The inclination for hunting or war is common to us with animals. Man, in a savage state, knows only how to fight and to hunt. All carnivorous animals which have strength and weapons hunt naturally. The lion and the tiger, whose strength is so great that they are sure to conquer, hunt alone, and without art. Wolves, foxes, and wild dogs, hunt in packs, assist each other and divide the prey, and when education in the domestic dog has improved this natural talent, when he is taught to repress his ardour and to regulate his motions, he hunts with art and knowledge, and always with success. In deserts and depopulated countries, there are wild dogs, which differ in their manners from wolves, in no case but in the facility with which they are tamed. They unite in large troops to hunt, and will attack wild boars, bulls, and even lions and tigers. In America the wild dogs spring from a domestic race and were transported thither from Europe; some of them having been forgotten or abandoned in those deserts, have multiplied in such a degree that they go in troops to inhabited places, where they attack the cattle, and will sometimes even approach the inhabitants, who are obliged to drive them away by force and kill them like other ferocious animals. Dogs however continue in this state only while they remain unacquainted with man, for if we approach wild ones with gentleness, they soon grow tame, become familiar, and remain faithfully attached to their masters; but the wolf though taken young and brought up in the house, is only gentle in his youth, never loses his taste for prey, and sooner or later gives himself up to his fondness for rapine and destruction.
The dog may be said to be the only animal whose fidelity will stand the proof; who always knows his master, and even his master’s friends; who points out a stranger as soon as he arrives; who understands his own name, and knows the voices of the domestics; who has not confidence in himself alone; who, when he has lost his master, will call upon him by his cries and lamentations; who in long journeys, and which he may have travelled but once, will remember his way, and find out the roads; in fine, the dog is the only animal whose talents are evident, and whose education is always successful. Of all animals he is also the most susceptible of impressions, most easily modified by moral causes, and most subject to alterations caused by physical influences. The temperament, faculties, and habits of his body vary prodigiously, and even his form is not uniform. In the same country one dog is very different from another, and the species seems quite changed in different climates; from thence spring the mixture and variety of races which are so great that it is impossible to enumerate or describe them. From the same causes arise that great variety so visible in the height, figure, length of the snout, form of the head, length and direction of the ears and tail, colour, quality and quantity of hair, &c. so that there seems to remain nothing constant in these animals but the conformity of their internal organization, and the faculty of procreating together. And as those which differ most from each other can intermix and produce fertile individuals, it is evident that dogs, however greatly they may vary, nevertheless constitute but one species. But what is most difficult to ascertain in this numerous variety of races, is the character of the primitive stock. How are we to distinguish the effects produced by the influence of the climate, food, &c.? How discover the changes which have resulted from an intermixture among themselves, either in a wild or domestic state? All these causes will, in time, alter the most permanent forms, and the image of nature does not preserve its purity in those objects of which mankind have had the management. Those animals which are independent and can chuse for themselves both their food and climate, are those which best preserve their original impressions, and we may believe the most ancient of their species are the most faithfully represented by their descendants. But those which mankind have subdued, transported from climate to climate, whose food, customs, and manners of living he has changed, may also be those which have changed most in their forms; and it is a fact that there are more varieties among domestic than wild animals; and as among domestic animals the dog is most attached to man, lives also the most regularly, and who possesses sentiments to render him docile, obedient, susceptible of all impressions, and submissive to all restraints, it is not astonishing that he should be that in which we find the greatest variety not only in figure, height, and colour, but in every other quality.
