|
In nearly all parts of the world traces of an indigenous dog family
are found, the only exceptions being the West Indian Islands, Madagascar,
the eastern islands of the Malayan Archipelago, New Zealand, and the
Polynesian Islands, where there is no sign that any dog, wolf, or fox
has existed as a true aboriginal animal. In the ancient Oriental lands,
and generally among the early Mongolians, the dog remained savage and
neglected for centuries, prowling in packs, gaunt and wolf-like, as
it prowls to-day through the streets and under the walls of every Eastern
city. No attempt was made to allure it into human companionship or to
improve it into docility. It is not until we come to examine the records
of the higher civilizations of Assyria and Egypt that we discover any
distinct varieties of canine form.
Assyrian sculptures depict two such, a Greyhound and a Mastiff,
the latter described in the tablets as "the chained-up, mouth-opening
dog"; that is to say, it was used as a watch-dog; and several varieties
are referred to in the cuneiform inscriptions preserved in the British
Museum. The Egyptian monuments of about 3000 B.C. present many forms
of the domestic dog, and there can be no doubt that among the ancient
Egyptians it was as completely a companion of man, as much a favourite
in the house, and a help in the chase, as it is among ourselves at present.
In the city of Cynopolis it was reverenced next to the sacred jackal,
and on the death of a dog the members of the household to which he had
belonged carefully shaved their whole bodies, and religiously abstained
from using the food, of whatever kind, which happened to be in the house
at the time. Among the distinct breeds kept in Egypt there was a massive
wolf-dog, a large, heavily-built hound with drooping ears and a pointed
head, at least two varieties of Greyhound used for hunting the gazelle,
and a small breed of terrier or Turnspit, with short, crooked legs.
This last appears to have been regarded as an especial household pet,
for it was admitted into the living rooms and taken as a companion for
walks out of doors. It was furnished with a collar of leaves, or of
leather, or precious metal wrought into the form of leaves, and when
it died it was embalmed. Every town throughout Egypt had its place of
interment for canine mummies.
The dog was not greatly appreciated in Palestine, and in both
the Old and New Testaments it is commonly spoken of with scorn and contempt
as an "unclean beast." Even the familiar reference to the Sheepdog in
the Book of Job--"_But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,
whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock_"--is
not without a suggestion of contempt, and it is significant that the
only biblical allusion to the dog as a recognised companion of man occurs
in the apocryphal Book of Tobit (v. 16), "_So they went forth both,
and the young man's dog with them_."
The pagan Greeks and Romans had a kindlier feeling for dumb animals
than had the Jews. Their hounds, like their horses, were selected with
discrimination, bred with care, and held in high esteem, receiving pet
names; and the literatures of Greece and Rome contain many tributes
to the courage, obedience, sagacity, and affectionate fidelity of the
dog. The Phoenicians, too, were unquestionably lovers of the dog, quick
to recognise the points of special breeds. In their colony in Carthage,
during the reign of Sardanapalus, they had already possessed themselves
of the Assyrian Mastiff, which they probably exported to far-off Britain,
as they are said to have exported the Water Spaniel to Ireland and to
Spain.
It is a significant circumstance when we come to consider the
probable origin of the dog, that there are indications of his domestication
at such early periods by so many peoples in different parts of the world.
As we have seen, dogs were more or less subjugated and tamed by primitive
man, by the Assyrians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, as
also by the ancient barbaric tribes of the western hemisphere. The important
question now arises: Had all these dogs a common origin in a definite
parent stock, or did they spring from separate and unrelated parents?
It was believed that all the evidence which could be brought to
bear upon the problem pointed to an independent origin of the dog. Youatt,
writing in 1845, argued that "this power of tracing back the dog to
the very earliest periods of history, and the fact that he then seemed
to be as sagacious, as faithful, and as valuable as at the present day,
strongly favours the opinion that he was descended from no inferior
and comparatively worthless animal; and that he was not the progeny
of the wolf, the jackal, or the fox, but was originally created, somewhat
as we now find him, the associate and friend of man."
