1840.

Certain wild

From the North British Review. to make them beneficial to ourselves. 1. The Naturalist's Library. Conducted by Sir animals are sagacious, swift of foot, keen-scented, William Jardine, Baronet, F. R. S. E., &c. | persevering, and, as the event has shown, capable Mammalia, Vols. IX. and X., containing the of strong and enduring attachment to mankind. Dogs or Canidae. By Lieut. Col. CHAS. The result of their own good qualities, when acted HAMILTON SMITH, F. R. S., &c. Edinburgh, on by our kindness, is domestication. But is a wolf not by nature " savage or ferocious?" Has 2. Histoire du Chien chez tous les Peuples du a dog not become "domestic and familiar?" And Monde. Par ELZEAR BLAZE. Paris. 8vo. is the difference between the two not of man's 1843. achievement? Suppose Mr. Swainson was pursu3. The Dog. By WILLIAM YOUATT. (Published ing his avocations as a field naturalist, "at his own under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.) Second edition. One vol. 8vo. London, 1845.

good will and pleasure," and was overtaken by a pack of well-trained fox-hounds, he would fare none the worse for such encounter. But suppose that he chanced to be out rather late some winter evening in the north country, that is to say Lapland, In a recent article on the history of domesticated and that he is overtaken by a troop of unreclaimed animals (N. B. Review, No. VI.) we presented a dogs, in other words wolves, we think he would cursory sketch of the origin and attributes of the find himself in a much more painful predicament, more important of the species which are now sub- and would feel but slightly consoled by his own servient to man, reserving the consideration of the philosophical reflection, that he was in the presence canine tribes to an after opportunity. We shall of creatures "which had been endowed by the now resume the subject by a brief biography, or Creator with that peculiar instinct of attaching rather genealogy, of the most faithful and accom-themselves to man, defending his person, and guardmodating of all the brute companions of the human ing his property." Being well read in natural history, he would more likely bring to remembrance, and not without considerable trepidation, the accounts published many years ago in the Moniteur, how, during the last campaign of the French army in the territory of Vienna, not only were the outposts frequently molested, but the videttes actually carried off, in consequence of these ferocious beasts attaching themselves to man somewhat too closely ; and how, on one occasion, when a poor sentinel was sought to be relieved from his appointed post. there was nothing to be found there save a dead wolf, very gaunt and grim, and an exceedingly small portion of a pair of inexpressibles.

race.

Baron Cuvier has characterized our reduction of the dog from a state of nature as "la conquête, la plus complète, la plus singulière et la plus utile que l'homme ait faite,' * and Mr. Swainson has accused Baron Cuvier of scepticism and infidelity for so doing. The English naturalist quotes the preceding sentence and the following:-"Les petits chiens d'appartemens, Doguins, Epagneuls, Bichons, &c., sont les produits les plus dégénérés, et les marques les plus fortes de la puissance que l'homme exerce sur la nature;" and then adds in a note:-"We question whether the scepticism of Buffon, or the infidelity of Lamarck, could have prompted a more objectionable passage." "What does this mean," he afterwards resumes, "but that man has the power of conquering natural instincts or dispositions, and of making an animal, originally created savage or ferocious, domestic and familiar, at his own good will and pleasure?" We think it really may mean something of that kind, without authorizing such serious charges as those brought forward. If our undoubted power over the animal kingdom should possibly increase our satisfaction with ourselves, that is, with our own praiseworthy perseverance and ingenuity, we trust it will also still more increase our admiring gratitude to the Creator both of man and beast, for having endowed the inferior orders with those accommodating instincts which the plastic power of the human race has providentially been enabled so to control, modify, or even transform, as to render them subservient to such various and important uses. When God made man in his own image he gave him dominion "over every living thing that moveth upon the earth," and the sway which he has since been enabled to establish, at various times, over various creatures, is merely the exercise of that lordly delegation. Mr. Swainson seems to think that we arrogate too much to ourselves when we refer to such changes, as if they were our own achievement. Now, we maintain that these changes actually are our own achievement, although we admit that we cannot alter the essential nature of things, but can merely modify or divert certain instinctive impulses in such a way as