There are also other circumstances which contribute to this change. The life of the dog is short, his produce is frequent, and in pretty large numbers; he is perpetually beneath the eye of man, and whenever by an accident, which is very common in nature, there may have appeared an individual possessing singular characters, or apparent varieties, they have been perpetuated by uniting together those individuals, and not permitting them to intermix with any others; as is done in the present time, when we want to procure a new breed of dogs, or other animals. Besides, though all the species were equally ancient, yet the number of generations being necessarily the greatest in those whose lives are short, their varieties, changes, and even degenerations, must have become more sensible, since they must be further removed from their original stock than those whose lives are longer. Man is at present eight times nearer to Adam than is the dog to the first of his race, because man lives to fourscore years, and the dog to not more than ten. If, therefore, from any cause these two species equally degenerate, the alteration would be eight times more conspicuous in the dog than in man. Those whose lives are so short that they are succeeded every year by a new generation, are infinitely more subject to variations of every kind than those which have longer lives. It is the same with annual plants (some of which may be said to be artificial or factitious), when compared with other vegetables. Wheat, for example, has been so greatly changed by man that it is not at present to be any where found in a state of nature, it certainly has some resemblance to darnel, dog-grass, and several other herbs of the field, but we are ignorant to which its origin ought to be referred; and as it is renewed every year, and serves for the common food of man, so it has experienced more cultivation than any other plant, and consequently undergone a greater variety of changes. Man can, therefore, not only make every individual in the universe useful to his wants, but, with the aid of time, he can change, modify, and improve their species; and this is the greatest power he has over Nature. To have transformed a barren herb into wheat is a kind of creation, on which, however, he has no reason to pride himself, since it is only by the sweat of his brow, and reiterated culture, that he is enabled to obtain from the bosom of the earth this, often bitter, subsistence. Thus those species, as well among vegetables as animals, which have been the most cultivated by man, are those which have undergone the greatest changes; and as we are sometimes, as in the example of wheat, unable to know their primitive form, it is not impossible that among the numerous varieties of dogs which exist at present there may not be one like the first animal of his species, although the whole of these breeds must have proceeded virtually from him. Nature, notwithstanding, never fails to resume her rights, when left at liberty to act. Wheat, if sown in uncultivated land, degenerates the first year; if that is likewise sown it will be more degenerated in the second generation, and if continued for a succession of ages the original plant of the wheat would appear; and, by an experiment of this kind, it might be discovered how much time Nature requires to reinstate herself and destroy the effect of art, which restrained her. This experiment might easily be made on corn and plants, but it would be in vain to attempt it on animals, because they would not only be difficult to couple and unite but even to manage, and to surmount that invincible repugnance they have to every thing which is contrary to their dispositions or habits. We need not, therefore, expect to find out, by this method, which is the primitive race of dogs, or any other animals, which are subject to permanent varieties. But in default of the knowledge of these facts, which cannot be acquired, we may assimilate particular indications, and from those draw probable conjectures.
Those domestic dogs which were abandoned in the deserts of America, and have lived wild for 150 or 200 years, though then changed from their original breed, must notwithstanding, in this long space of time, have approached, at least in part, to their primitive form. Travellers say that they resemble our greyhounds; and they say the same of the wild dogs at Congo, which like those in America, assemble in packs to make war with lions, tigers, &c. But others, without comparing the wild dogs of St. Domingo to greyhounds, only say that they have long flat heads, thin muzzles, a ferocious air, and thin meagre bodies; that they are exceedingly swift in the chace, hunt in perfection, and are easily taken and tamed when young; thus these wild dogs are extremely thin and light; and as the common greyhound differs but little from the mastiff, or what we call the shepherd’s dog, it is not improbable that these wild dogs are rather of those species than real greyhounds; because on the other hand more ancient travellers have said that the dogs of Canada have ears erect like foxes, and resemble our middle-sized shepherd-dogs; that those of the Antille Isles had very long heads and ears, and had very much the appearance of foxes; that the Indians of Peru had only two kinds, a large and a small one, which they called Alco; that those of the isthmus of America, were very ugly, and that their hair was rough and coarse, which likewise implies they had ears erect. We cannot, therefore, have any doubt that the original dogs of America, before they had any communication with those of Europe, were all of the same race, and that they approached nearest to those dogs which have thin muzzles, erect ears, and coarse hair, like the shepherd’s dogs; and what leads me further to believe that the wild dogs of St. Domingo are not real greyhounds is the latter being so scarce in France, that they are brought for the king from Constantinople, and other parts of the Levant, and because I never knew of any being brought from St. Domingo, or any of our American colonies. Besides, in searching what travellers have said of dogs of different colonies, we find that the dogs of cold climates have long muzzles and erect ears; that those of Lapland are small, have erect ears, and pointed muzzles; that the Siberian, or wolf dogs, are bigger than those of Lapland, but they also have erect ears, coarse hair, and sharp muzzles; and that those of Iceland have a strong resemblance to the Siberian dogs; and, in the same manner, the native dogs of the Cape of Good Hope and other warm countries, have sharp muzzles, erect ears, long trailing tails, longhair, but shining and rough: that these dogs are excellent for guarding of flocks, and consequently not only resemble in figure but even in instinct our shepherd’s dogs. In climates still warmer, such as Madagascar, Madura, Calicut, and Malabar, the native dogs have all sharp muzzles, erect ears, and in almost every respect resemble our shepherd’s dogs; nay, that even when mastiffs, spaniels, water-dogs, bull-dogs, beagles, blood-hounds, &c. have been transported thither they degenerated at the second or third generation. In countries extremely hot, like Guinea, the degeneration is still more quick, since by the end of three or four years they lose their voice, can no longer bark, but only make an howling noise, and their immediate offspring have erect ears like foxes. The native dogs of these regions are very ugly; they have sharp muzzles, long erect ears, and long pointed tails; they have no hair on their bodies, their skin is usually spotted, though sometimes it is of an uniform colour; in short they are disagreeable to the eye and still more to the touch.