When Youatt wrote, most people believed that the world was only
six thousand years old, and that species were originally created and
absolutely unchangeable. Lyell's discoveries in geology, however, overthrew
the argument of the earth's chronology and of the antiquity of man,
and Darwin's theory of evolution entirely transformed the accepted beliefs
concerning the origin of species and the supposed invariability of animal
types.
The general superficial resemblance between the fox and many of
our dogs, might well excuse the belief in a relationship. Gamekeepers
are often very positive that a cross can be obtained between a dog fox
and a terrier bitch; but cases in which this connection is alleged must
be accepted with extreme caution. The late Mr. A. D. Bartlett, who was
for years the superintendent of the Zoological Gardens in London, studied
this question with minute care, and as a result of experiments and observations
he positively affirmed that he had never met with one well-authenticated
instance of a hybrid dog and fox. Mr. Bartlett's conclusions are incontestable.
However much in appearance the supposed dog-fox may resemble the fox,
there are certain opposing characteristics and structural differences
which entirely dismiss the theory of relationship.
Whatever may be said concerning the difference existing between
dogs and foxes will not hold good in reference to dogs, wolves, and
jackals. The wolf and the jackal are so much alike that the only appreciable
distinction is that of size, and so closely do they resemble many dogs
in general appearance, structure, habits, instincts, and mental endowments
that no difficulty presents itself in regarding them as being of one
stock. Wolves and jackals can be, and have repeatedly been, tamed. Domestic
dogs can become, and again and again do become, wild, even consorting
with wolves, interbreeding with them, assuming their gregarious habits,
and changing the characteristic bark into a dismal wolf-like howl. The
wolf and the jackal when tamed answer to their master's call, wag their
tails, lick his hands, crouch, jump round him to be caressed, and throw
themselves on their backs in submission. When in high spirits they run
round in circles or in a figure of eight, with their tails between their
legs. Their howl becomes a business-like bark. They smell at the tails
of other dogs and void their urine sideways, and lastly, like our domestic
favourites, however refined and gentlemanly in other respects, they
cannot be broken of the habit of rolling on carrion or on animals they
have killed.
This last habit of the domestic dog is one of the surviving traits
of his wild ancestry, which, like his habits of burying bones or superfluous
food, and of turning round and round on a carpet as if to make a nest
for himself before lying down, go far towards connecting him in direct
relationship with the wolf and the jackal.
The great multitude of different breeds of the dog and the vast
differences in their size, points, and general appearance are facts
which make it difficult to believe that they could have had a common
ancestry. One thinks of the difference between the Mastiff and the Japanese
Spaniel, the Deerhound and the fashionable Pomeranian, the St. Bernard
and the Miniature Black and Tan Terrier, and is perplexed in contemplating
the possibility of their having descended from a common progenitor.
Yet the disparity is no greater than that between the Shire horse and
the Shetland pony, the Shorthorn and the Kerry cattle, or the Patagonian
and the Pygmy; and all dog breeders know how easy it is to produce a
variety in type and size by studied selection.
In order properly to understand this question it is necessary
first to consider the identity of structure in the wolf and the dog.
This identity of structure may best be studied in a comparison of the
osseous system, or skeletons, of the two animals, which so closely resemble
each other that their transposition would not easily be detected.
The spine of the dog consists of seven vertebrae in the neck,
thirteen in the back, seven in the loins, three sacral vertebrae, and
twenty to twenty-two in the tail. In both the dog and the wolf there
are thirteen pairs of ribs, nine true and four false. Each has forty-two
teeth. They both have five front and four hind toes, while outwardly
the common wolf has so much the appearance of a large, bare-boned dog,
that a popular description of the one would serve for the other.
Nor are their habits different. The wolf's natural voice is a
loud howl, but when confined with dogs he will learn to bark. Although
he is carnivorous, he will also eat vegetables, and when sickly he will
nibble grass. In the chase, a pack of wolves will divide into parties,
one following the trail of the quarry, the other endeavouring to intercept
its retreat, exercising a considerable amount of strategy, a trait which
is exhibited by many of our sporting dogs and terriers when hunting
in teams.
