neighbors, and making gan to move the trunk about; when they quickly discovered that it contained something that was alive. Suspicion becoming very strong, they were induced to force it open; when, to their utter astonishment, they found in it their new lodger, who had been thus conveyed into the house with the intention of robbing it. "A dog that had been the favorite of an elderly lady, discovered, some time after her death, the strongest emotions at the sight of her picture, when it was taken down to be cleaned. Before this, he had never been observed to notice the painting. Here was evidently a case of passive remembrance, or of the involuntary renewal of former impressions. Another dog, the property of a gentleman that died, was given to a friend in Yorkshire. Several years afterwards, a brother from the West Indies paid a short visit at the house where the dog then was. He was instantly recognised, though an entire stranger, in consequence, probably, of a strong personal likeness. The dog fawned upon him, and followed him with great affection to every place where he went.” At the convent of the Great St. Bernard, the sagacity and courage of the dog are employed for a noble purpose. The benevolent monks of that convent have a fine breed of dogs, the Alpine spaniel, which they use to discover travellers who, in passing the Alps, have fallen benumbed on the snow, or into the clefts, which often occur. "It is then that the keen scent and exquisite docility of these admirable dogs are called into action. Though the perishing man lie ten or even twenty feet beneath the snow, the delicacy of smell with which they can trace him affords a chance of escape. They scratch away the snow with their feet; they set up a continued hoarse and solemn bark, which brings the monks and laborers of the convent to their assistance. To provide for the chance that the dogs, without human help, may succeed in discovering the unfortunate traveller, one of them has a flask of spirits round his neck, to which the fainting man may apply for support; and another has a cloak to cover him. These wonderful exertions are often successful; and even when they fail of restoring him who has perished, the dogs discover the body, so that it may be secured for the recognition of friends; and such is the effect of the temperature, that the dead features generally preserve their firmness for the space of two years. One of these noble creatures was decorated with a medal, in commemoration of his having saved the lives of twenty-two persons, who, but for his sagacity, must have perished." A surgeon of Leeds found a little spaniel who had been lamed. He carried the poor animal home, bandaged up his leg, and, after two or three days, turned him out. The dog returned to the surgeon's house every morning, till his leg was perfectly well. At the end of several months, the spaniel again presented himself, in company with another dog, who had also been lamed; and he intimated, as well as piteous and intelligent looks could intimate, that he desired the same kind assistance to be rendered to his friend, as had been bestowed upon himself. A similar circumstance is stated to have occurred to Mozaut, a celebrated French surgeon. definitions and divisions; reducing diseases to certain genera, and those genera to species, and furnishing remedies for them all; supposing principles, drawing conclusions, and applying those principles and conclusions to particular diseases under consideration; in which sense, the dogmatists stand contradistinguished from empirics and methodists. The following is an account of a singular friend- DOGMATISTS. A sect of ancient physicians, ship which subsisted between a China goose and a of which Hippocrates was the founder. They pointer, who had killed the gander. "Ponto (for are also called logici, logicians, from their using the that was the dog's name) was most severely pun-rules of logic in medical subjects. They laid down ished for the misdemeanor, and had the dead bird tied to his neck. The solitary goose became extremely distressed for the loss of her partner and only companion; and, probably, having been attracted to the dog's kennel by the sight of her dead mate, she seemed determined to persecute Ponto by her constant attendance and continual vociferations; but after a little time a strict amity and friendship subsisted between these incongruous animals. They fed out of the same trough, lived under the same roof, and in the same straw-bed kept each other warm; and when the dog was taken to the field, the inharmonious lamentations of the goose for the absence of her friend were incessant." The stories of attachment between lions and dogs are well authenticated. In a well-regulated travelling menagerie, in England, belonging to a person named Atkins, there was in the autumn of 1828, a spaniel-bitch, affording sustenance to a young tiger that was sick, and not expected to live, and which she evidently attended with affectionate solicitude. DOGDAYS. Certain days in the year called by this name, from the dogstar, or Sirius. They are also called canicular days, from canis, the Latin word signifying dog. On these days the dogstar rises and sets with the sun. The ancients imagined that the rising of the dogstar with the sun, occasioned the sultry weather and the discases usually experienced in the latter part of summer. The Romans sacrificed a brown dog every year to appease the rage of Sirius. The rising of the stars, however, not only varies according to the latitude of different places, but is always later and later every year