We believe that neither the great French naturalist, nor any other naturalist, great or small, denies the providential implanting of a peculiar instinct in all animals which have been domesticated-an instinct capable, under the combined influence of fear and affection, of being strengthened in certain directions and weakened in others; but still the subjugation itself is the actual work of man, and is, in truth, a great achievement. A dog desires to lick your hand, and a wolf your blood; and there is such a decided difference in the nature of the two intentions, that it should be kept carefully in mind by all sensible men, women, and children. We know not whether we can even concede to Mr. Swainson his assertion that there is only a limited number of animals to whom has been given "an innate propensity to live by free choice near the haunts of man, or to submit themselves cheerfully and willingly to his domestication." We believe that innumerable tribes, excluded by Mr. Swainson's category, are just as capable of domestication as the others, were they worth the trouble; but there are many useless animals in the world, (viewing them, that is, only in their economical relations to ourselves,) and these it would assuredly be a waste of labor to reclaim from their natural state, which is that of well-founded fear for the lord of creation. Besides, it is not the most valuable of our domesticated animals, which, in the wild state, live by choice in the vicinity of human habitations, or submit themselves most cheerfully to man's dominion. Neither is it the nature, considered by itself alone, of any creature's attributes, which determines its being reduced to the domestic state. The social condition of man himself, and his own

advancement in civilization and domestic life, must | tion, that it may eventually spring upon and secure be likewise taken to account. Ask the North it for itself. What is the acquired or artificial porAmerican Indian, as he wanders though leafless tion? That steady, sedate, and "self-denying orwoods, or over sterile plains, or across the snowy dinance," which directs it to indicate the existence surface of frost-bound lakes, or crackling rivers, and position of the game, or, if encouraged, cauwhether the rein-deer, which he may be then track- tiously to lead towards it, that it may be slaughtered ing in cold and hunger, is capable, like the dog, of by and for its master. The former delay is a mere domestication. His reply would be, that you might piece of instinctive prudence, that the quadruped as soon seek to domesticate the grizzly bear or may spring at last upon its prey with more unerring prong-horned antelope. Put the same question to aim-the latter is a conventional indication to the the nomadian of the north of Europe, the forlorn biped who carries the gun, that it is now his busiLaplander, and he will tell you (in still greater ness to conclude the work. This conversion, under amazement at your ignorance) that for every do- man's guidance, of a momentary pause to a full mestic purpose there is no such animal on all the stop, has been typographically compared to the earth. It is, therefore, the wildness of man rather changing of a semicolon to a point. than the stubbornness of beast which so frequently interferes with the progress of domestication. "For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: but the tongue can no man tame. James iii. 7. And this last statement, from a source which none can gainsay, no doubt accounts for the fact that one naturalist should abuse another without sufficient reason." *

Mr. Swainson states his surprise (in loc. cit.) that any one should countenance the assertion of those sceptical writers who "term this wonderful instinct the work of man." In this we conceive lies his misconception of the whole matter. He seems to think that the writers whom he criticises assert that man has formed the peculiar instincts of certain species; whereas these writers, whether right or wrong, merely maintain that the human race has taken advantage of such instincts, and by control and cultivation has turned them to its own advantage. What is the natural portion of instinct in the procedure of the pointer dog? Surely this, that when it has scented the game it stands still for a time warily, and then advances with greater cau

We believe it was Buffon who first broached the notion that the shepherd's dog is that which approaches nearest to the primitive race, since in all countries inhabited by savages, or men half-civilized, the dogs resemble this breed more than any other.

"If we also consider," he observes, "that this dog, notwithstanding his ugliness, and his wild and melancholy look, is still superior in instinct to all others that he has a decided character, in which education has no share-that he is the only kind born as it were already trained-that, guided by natural powers alone, he applies himself to the care of our flocks, which he executes with singular fidelity-that he conducts them with an admirable intelligence which has not been communicated to him— that his talents astonish at the same time that they give repose to his master, while it requires much time and trouble to instruct other dogs for the purposes to which they are destined; if we reflect on these facts, we shall be confirmed in the opinion, that the shepherd's dog is the true dog of naturethe dog that has been bestowed upon us on account of his greatest utility; that he bears the greatest relationship to the general order of animated beings, which have mutual need of each other's assistance; that he is, in short, the one we ought to look upon as the stock and model of the whole species."

