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Show CnAr. I. DOGS. 36 b' t in . " 'ffi . t broods of dogs nrc su ~cc d t as to the size of tho anmml. . Dl oren certainly become ndaptc. o different do"'rccs to vl1rious cliscl1scs. Thoyl Gc:ristcd. It is notorwus different cliom ates d hich they h11ve ong . rna·11 6a The tUl 01' w b . ds uctcriorato ll1 1 . . th thl1t most of our best European ICC h11s succeeded in kccpmg. 6~ Rev. R. Everest 66 believe~ t~l1t n~ ~no it is !1ccording to Lichtenstcm, Ncwfoundll1nd dog long ahvc mlndiTa/ s~hibot mastiff dcgoncratcs on thhet t tho Cape of Good Hope. 10 t . 68 Lloyd 69 11sserts t a evl einn sa o f India and can h.v c on J y on the motu .n. dnm as.n d cannot 'tl-.· t d tho Wl us an po u11r bloodhou'an s nn d bulldogs have boon ne ' cold of tho northern European forests. t the races of the dog differ Seeing in how many charac er~ Cuvier's admission that from each oth er, an d romemdb eutnhg e of the spem.e s of any their skulls differ more .tha~ o . dosh. closely the bones of natural genus, an d bearm(Yo m mm ow . · ·k 0 'dro agree It IS remar - wolves J. ackals, £o xes, and other t am t repea' ted over an d ' · th the sta em en , able that we meet WI d (Y differ in no important over agam. , tll at the races of the. d ob Prof. Gervai.s , 70 a d mi' ts , A h · bly competent JU ge, d characters. . Ig ·"1 les alterations clout chacun e ces "si l'on prenait sans contro e . . ·e qu'il y a entre les t'ble on pourra1t crou . organes est suscep I ' . , 1 grandes que celles qm t. des differences P us " chi ens domes Iq ues ' l fois me me les genres. scparent ai'1 1 eurs l e.s especes ' que que. ted are in one respec t h d':ffi ences above enumera . . f Some of t e 1 er. £ they are not characteristiC o of comparatively httle value, odr th t such is the case with the distinct bree ds : no on e pret.e 1n sth e an umber of mammro ; t h e additional molar teeth ml·l wit~ t "'I'th mastiffs, and some of d. 't · a nera y presen " additional Igi IS oe . . tl skull and lower jaw are the more important cllfferenfces I~ Iebr·eeds But we must not · t' vanous · more or less charactens ~c o f selection has not been l th edommant power o forget t lat e pr h variability in important · f these cases · we ave M applied m any ~ h ' t been fixed by selection. an parts, but the differences ave no 'Tho Veterinary,' London, vol. xi. p. 23~: 167) that the Italian grey~o~nd is 60 'Journal of As. Soc. of Benga' "stron..,.ly subject" to llolypl m th~ vol. iii. p. 19. matrix o or vagina. The spaniel an 67 'Travels,' vol. ii. p. 15. S f ( 182) are most liable to bron· 68 Hodgson, in 'Journal of As. oc. o pug lp. The liability to distemper 312 chaco c. d' N. t in Bengal,' vol. i. P· · h of ( 232) is extremely moron 69 ' Field Sl)orts of the Nort p. , 0 th distemper see ' different breeds. n ° , .' k- Europe' vol. ii. p. 165. o.lso Col. Hutchinson on Dog Broa 70 'Hist. No.t. des Mummif.,' 1855, tom. ine:,' 1850, p. 279. 5 .. p 66 G7 ~65 See Youatt on the Doe~: , P· 1 ; u. P · ' ' CHAP. I. :MEANS OF MODIFICATION. 37 cares for the form and fleetness of his greyhounds, for the size of his mastiffs, for the strength of the jaw in his bulldogs, &c.; but he cares nothing about the number of their molar teeth or mammro or digits; nor do we know that differences in these organs are correlated with, or owe their development to, differences in other parts of the body about which man does care. Those who have attended to the su~ject of selection will admit that, nature having given variability, man, if he so chose, could :fix :five toes to the hinder feet of certain breeds of dogs, as certainly as to the feet of his Dorking-fowls: he could probably fix, but with much more difficulty, an additional pair of molar teeth in either jaw, in the same way as he has given additional horns to certain breeds of sheep ; if he wished to produce a toothless breed of dogs, having the so-called Turkish dog with its imperfect teeth to work on, he could probably do so, for he has succeeded in making hornless breeds of cattlo and sheep. With respect to the precise causes and steps by which the several races of dogs have come to differ so greatly from each other, we are, as in most other cases, profounqly ignorant. We may attribute part of the difference in external form arid constitution to inheritance from distinct wild stocks, that is to changes effected under nature before domestication. ':V e must attribute something to the crossing of the several domestic and natural races. I shall, however, soon 1·ecur to the crossing of races. We have already seen how often savages cross their dogs with wild native species ; and Pennant gives a curious account 71 of the manner in which Fochabers, in Scotland, was stocked " with a multitude of curs of a most wolfish aspect" from a single hybrid-wolf brought into that district. It would appear that climate to a certain extent directly modifies the forms of dogs. We have lately seen that several of our English breeds cannot live in India, and it is positively asserted that when bred there for a few generations they degenerate not only in their mental faculties, but in form. Captain Williamson,72 who carefully attended to this subject, states that "hounds are the most rapid in their decline;" "greyhounds and 7 1 'History of Qundrupods,' 1793, vol. i. p. 238, ;2 'Oriental Field Sports,' quoted by Youatt, ' Tho Dog,' p. 15. |