in the same place, so that in time Sirius may, by the same rule, be charged with bringing frost and snow when he rises in the winter. In our almanacs the season of dogdays is set down as occurring from the third of July to the eleventh of August, without any regard to the position of Sirius. In England, the dogdays have caused some variety in their calendar. Bede refers to a time when they commenced on the fourteenth of July; in the reign of Elizabeth they were reckoned from the sixth of that month to the sixth of September; from the restoration of Charles II. to the correction of the calendar, the beginning of this period was on the nineteenth of July, and the end of it, on the twenty-eighth of August; after the correction of the calendar the time was changed to the thirtieth of July and the seventh of September; and of late in the English almanacs they are placed as we first mentioned. The rising and setting of brilliant stars was much attended to by ancient nations, because in this manner they ascertained the proper seasons for their various agricultural employments, and for the observance of their religious ceremonies. But by the aid of modern science, we can now calculate the precise position of the heavenly bodies at any required time, and we are thus relieved from a wearisome and anxious attention to the rising and setting of these stars. DOGSTAR OR SIRIUS. The largest of the fixed stars, so called from being in the fanciful constellation of Canis, but, from the accident of its name, alleged by vulgar superstition to have some connexion with the diseases of dogs! Like other stars of the first magnitude, it is supposed, from its superior brilliancy, to be the nearest, but the nicest observations have shown that it cannot be within 32 millions of millions of miles. DOLPHIN. Though so often incorrectly painted as being of the shape of the letter S, the dolphin is almost straight, the back being very slightly incurvated, and the body slender; the nose is long, narrow, and pointed, with a broad transverse band, or projection of the skin on its upper part. From the shape of the nose, the animal has been called the sea-goose. A shoal of dolphins will frequently attend the course of a ship for the scraps that are thrown overboard, or the barnacles adhering to their sides. A shoal of them followed the ships of Sir Richard Hawkins upwards of a thousand leagues. Their gambols and evolutions on the surface of the water are often very amusing. Occasionally a troop of them may be seen scudding along, rising in quick succession as if anxious each to get in advance of the other: while again, a single individual may be observed successively rising and falling in the same way, as if engaged in the act of catching a prey. In this way, shoals of dolphins may be seen almost every day, and at any hour, feeding or sporting in the bay and rivers near the city of New York, where may sometimes be enjoyed an opportunity of observing from the wharf, a large shoal of them moving down the Hudson river with the tide: some plunging along as if in haste, others apparently at play, and others very slowly rising to the surface for breath, and as gradually disappearing, allowing their dorsal fin to remain for a considerable time above the surface. DOME. In architecture, is a roof or vault rising from a circular, elliptic, polygonal plan, with a convexity outwards, or a concavity inwards, in such a manner that all the horizontal sections made by planes will be similar figures round a vertical axis. DOMESDAY, or DOOMS-DAY BOOK. A very ancient record, made in the time of William the Conqueror, which now remains in the exchequer of Great Britain, and consists of two volumes, a greater and a less: the greater contains a survey of all the lands in most of the counties in England; gious size. To the oxen of Ethiopia and some and the less comprehends some counties that were provinces of Asia, the ancients gave the appellation not then surveyed. The book of domesday was of Bull-Elephants, because, in these regions, they begun by five justices, assigned for that purpose in approach to the magnitude of the elephant. This each county, in the year 1081, and finished in 1086.eflect is chiefly produced by the abundance of rich It was of such authority, that the Conqueror him- and succulent herbage. The Highlands of Scotself submitted, in some cases wherein he was con- land, and indeed every high and northern country, cerned, to be determined by it. Camden calls this afford striking examples of the influence of food book the Tax Book of King William; and it was upon the magnitude of cattle. The oxen, as well farther called Magna Rolla. There is likewise a as the horses, in the more northern parts of Scotthird book of domesday, made by command of the land, are extremely diminutive; but, when transConqueror; and also a fourth, being an abridgement ported to richer pasture, their size is augmented, of the other books. and the qualities of their flesh are improved. The climate has likewise a considerable influence on the nature of the ox. In the northern regions of both continents, he is covered with long soft hair. He has likewise a large bunch on his shoulders; and this deformity is common to the oxen of Asia, Africa, and America. Those of Europe have no the primitive race, to which the bunched kind ascend, by intermixture, in the second or third generation. The difference in their size is remarkably great. The small zebu, or bunched ox of Arabia, is not one tenth part of the magnitude of the Ethiopian bull-elephant. The influence of food upon the dog