We may presume, therefore, and with some degree of probability, that the shepherd’s dog is that which approaches nearest to the primitive race, since in all countries inhabited by savages, or men half civilized, the dogs resemble this breed more than any other. On the whole continent of the New World, they had but these and no variety; nor is there any other to be found on the south and north extremities of our own continent; and even in France and other temperate climates, they are still very numerous, though greater attention has been paid to multiplying and rearing the more beautiful, than the preservation of those which are most useful, and which have been totally abandoned to the peasants who have the care of our flocks. If we also consider that this dog notwithstanding his ugliness, and his wild and melancholy look, is still superior in instinct to all others, that he has a decided character in which education has no share, that he is the only thing born perfectly trained, that guided by natural powers alone, he applies himself to the care of our flocks, which he executes with singular assiduity, vigilance, and fidelity, that he conducts them with an admirable intelligence which has not been communicated to him; that his talents astonish at the same time they give repose to his master, whilst it requires much time and trouble to instruct other dogs for the purposes to which they are destined; if we reflect on these facts, we shall be confirmed in the opinion that the shepherd’s dog is the true dog of nature; the dog that has been bestowed upon us for the extent of his utility; that he has a superior relation to the general order of animated beings who have mutual occasion for the assistance of each other; and, in short, the one we ought to look upon as the stock and model of the whole species.
The human species appear clownish, deformed and diminutive in the frozen climates of the north. In Lapland, Greenland, and in all countries where the cold is excessive, we find none but small and ugly men; but in the neighbouring countries where the cold is less intense, we all at once meet with the Finlanders, Danes, &c. who for figure, complexion and stature, are perhaps the handsomest of all mankind. It is the same with the species of dogs: the Lapland dogs are very ugly, and so small that they scarcely ever exceed a foot in length. Those of Siberia, though less ugly have ears erect, with a wild and savage look, while in the neighbouring climates, where we find those handsome men just mentioned, are also the largest and most beautiful dogs. The dogs of Tartary, Albania, the northern parts of Greece, Denmark and Ireland, are the largest and most powerful, and are made use of for drawing carriages. The Irish greyhounds ([fig. 30.]) are of very ancient race and still exist, though in small numbers in their original climate. They were called by the ancients, dogs of Epirus, and Albanian dogs; Pliny has recorded in terms as energetic as elegant, a combat of one of these dogs, first with a lion and afterwards with an elephant. These dogs are much larger than the mastiff; they are so rare in France that I never saw but one of them, and he appeared as he sat to be about five feet high, and in form resembled the large Danish dog; but exceeded him very much in his size. He was quite white, and his manner was perfectly gentle and peaceable. In all temperate climates, as in England, France, Spain, Germany and Italy, we find men and dogs of all kinds. This variety proceeds partly from the influence of the climate, and partly from the concourse and intermixture of foreigners. On the former we shall not enlarge here, but with respect to the dogs, we shall observe, with as much attention as possible, the resemblances and differences which care, food, and climate have produced among these animals.
Engraved for Barr’s Buffon.