"his powerful muscles of mastication."
His "sense of taste is dull and coarse." He is "not as cleanly in his
habits as the cat." He is "not courageous in proportion to his
strength." Let me illustrate this last point by what I saw this
afternoon. A dog about as large and strong as a young lion was barking
vigorously behind a low fence at a cat, who sat serenely on the other
side, meeting his Bombastes Furioso plunges at the intervening pickets
with a contemptuous hiss and an occasional buffet with her claw upon his
muzzle. I have yet to see a dog that dares attack my goat of a year
old, except when he is harnessed to his wagon. They are not, however,
afraid of sheep. And they are much more clear in their minds about
attacking children than strong men with clubs. A man is safe before them
in proportion as he is not in fear. They know a coward at once, with all
a coward's instinct.

Another little peculiarity of this family in all its branches is the
hydrophobia, an accomplishment which they are very generous in
imparting, and which is to be taken into account in estimating their
usefulness.

Cuvier, however, puts forward the ingenious claim--worthy of the Buckle
and Taine type of scientific speculators, who are never so happy as when
they think they have accounted for the world without the hypothesis of a
God, and who naturally catch at an opportunity of reading that name
backward (or the name Dog backward, whichever you like)--that "the dog
was necessary to the establishment of human society." This startling
dogma of the new kynolatry is a good illustration of the way in which
this class of theorists persist in putting the cart before the horse.
The truth is that man was necessary to the establishment of canine
society. Except as human skill and patience subdued, trained, and
developed the dog, the latter was incapable of rising, and was one of
man's most dangerous foes,--the fox robbing his hen-roosts and
grape-vines, the wolf eating him and his children, and the jackal and
hyena picking his bones and rifling his grave. The same ridiculous claim
of being the corner-stone of human society has been made by some
wiseacre in behalf of the goat. The plain truth is that only one animal
can justly lay claim to such a distinction. At the threshold of human
society and civilization lies the slimy figure of the snake, who
persuaded man to purchase knowledge at the cost of innocence, a lesson
which has been learned by heart an