kind seems not to be great. In all his variations and degradations, he appears to follow the differences of climate. In the warmest climates, he is naked; in the northern regions, he is covered with a coarse, thick hair; and he is adorned with a fine silky robe in Spain and Syria, where the mild temperature of the air converts the hair of most quadrupeds into a kind of silk. Beside these external variations produced by climate, the dog undergoes other changes, which proceed from his situation, his captivity, and the nature of the intercourse he holds with man. His size is augmented or diminished by obliging the smaller kinds to unite together, and by observing the same conduct with the larger individuals. Pendulous ears, the most certain mark of domestic servitude and of fear, are almost universal. Of many races of dogs, a few only have retained the primitive state of their ears. Erect ears are now confined to the wolf-dog, the shepherd's dog, and the dog of the north. DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS. Climate and food are the chief causes which produce changes in the magnitude, figure, color, and constitution of wild animals. But, beside these causes, there are others which have an influence upon animals when reduced to a domestic or un-bunch. The European oxen, however, seem to be natural state. When at perfect liberty, animals seem to have selected those particular zones or regions of the globe, which are most consonant to the nature and constitution of each particular tribe. There they spontaneously remain, and never, like man, disperse themselves over the whole surface of the earth. But when obliged by man, or by any great revolution of nature, to abandon their native soil, they undergo changes so great, that, to recognise and distinguish them, recourse must be had to the most accurate examination. If we add to climate and food, those natural causes of alteration in free animals, the empire of man over such of them as he has reduced to servitude, the degree to which tyranny degrades and disfigures nature, will appear to be greatly augmented. The mouflon, the stock from which our domestic sheep have derived their origin, is comparatively a large animal. He is as fleet as a stag, armed with horns and strong hoofs, and covered with coarse hair. With these natural advantages, he dreads neither the inclemency of the sky, nor the voracity of the wolf. He not only, by the swiftness of his course, escapes from his enemies, but he is enabled to resist them by the strength of his body and the solidity of his arms. How different is this animal from our domestic sheep, who are timid, weak, and unable to defend themselves. Without the protection of man, the whole race would soon be extirpated by rapacious animals and by winter storms. In the warmest climates of Africa and of Asia, the mouflon, which is the common parent of the sheep, appears to be less degenerated than in any other region. Though reduced to a domestic state, he has preserved his stature and his hair; but the size of his horns is diminished. The sheep of Barbary, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, &c. have undergone greater changes; and, in proportion as they approach toward either pole, they diminish in size, in strength, in swiftness, and in courage. In relation to man, they are improved in some articles, and vitiated in others. Their coarse hair is converted into fine wool. But, with regard to nature, improvement and degeneration amount to the same thing; for both imply an alteration of the original constitution. The color of animals is greatly variegated by domestication. The dog, the ox, the sheep, the goat, the horse, have assumed all kinds of colors, and even mixtures of colors, in the same individuals. The hog has changed from black to white; and white, without the intermixture of spots, is generally accompanied with essential imperfections. Men who are remarkably fair, and whose hair is white, have generally a defect in their hearing, and, at the same time, weak and red eyes. Quadrupeds which are entirely white likewise have red eyes and a dulness of hearing. The variations from the original color are most remarkable in our domestic fowls. In a brood of chickens, though all of them proceed from the same parents, not one of them has the same colors with another. Domestication not only changes the external appearances of animals, but alters and modifies their The ox is more influenced by nourishment than natural dispositions. The dog, for example, when any other domestic animal. În countries where in a state of liberty, is a rapacious quadruped, and the pasture is luxuriant, the oxen acquire a prodi-hunts and devours the weaker species. But, after ne has submitted to the dominion of man, he relinquishes his natural ferocity, and is converted into a mean, servile, patient, and parasitical slave. | esteemed one and the same day, and have the same letter affixed to them; but, by our way of reckoning, they are called the twenty-fourth and twenty. fifth days of February. the weather. At present, it is a masquerade dress, worn by gentlemen and ladies, consisting of a long silk mantle, with a cap and wide sleeves. Domino is also a game played by two or four persons, with twenty-eight pieces of ivory called cards. quality or style common in that race. The Dorians, DORIC. Belonging to the Dorian race, or of a one of the four great branches of the Greek nation, derive their name from Dorus, the son of Hellen. Colonies emigrated from them to Italy, Sicily, and Asia Minor. The four chief cities of the Greek