A further important point of resemblance between the _Canis lupus_
and the _Canis familiaris_ lies in the fact that the period of gestation
in both species is sixty-three days. There are from three to nine cubs
in a wolf's litter, and these are blind for twenty-one days. They are
suckled for two months, but at the end of that time they are able to
eat half-digested flesh disgorged for them by their dam--or even their
sire.
We have seen that there is no authenticated instance of a hybrid
between the dog and the fox. This is not the case with the dog and the
wolf, or the dog and the jackal, all of which can interbreed. Moreover,
their offspring are fertile. Pliny is the authority for the statement
that the Gauls tied their female dogs in the wood that they might cross
with wolves. The Eskimo dogs are not infrequently crossed with the grey
Arctic wolf, which they so much resemble, and the Indians of America
were accustomed to cross their half-wild dogs with the coyote to impart
greater boldness to the breed. Tame dogs living in countries inhabited
by the jackal often betray the jackal strain in their litters, and there
are instances of men dwelling in lonely outposts of civilisation being
molested by wolves or jackals following upon the trail of a bitch in
season.
hese facts lead one to refer to the familiar circumstance that
the native dogs of all regions approximate closely in size, coloration,
form, and habit to the native wolf of those regions. Of this most important
circumstance there are far too many instances to allow of its being
looked upon as a mere coincidence. Sir John Richardson, writing in 1829,
observed that "the resemblance between the North American wolves and
the domestic dog of the Indians is so great that the size and strength
of the wolf seems to be the only difference. I have more than once mistaken
a band of wolves for the dogs of a party of Indians; and the howl of
the animals of both species is prolonged so exactly in the same key
that even the practised ear of the Indian fails at times to discriminate
between them."
As the Eskimo and Indian dogs resemble the North American wolf,
so the dog of the Hare Indians, a very different breed, resembles the
prairie wolf. Except in the matter of barking, there is no difference
whatever between the black wolf-dog of the Indians of Florida and the
wolves of the same country. The same phenomenon is seen in many kinds
of European dogs. The Shepherd Dog of the plains of Hungary is white
or reddish-brown, has a sharp nose, short erect ears, shaggy coat, and
bushy tail, and so much resembles a wolf that Mr. Paget, who gives the
description, says he has known a Hungarian mistake a wolf for one of
his own dogs. Many of the dogs of Russia, Lapland, and Finland are comparable
with the wolves of those countries. Some of the domestic dogs of Egypt,
both at the present day and in the condition of mummies, are wolf-like
in type, and the dogs of Nubia have the closest relation to a wild species
of the same region, which is only a form of the common jackal. Dogs,
it may again be noted, cross with the jackal as well as with wolves,
and this is frequently the case in Africa, as, for example, in Bosjesmans,
where the dogs have a marked resemblance to the black-backed jackal,
which is a South African variety.
It has been suggested that the one incontrovertible argument against
the lupine relationship of the dog is the fact that all domestic dogs
bark, while all wild _Canidae_ express their feelings only by howls.
But the difficulty here is not so great as it seems, since we know that
jackals, wild dogs, and wolf pups reared by bitches readily acquire
the habit. On the other hand, domestic dogs allowed to run wild forget
how to bark, while there are some which have not yet learned so to express
themselves.
The presence or absence of the habit of barking cannot, then,
be regarded as an argument in deciding the question concerning the origin
of the dog. This stumbling block consequently disappears, leaving us
in the position of agreeing with Darwin, whose final hypothesis was
that "it is highly probable that the domestic dogs of the world have
descended from two good species of wolf (_C. lupus_ and _C. latrans_),
and from two or three other doubtful species of wolves--namely, the
European, Indian, and North African forms; from at least one or two
South American canine species; from several races or species of jackal;
and perhaps from one or more extinct species"; and that the blood of
these, in some cases mingled together, flows in the veins of our domestic
breeds.
|
|
