n man had come upon the earth, and was beginning to
speculate on his surroundings for such company and help as he might win
therefrom. It may interest the reader to know that a species of American
dog existed in the Southern Appalachians down to a very recent
time--recent, at least, in a geological sense. The remains of one of
these animals were found by the writer in a cave in East Tennessee, near
Cumberland Gap. From the fragments of the skeleton, Mr. J. A. Allen has
described the species. The animal appears to have been of moderate
size, and, from the position of the bones, it seems tolerably certain
that it lived but a few centuries ago.

It is clearly a reasonable supposition that some of these primitive
canine species may have been far more domesticable than the existing
kindred of the dog--the wolves, foxes, jackals, or hyenas--differing
from their fiercer kindred much as the zebras do from the wild asses,
the one form being utterly undomesticable, and the other lending its
back almost willingly to the burdens which man chooses to impose. It
seems likely that this primitive species--perhaps more than one--whence
the dog sprang was not a very vigorous or widespread form; else, as
before remarked, a savage would have found it impossible to keep his
half-tamed creatures from rejoining their wild kinsmen. Thus, if a man
should in this day succeed in taming wolves, in a region where they were
plenty, to the point where they began to abide his presence, or even to
have some slight affection for him, the call of nature would be likely
to lead them back to reunion with their kind.

It seems pretty certain that the first steps in the domestication of the
dog must be attributed not to any distinct purpose of acquiring a useful
companion, but to that vague instinct which leads children to make
captives of any wild animals with which they come in contact. The fancy
for pets is not only common to all mankind, civilized and savage alike,
but is clearly exhibited in many of the mammals below the level of man.
Almost every one has observed cases where dogs, cats, and horses have
become attached to some creature of an alien species with which they
have been by chance thrown in contact. The higher the grade of the
intelligence, the more sympathetic with other life the animal is likely
to become. Thus the elephants, whose natural endowments in the way of
intelligence are perhaps superior to those of any other wild creatures,
are,