peculiarities of dialect, manners and government; race were distinguished from each other by marked and the Dorians were the reverse of the Ionians. The Doric manner always retained the antique style, but, at the same time, hard and rough. The Doric dialect was broad and rough; the Ionic, deliable and dignified in the antique style of the formcate and smooth; yet there was something venerer; for which reason it was often made use of in solemn odes, e. g., in hymns and in choruses, which belonged to the liturgy of the Greeks. The Cretan and Spartan legislative codes of Minos and Lycur DOMINICAL LETTER. In Chronology, is that letter of the alphabet, which points out in DOMINO. Formerly a dress worn by priests, the calendar the Sundays throughout the year; in the winter, which, reaching no lower than the thence also called Sunday letter. The distri-shoulders, served to protect the face and head from bution of days into weeks, is marked by the seven first letters of the alphabet, A, B, C, D, E, F, G; beginning, at the first of January, to place the letter A; to the second of January, B is joined; to the third, C; and so on to the seventh, where G is figured: and then, again beginning with A, which is placed at the eighth day, B will be on the ninth, C at the tenth; and so, continually repeating the series of these seven letters, each day of the year has one of them in the calendar. By this means, the last day of December has the letter A joined to it; for, if the 365 days, which are in a year, be divided by seven, we shall have fifty-two weeks, and one day over. If there had been no day over, all the years would constantly have fallen on the same day of the week; and each day of the month would constantly have fallen on the same day of the week: but now, on account that, besides the fifty-two weeks in the year, there is one day more, it happens, that on whatever day of the week the year begins, it ends upon the same day; and the next year begins with the following day. The letters being ranked in this order, that letter which answers to the first Sunday of January, in a common year, will show all the Sundays through-us were much more rigid than the mild Athenian out the year; and to whatever days in the rest of the months, that letter is put, these days are all Sundays. If the first day of January be on a Sunday, the next year will begin on Monday, and the Sunday will fall on the seventh day, to which is annexed the letter G, which therefore will be the Sunday letter for that year: the next year beginning on Tuesday, the first Sunday will fall on the sixth of January, to which is adjoined the letter F, which is the Sunday letter for that year; and, in DORIC-ORDER. In architecture, noting the the same manner, for the next following, the dom-second order of columns, between the Tuscan and inical letter will be E; and so on. the light, tucked up hunting dress, while the Ionian institutions of Solon. The Spartan women wore females arrayed themselves in long, sweeping garments. Both have been idealized by artists; the one in Diana and her nymphs, the other in Pallas Athene and the Canephoriae. The same contrast the strong, unadorned Doric, and the slender, cleappears no less strikingly in their architecture, in gant Ionian columns. the Ionic. The Doric order is distinguished for simplicity and strength. It is used in the gates of cities and citadels, and on the outside of churches. we mean the By this means, the Sunday letters will go on in a retrograde order, viz. G, F, E, D, C, B, A. But because every fourth year consists of 366 days, the series of letters will be interrupted, and the order DORMANT state of animals. We are all acwill not return till twenty-eight years, or four times customed to see a large part of creation, during seven; and hence arises the cycle of twenty-eight summer, in great activity, and in winter returning years. Thus, if, in a leap-year, the first of January to an apparently inanimate state: be Sunday, and, consequently, the dominical letter plants; but this phenomenon is not common in the A, the twenty-fourth day of February will fall on case of animals. There is, however, a small numa Friday, and the twenty-fifth on a Saturday; and ber of animals, which, besides the daily rest that since both these days are marked in the calendar they have in common with most other animals, rewith the letter F, the following day, which is Sun-main, during some months in the year, in an apday, will be marked with G, which letter will mark parently lifeless state; at least, in utter inactivity. out all the Sundays, and consequently be the dom- Except the hedgehog and the bat, all the mamalia inical letter the remaining part of the year: and subject to this dormant state, belong to the class of hence it is, that every leap year has two dominical digitated animals. They are found not only in letters, the first of which serves from the beginning cold climates, but in very warm ones; for instance, of the year to the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth the jerboa in Arabia, and the taurick in Madagascar. day of February; and then the other takes place, The period of long sleep generally begins when the and serves for the rest of the year. The intercalary food of the animal begins to become scarce, and day is placed between the twenty-third and twenty-inactivity spreads over the vegetable kingdom. Infourth day of February, and so makes two twenty-stinct, at this time, impels the animals to seek a fourths of February, which, in the calendar, are safe place for their period of rest. The bat hides |