he
descendants of distinct wild stocks, is their resemblance in various
countries to distinct species still existing there. It must, however, be
admitted that the comparison between the wild and domesticated animal has
been made but in few cases with sufficient exactness. Before entering on
details, it will be well to show that there is no a priori difficulty in
the belief that several canine species have been domesticated; for there is
much difficulty in this respect with some other domestic quadrupeds and
birds. Members of the dog family inhabit nearly the whole world; and
several species agree pretty closely in habits and structure with our
several domesticated dogs. Mr. Galton has shown[16] how fond savages are of
keeping and taming animals of all kinds. Social animals are the most easily
subjugated by man, and several species of Canidae hunt in packs. It deserves
notice, as bearing on other animals as well as on the dog, that at an
extremely ancient period, when man first entered any country, the animals
living there would have felt no instinctive or inherited fear of him, and
would consequently have been tamed far more easily than at present. For
instance, when the Falkland Islands were first visited by man, the large
wolf-like dog (_Canis antarcticus_) fearlessly came to meet Byron's
sailors, who, mistaking this ignorant curiosity for ferocity, ran into the
water to avoid them: even recently a man, by holding a piece of meat in one
hand and a knife in the other, could sometimes stick them at night. On an
island in the Sea of Aral, when first discovered by Butakoff, the saigak
antelopes, which are "generally very timid and watchful, did not fly from
us, but on the contrary looked at us with a sort of curiosity." So, again,
on the shores of the Mauritius, the manatee was not at first in the least
afraid of man, and thus it has been in several quarters of the world with
seals and the morse. I have elsewhere shown[17] how slowly the native birds
of several islands have acquired and inherited a salutary dread of man: at
the Galapagos Archipelago I pushed with the muzzle of my gun hawks from a
branch, and {21} held out a pitcher of water for other birds to alight on
and drink. Quadrupeds and birds which have seldom been disturbed by man,
dread him no more than do our English birds the cows or horses grazing in
the fields.

It is a more important consideration that several canine species evince (as
will be shown in a fut