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Show 42 DOGS. CuAP. I. . lldo bad formerly been as that if tho mastiff and Eoghsh bu. g(' 1828) so accurate disti'n ct as they arc a t tl1 0 1)resont trmo t~l- e. autho' r of ( R ura1 an observer as t h o P0 t Gay (who wa. s h 1· 0 Fable of t h e B u ll Sports' in 1711) would have spoken m diS tl< e Mastiff. There ~ d t of the Bull an ~ d and the Bulldog, an no b lldoo·s of the present ay, can be no doubt that the fancy . ub 11-baiting have become uow that t b ey ar.c not u.s ed tf or ue xpress in' tentw. n on the greatly reduced in size, withou . an~ . . certainly descended d Our pomtms arc l Part of tho brcc cr. . Don Ponto, Car os, " d n their names, ' . from a Spanish brcc ' as ev~ tl were not known m · · aiel that lCY &c., would show : rt IS s . . 1688 . 82 but the breed since Euo-land before the RevolutiOn m d'fi d for Mr. Borrow, who b . h , been much mo l e ' its introcluctwn as . . t' atoly well informs me is a sportsman an d 1m ows Spain m 1m 1. . d "c' orrcspondm. g . tl t country any urce that he has not seen m 1 ~ . • • b t there arc genuine in figure with the Enghsh pomtcrb, uimJ)Orted by English X ·hich have eon J pointers ncar ores "' 1 . offered by the N ewfounCL· , A -ly paralic case rs gentlemen. ncar . b. ht into Eno·land from t 11 at land clog, which was cort_amly rong uch m~dified that, as b h' 1 has smco been so m bl country, ut w rc 1 ' d 't d cs not now closely rcsem e several writers have observe ' 1 odl d s:> . . t' e dog in Ncwfoun an . 1' h any cXIstmg na rv d radual changes in our Eng IS 'fhcsc several c~scs of s~of:r~~o: h the changes have generally, dogs possess some mterest' d bg c or two crosses with a · · bl been cause Y on but not mvana y, 1 f the well-known extreme . . b d t e may fee sure, rom . d d1stmct reo , yo w d th t .· rrorous and long-contmue · bil't f ·osscd breo s a no · vana 1 y o cr ' t' d . order to improve them m selection must have been prac ISO ' m train or family became fi . , . As soon as any s . a de mte manueL . . J. ted to altered circumstances, It l. 1 tl 'mproved or better actap . F . s Ig 1 y I • h lder and less improved strams. or would tend to supplant t e o i! h d as imr)roved by a cross s the old 10X oun w · in_stance, as soon a . b siro le selection, and assumed rts with the greyhound, or by l p rr ;vas probably required by present character-and t e c mnbe ' 82 See Col. Hamilton Smilh on _tl;c n.ntiquity of tho Pointer, in' Naturn.l!st s Library,' vol. x. p. lOG. . . sJ 'l'he Ncwfouuilln.n<l clog lS behoved to hn.ve orio·inutcd from n. cross botw en the EsquU:aux dog and a large French hound. See Dr. Hodgkin, 'Brit. Assoc • 1844. . Bccl1f:llcin's ' N n.turgcscll. Deutsc·•h lrmcls', ' Band · 4 · 'Natu· I. s. 57 • 1\i· ralist's Library,' vol. x. P· 132 ; als; r. Jukes' 'Excursion in und n.bout ew· fouudland.' CUAP.I. DOMESTIC CATS: TIIEIR PARENTAGE. 43 the increased fleetness of our bunters-it rapidly spread throughout the country, and is now everywhere nearly uniform. But · the process of improvement is still going on, for every one tries to improve his strain by occasionally procuring dogs from the best kennels. Through this process of gradual substitution the old English hound bas been lost; and so it bas been with the old Irish greyhound and apparently '~ith the old English bulldog. But the extinction of former breeds is apparently aided Ly another cause ; for whenever a breed i · kept in scantynumbers, as at present with the bloodhound, it is reared with difficulty, and this apparently is duo to the evil effects of longcontinued close interbreeding. As several breeds of the dog have been slightly but sensibly modified within so short a period as the last one or two centuries, by the selection of the best individual dogs, modified in many cases by crosses with other breeds; and as we shall hereafter see that the breeding of clogs was attended to in ancient times, as it still is by savages, we may conclude that we have in selection, even if only occasionally practised, a potent means of modification. DOMESTIC CATS . . GATS have been domesticated in the East from an ancient period; Mr. Blyth informs me that they are mentioned in a Sanskrit. writing 2000 years old, and in Egypt their antiquity is known to be oven greater, as shown by monumental drawings and their mummicd bodies. These mummies, according to De Blainville,st who has particularly studied the subject, belong to no less than three species, namely, .F. caligulata, bubastes, and cltaus. The two former species are said to be still found, both wild and domesticated, in parts of Egypt. F. caligulata presents a difference in the first inferior milk molar tooth, as compared with the domestic cats of Europe, which makes De Blainville conclude that it is not one of the paron t-forms of our cats. Several naturalists, as Pallas,· Temminck, Blyth, believe that domestic. cats arc the descendants of several species com- 84 De Blainville, 'Ol:!tcographic, Felis,' p. 65, on the character of li'. caligulata; pp. 85, 80, 90, 175, on the other mum-micd species. He quotes Ehrenberg on F. maniculata being mummied. |