e control of man than any other of
the lower animals. Some students of the problem have inclined to the
opinion that the dog is a descendant of the wolf; the whelps of this
species, it is supposed, were captured by primitive men and brought
under domestication. Savages, like children, are much given to bringing
the young of wild animals to their homes; if the conditions are
favorable they will care for these captives, even if the charge upon
their resources is tolerably heavy. With most primitive people, however,
life is so vagarious and starvation so recurrent that they are not apt
to retain their pets long enough to establish domesticated forms. Thus,
among our American Indians, though they show fondness for wild creatures
as much as any other people, no species save the dog ever became
permanently associated with their tribe. It is, however, possible, that
in some sedentary group of savages the work of domesticating the
ancestors of the dog, even if they were wolf-like, was accomplished.

The difficulty of this view is that even with the high measure of care
which the conditions of civilization permit us to devote to the
effort, it has been found impossible to educate captive wolves to the
point where they show any affection for their masters, or are in the
least degree useful in the arts of the household or the occupations of
the chase. They are, in fact, indomitably fierce and utterly
self-regarding. It seems unreasonable to believe that any savage would
have found either pleasure or profit from an effort to tame any of the
known species of wolves. Moreover, the fact that dogs show little or
no tendency to revert to the form and habits of their brutal kindred,
or to interbreed with them, is clearly against the supposition that
there is any close relation between the creatures.

[Illustration: Greyhound after "the Kill"]

Yet other speculative inquirers have sought the origin of the dog
through the admixture of the blood of several different species, the
wolf and the jackal being, perhaps, the principal or the only components
of the hybrid stock. Here, too, the evidence of nature is against the
supposition. No one has ever succeeded in hybridizing the wolf and the
jackal, nor do our dogs show any more tendency to revert to the jackal
than to the wolf. They meet their tropical relative with as much
animosity as is proper, or at least customary, in the intercourse of
allied yet distinct species. In fact, all the ind