* We shall not take upon us to question Mr. Swainson's scholarship, or doubt his clear comprehension of the passages he reprehends. But in his own discourse on the "Classification of Quadrupeds," p. 15, where he takes We admire shepherds, and shepherd's dogs, and occasion to state the characters which distinguish animals sheep, and take great delight in the "pastoral meland plants, we find the following passage:-" Vegetables ancholy" of lonesome, treeless valleys, whether derive their nutriment from the sun, and from the circumfluent atmosphere, in the form of water, which is a com- winter torrents, and verdurous sloping sweeps of green or gray, (alternate stony streams, the beds of bination of oxygen and hydrogen; of air containing oxygen and azote; and of carbonic acid, composed of oxygen brighter pasture,) resounding with the varied bleatand carbon." Now, the meaning of this is by no means ing of the woolly people; but as we know that clear, or rather it is very clear that it has no meaning at there are many countries without either sheep or all. As a general reference is made to one of Cuvier's shepherds, yet abounding in dogs of so wild and works as the source of this extraordinary piece of physi- uncultivated a nature, that they would far rather ology, we glanced over the Introduction to the " Règne Animal," and soon found as follows:-"Le sol et l'at worry mutton on their own account, than watch it mosphère présentent aux végétaux pour leur nutrition de on account of others, we cannot admit the foregoing l'eau, qui se compose d'oxygène et d'hydrogène, de l'air explanation to be true. The fact is, that so long qui contient de l'oxygène et de l'azote; et de l'acide carbonique qui est une combinaison d'oxygène et de caras we seek with Buffon for the origin of all domesbone." p. 20. Now, we are ready to maintain, that al- tic dogs in a single source, we shall seek in vain. though sol, during fine weather, is very fair Latin for sun, Their widely diversified nature and attributes canit is certainly not French for anything half so lustrous, not be explained or accounted for by the influence but, in the latter language, means simply soil, or "mother of climate, and the modifying effects of domesticaearth," and not the god of day. The passage, of course, tion-however various and important these may be signifies that earth and atmosphere furnish food for veg--acting on the descendants of only one original etation by means of water, which is composed of oxygen

Pallas, a German naturalist, long settled in Russia, was among the first to give currency to the opinion, that the dog, viewed in its generality, ought to be regarded in a great measure as an adventitious animal, that is to say, as a creature produced by the diversified, and, in some cases, fortuitous alliance of several natural species. This idea is now a prevailing one, and we certainly give to it our

and hydrogen-of air, which contains oxygen and azote species.
-and of carbonic acid, which is a combination of oxygen
and carbon. We observe, that in a concluding note, (p.
16,) Mr. Swainson states, "As it might be thought ob-
jectionable, in a popular work of this nature, to quote
foreign authors in their own language, we have, upon this
and other occasions, cited Mr. Griffith's translation of
the Règne Animal, rather than the original." Mr. S.
might, surely, with no loss of popularity. have given us
a correct translation of his own, without quoting either a
foreign language or an unintelligible version by another
person; and this would have been a proper and praise-
worthy way of using books without abusing them.

* Histoire des Quadrupèdes, t. i., p. 204.

own assent.

NATURAL HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF DOGS.

An excellent English naturalist, Mr. | noble and gigantic stag-hound, to the useful terrier, History of British Quadru- and degraded pug-dog, have all sprung originally Bell, (in his recent " peds,") adheres to the older notion, that the wolf is from one and the same blood-thirsty savage? We the original stock from which all our domesticated can scarcely conceive the possibility, and in no way dogs have been derived. There are many wolves see the necessity of such a parentage. That the wolf and dog breed freely together had, in this world, and several very savage ones in America, and on an enlarged view of the subject it might however, been long ascertained from experiments be difficult to choose impartially among them, made in a state of confinement, (we can scarcely although the dogs of the western regions may be call it domestication,) and that they freely seek thought entitled to claim descent from their own each other's society, as belonging to the same kind, wolves, to the same extent as ours may from those has been still more explicitly proved in later years, of Europe. Now, as the wild species of the Old when at least one of the animals was in a condition and New World are deemed distinct by the major- of total wildness. During Sir Edward Parry's first ity of naturalists, and as each of those great divi-voyage (see Supplement to the Appendix) frequent sions of the globe gives us more than a single wolf, we start in this way with a somewhat complex paternity from the beginning.

