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Show 28 DOGS. CHAP. J. . h a1 that the feral dogs In St. Domingo, Col. IIam. Smit says . ' 1 blue-ash are very large, h.k e grey1 lo unc1 s , of a umform Epvae en the w' ild' 11 1 large lightrbrown eyes. with sma ears, anc . d · Australia "varies Dingo, thongh so anci·C n tly natur. ab. se dm b JYI· P. ' P. King: bl · 1 . " as I am mforme Y I. considera Y m co our, ~ E 1 d 38 showed sio·ns of wishing a half-bred Dingo reared m ' ng an b to burrow. . that reversion in the feral state From the several foregomg facts we. see f the aboriginal pr11'cnt-spccics. gives no i.ndicatio~ of_ tho. colou:· t~· :~~0 c~lot1l'ing of domc~t~c dogs, _I ~t One fact, however, with Icspcc l'gl.lt on their orJgm; ancl It IS · 1 t h thrown some 1 one time hoped llllg 1_ ave ·in follows laws, even in so anciently worth giving, as shown~g how colo~~~ as tho dog. Black dogs with tanand thoroughly domcstwatcd an a b long to almost invariably have coloured feet, whatever breed they m~y 0 :s of each eye and their a tan-coloured spot on tho upper and mner corn:.y two' exceptions to this lips arc generally thus coloured. _I havDo seonfoa light-brown colour often l · n'ol ancl tcrnor ogs 0 rule, name Y, m a spa .1 t . tho eyes · sometimes tho spot have a lighter, yellowish-brown SJ?O over t s 'black. Mr. Waring . hit d . a mon"'rcl torncr tho spo wa 1s w o, a~ 111 0 d f :fift~on greyhounds in Suffolk: cloven of kindly cxammcd for me a stu o 'to or brindled, and those had no eye· them were black, or black andd whi '1 t blue and those four had d(trk-t b t three wore reel an one s a y- ' dicr spo s ; u . Althou h the spots thus sometimes uor ?olourcd spots ove~· t~Clr oy:~· to be ta~-colourccl ; this is proved by my m colour, they shono~Y1 tc tt . two Yorkshire shepherd dcgs, a brgo having seen four s~~ru~ s, a d:o c~~~urcd black and white, with not a trace mongrel, and some ~~- 0 : ; ots over the eyes, ancl sometimes a little of tan-colour, oxcop mg ~P ' d many others show plainly that the on tho feet. These latter cases, an . ' .. 1 t d I b(tve colour of tho feet and tho eye-spots arc m some way cone a c .. . d . .· b ·ecds every gradation, from tho whole fn,co bomg tan-notwc , m vanous r ' t · to spot over the coloured, to a complete ring round thte eyes,. ~a :l~~s sub-breeds of . and upper corners. Tho spo s occur . . . mnc_r d . 1 . in setters. in hounds of various kmds, mcluding torncrs an sparue s , ' l d · ongrel tho tmnspit-like Gorman badger-hound.; _in shcpho:c b~~~~O'm t~~gh th~ of which neither parent had tho spots; m one y;uo ] d b t true s ots were in this case almost white; and m grey Ioun s,- u Jack-and-tan greyhounds arc excessively rare; noveTthclcs~ I ~~c b~: assured by Mr. Warwick, that one mn at ~he ca:ocloruan amltan t. fA 'il 1860 and was "marked pTccisoly like a black-an moo mg o pr , ' ' d t th 1 "' in China at terrier." Mr. Swinhoo at my request lookc a c <. OoS ' Amoy, and he soon noticed a brown clog with yellow s.pots. o~c:· tho ,~[:~ Colonel II. Smith 39 figures the magnificent black mastiff of 'Ilnbct " 37 Dogs, 'Nat. Library,' vol. x. p. 121: an endemic South Amcricnn dog seems also to have become fernl in this island. See Gosse's' J nmaicn,' p. 340. 38 Low, • Domesticated Animals,' P· 650. 39 'The Naturalist Library,' Dogs, vol. x. pp. 4, 19. 'CJTAP. f. TIIEIR PARENTAGE. 29 bn-colomod stripe over tho eyes, feet, and chaps; and what is more singular, he figures the Alco, or native domestic dog of Mexico, as black and white, with naTrow tn.n-colomed rings round tho eyes; at the Exhibition of dogs in London, Mn,y, 1863, a so-called forest-dog from NorthWest Mexico was shown, which hacl pale tan-coloured spots over the eyes. The occurrence of those tan-colomod spots in dogs of such extremely different breeds, living in various parts of the world, makes the fact highly remarkable. We shall hereafter sec, especially in tho chapter on Pigeons, that coloured mn,rks arc strongly inherited, ancl that they often aid us in discovering tho primitive forms of our domestic races. Hence, if any wild canine species bad distinctly exhibited the tan-coloured spots over the eyes, it might have boon argued that this was tho parent-form of nearly all our domestic races. But after looking at many colomed plates, and through tho whole collection of skins in the British Museum, I can find no species thus marked. It is no doubt possible that some extinct species was thus coloured. On tho other hand, in looking at tho various species, there seems to be a tolerably plain correlation between tan-coloured legs and face; and less frequently between black logs and a black face; and this general rule of colouring explains to a certain extent tho above-given cn.scs of correlation between tho eye-spots and tho colour of tho feet. Moreover, some jackals and foxes have a trace of a white ring round their eyes, as in a. mesomelas, a. a~weus, and (judging from Colonel Ham. Smith's drawing) in a. atopex and a. thaleb. Other species have a trace of a black line over tho corners of the eyes, as in a. variegatus, cine1'eo-variegatus, and fulvus, and the wild Dingo. Hence I am inclined to conclude that a tendency for tan-coloured spots to appear over tho eyes in the various breeds of dogs, is analogous to tho case observed by Dcsmarcst, namely, that when any white appears on a clog the tip of the tail is always white "cle maniero a rappolcr la tache torminn.le do memo couleur, qui carac~ teriso la plupart clcs Canidcs sauvagos." 40 It has been objected that our domestic dogs cannot be descended from wolves or jackals, because their periods of gestation are different. The supposed difference rests on statements made by Buffon, Gilibert, Bechstein, and others; but these are now known to be erroneous ; and the period is found to agree in the wolf, jackal, and dog, as closely as could be expected, for it is often in some degree variable.41 Tessier, who 4o Quoted by Prof. Gervais, 'IIist. Nat. Mamm.,' tom. ii. p. 66. 4 ' J. Hunter shows that the long period of scventy-th1·cc· clays given by nutron is easily explained by the bitch having received the clog many times during a period. of sixteen clays (' Phil. Transact.,' 1787, p. 253). Hunter found that the gestation of a mongrel from wolf and clog ('Phil. Transact.,' 1789, p. 160) apparently was sixty-three days, for she received the clog more than once. The period of a mongrel dog and jackal was fifty-nine days. Fred. Cuvier found the period of gestation of the wolf to be ('Diet. Class. d'Hist. Nat.,' tom. iv. p. |