when brought into captivity, curiously prone to form attachments to
human beings. Savages appear to make but little use of their dogs in
hunting. In fact, those peculiar combinations of instinct and training
which we find in our hounds, pointers, setters, and other dogs which
have been bred to serve the purposes of sportsmen, have been acquired
but slowly, and are of no value except where the search for game is
carried on under what we may term civilized conditions. The dog of the
savage is in all countries much like his master--a creature with few
arts and unaccustomed to subdue his rude native impulses.

[Illustration: Spaniel Retrieving Wild Duck]

It seems most likely that for ages the principal use of the dog which
dwelt about the camps of the primitive people was found in the reserve
food supply which they afforded their thriftless masters. When the
hunting was successful the poor brutes had a chance to wax fat, and
even in times of scarcity they managed to pick up enough food to keep
them alive. When their masters were brought to a state of famine they
were doubtless accustomed, as are many savages at the present time, to
eat a portion of their pack. In the early conditions of humanity there
was no other beast which could be made to serve so well this simple
need in the way of provender. The dog is, in fact, the only animal
ever domesticated which can be trusted through his own affections
alone to abide with his master in the endless changes of camp and the
rapid movements of flight and chase which characterized men before
their housed state began. In a certain curious way the use of dogs for
food has served greatly to advance the development of these captives.
When the savage was driven to feed upon his dogs he was naturally more
willing to sacrifice the least intelligent and affectionate of them,
delaying, to the point of extremity, the time when he would kill those
which had endeared themselves to him. In this way for ages a careful
though unintended process of selection was applied to these creatures,
and to it we may fairly attribute, as many considerate naturalists
have done, a large part of the intellectual--indeed, we may say
moral--elevation to which they have attained.

When the place of the dog as the first and most intimate companion of
man was affirmed in the rude way above described--when the savagery to
which he was at first made free gradually enlarged to civilization, a
number of special uses w