66

The Esquimaux dogs bear a strong resemblance "Withto the northern wolves, and we do not see how they could have sprung from any other source. out entering," says Sir John Richardson, "at all into the question of the origin of the domestic dog, I may state that the resemblance between the wolves and dogs of those Indian nations who still preserve their ancient mode of life, continues to be very remarkable, and it is nowhere more so than at the very northern extremity of the continent, the Esquimaux dogs being not only extremely like the So great gray wolves of the arctic circle, in form and color, but also nearly equalling them in size."* indeed was the resemblance between these North American wolves and the sledge-dogs of the natives, that our arctic voyagers frequently mistook a band of the former for the domestic troop of an Indian party. The cry of each is precisely the same.

instances were observed of more than one dog belonging to the officers being enticed away by she wolves. "In December and January, which are There are many wild dogs, strictly so called, of the months in which wolves are in season, a female very different character and conduct, in various paid almost daily visits to the neighborhood of the countries, but none of them, even after centuries of ships, and remained till she was joined by a setter freedom, (supposing that they are only emancipated dog belonging to one of the officers. They were The usually together for two or three hours; and as varieties,) have reverted to the wolfish state. true pariah dog of India is well known, as a wild they did not go far away unless an endeavor was species, to be an inhabitant of woody districts, re-made to approach them, repeated and decided evimote from man, among the lower ranges of the dence was obtained of the purpose for which they Himalaya mountains, where the wolf is likewise were thus associated. As they became more familknown, but with which it does not intermingle in iar, the absences of the dog were of longer continuthe natural state. If the dhole of India, the buansa ance, until, at length, he did not return, having of Nepaul, the dingho of New Holland, and the probably fallen a sacrifice in an encounter with a aguaras or wild dogs of South America, were male wolf. The female, however, continued to neither more nor less than wolves, what prevents visit the ships as before, and enticed a second dog their assuming the aspect of their progenitors, see- in the same manner, which, after several meetings, ing that they pass their lives in a state of entire returned so severely bitten as to be disabled for freedom from all control, and unsubjected to the many days." Although modifying influences of artificial life? many wild dogs, commonly so called, may have sprung from the alienated descendants of domesticated kinds, there is no doubt of the existence of species, wild ab origine, and more nearly allied to several of our subjugated kinds, than is the wolf itself. At the same time, the latter is in one sense a wild dog, and is certainly entitled in that character to be regarded as the stock of more than one domestic breed, at least of the northern parts of Europe and America. But when, after a careful and extended survey of canine species and varieties, we find not only a diversity both of wild and tame species, but a diversity in which the nature and attributes of the domesticated breeds of certain countries in a great measure correspond with the nature and attributes of the unreclaimed animals of those same countries, we are led to consider whether such Ils hurlent plustost qu'ils n'abayent," says Safacts cannot be accounted for rather by a connection in blood, than a mere coincidence. If, for example, gard Theodat, in the old French account of Canada, Pallas and Guldenstaedt have shown that the dogs (1636,) and we may here observe, that the barking of the Kalmucks scarcely differ in anything from of dogs seems a refinement in their language, acthe jackal, why should we go to the wolf, although quired in consequence of domestication. The dogs it should exist within the natural range of these of all savages and solitary tribes are remarkable for Northern Asiatics? Still more, if Professor Kret- their taciturnity, although they speedily begin to schmer (in Rüppel's Atlas) in describing the Frank- bark when carried into more thickly peopled counfort Museum, shows that another jackal (Canis tries. The black wolf-dog of the Florida Indians anthus) is the type of one of the dogs of ancient is described by Mr. Bartram as differing in nothing Egypt, and proves not alone from the correspon- from the wild wolves of the country, except that he dence of antique figures, both in painting and sculpture, but by the comparison of a skull from the catacombs of Lycopolis, that these creatures so resemble each other as to be almost identical-why should The Hare Indian dog is a small domestic kind, we refer so exclusively to the muscular wolf as the progenitor of such comparatively feeble forms? Or used chiefly by the Hare Indians, and other tribes is it likely, from what we know of other animals, who frequent the borders of the Great Bear lake, and the limits of variation which nature has assigned and the banks of the Mackenzie river. Sir John even to the most variable species, that the whole of our infinitely diversified tribes of dogs, from the

possessed the power of barking. A black wolf-dog, sent from Canada to the late Earl of Durham, seemed to combine the characters of the wolf and the original Newfoundland dog.

* Fauna Boreali-Americana, p. 75.