[Illustration: Dentition of Wolf.]

This genus contains the wolf and the jackal, as well as the dog
proper.

The origin of the domestic dog (_Canis familiaris_) is involved in
obscurity; it is mentioned in its domestic state and in an infinity
of varieties in records of remote ages. Job talks of "the dogs of
my flock," and in the Assyrian monuments, as far back as 3400 years
before Christ, various forms are represented; and in Egypt not only
representations of known varieties, easy to be recognised, are found,
but numerous mummies have been exhumed, the animal having been held
in special veneration. There is a preponderance of opinion strongly
in favour of the theory that the domestic dog sprang from the wolf,
and much argument has been advanced in support of this idea. The
principal objection made to this by those who hold opposite views
is the fact that no dog in a wild state barks, but only howls.

Now for the evidence adduced in support of the former assertion; some
domesticated species of dog closely resembling the wild wolf.

Sir John Richardson says of the Eskimo dog that it is not only
extremely like the North American wolf (_Canis lupus_), both in form,
colour, and nearly in size, but that the howl of both animals "is
prolonged so exactly in the same key that even the practised ear of
an Indian fails at times to discriminate them." He adds of the dog
of the Hare Indians, a distinct breed, that it is almost the same
as the prairie wolf (_Canis latrans_), the skull of the dog appeared
to him a little smaller, otherwise he could detect no difference in
form, nor fineness of fur, nor the arrangement of spots of colour.

Professor Kitchen Parker writes: "Another observer remarks that,
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 dogs also breed readily with the wild animals
they so closely resemble. The Indians often cross their dogs with
wolves to improve the breed, and in South America the same process
is resorted to between the domesticated and the wild dogs." He then
goes on to allude to many varieties of dogs closely resembling
wolves--the shepherd dog of Hungary, which is so like that a
Hungarian has been known to mistake a wolf for one of his own dogs.
Some Indian pariahs, and some dogs of Egypt, both now and in the
condition of mummies, closely resemble the wolf of their country.
The dome