The Dog - Breeds of the British Isles (Domesticated Animals of the British Islands)

DEER-HOUND.

THE DOG.

The DOG, reduced to servitude from the earliest civilization of our race, forms, nevertheless, a member of a group of beasts of prey, whose common characters unite them into a family or tribe. The Canidæ are spread over every region of the habitable earth; and are all fitted to live on flesh, although they may subsist on vegetable food, and, in the domesticated state, are sometimes fed entirely upon it. They are mostly swift of foot, and endowed with a delicate sense of animal odours, which enables them to pursue the traces of their prey. They are either gregarious, living in packs and combining their forces to captivate their victims, or else they are more or less solitary, remaining in pairs during the season of sexual desire, or while they have their young to defend. They have not generally the same thirst of blood as the feline tribes, although, when urged by their wants, they are bold, voracious, and dangerous. They do not possess the agility and suppleness of body for which the feline tribes are distinguished; but they are more enduring of fatigue, more wary, sagacious, and patient, and many of them are furnished with temperaments which cause them to resign readily their natural habits, and live under new conditions of life. Judging from organic remains, the Canidæ do not seem to have been called into existence on this planet at the very earliest periods, but to have succeeded, in the order of time, most of the more sanguinary carnivora. They are the instinctive and most powerful enemies of the feline tribes, killing not only their cubs in great numbers, but being frequently enabled, by their union, sagacity, and power of smell, to hunt them down.

Connected by certain relations with the Dog is the voracious family of Hyænas, which earlier naturalists comprehended in the same genus. But the Hyænas, although some of them approach very near to the conformation of the Dog, possess habitudes and characters different from the true Canidæ, and are regarded as forming a distinct group. While at one point they pass into the Dogs, at another they are connected with the Civet tribe.

Of the Hyænas, the most numerous are the Spotted and the Striped; the former inhabiting Southern Africa, and the latter the countries north of the great Sahara, extending through Arabia, Syria, Asia Minor, and other warm parts of Asia, to the forests beyond the Ganges. In a former age of the world, the family, although of species now extinct, extended even to the higher latitudes of Europe, and have left their remains in rocky caverns and mineral deposites.

The Hyæna is of savage aspect, and ungainly form. Like the Wolf, his eyes glare in the dark. Many of the ancient nations regarded him with a kind of terror. They held him to be possessed of magical powers, so as to be capable of imitating the human voice, of changing his own sex, of charming the senses, and riveting the beholders to the spot where they stood. The head of the Hyæna is large; his neck is rigid, which gave rise to the ancient fable that it was of one bone; and his jaws being moved by powerful muscles, the animal is enabled to bite with tremendous force, and crush the bones of his victims in an instant. The Hyænas live in holes and caverns, and issue forth under the cloud of night, prowling in troops, and uttering frightful and mournful cries. With the exception of one species, the Cape Hunting Hyæna, they are little fitted for pursuit, but steal upon the largest animals, as the bullock, the ass, the horse, and the camel, and, entering the sheep-folds, commit frightful havoc upon the unresisting flock. They feed largely on garbage, and the putrifying flesh of animals, which they seem to prefer to other food. They skulk into towns and villages in the dark, and, with the vultures and outcast dogs, assist in clearing away the filth and offal which the habits of Africans and Asiatics allow to accumulate around their dwellings; and entering the churchyards, they dig up the bodies of the dead. They abound in the warmer regions of the Old Continent, but are most numerous in Africa. They are so abundant in Abyssinia, according to Bruce, that they are regarded as a general scourge in every situation, both in the city and in the field; and I think, continues the traveller, surpassed the sheep in number. Gondar was full of them from evening till the dawn of day, seeking the different pieces of slaughtered carcasses which this cruel and unclean people expose in the streets without burial. Although bold and savage in claiming the food which their appetites require, yet they are rarely dangerous to man. The Moors of Barbary are in the habit of entering the cavern in which a Hyæna has concealed himself with a burning torch, throwing a blanket over his head, and tying his feet, as if he were a calf; and the people in the Moorish towns, when they meet hyænas in the streets, will frequently, we are told, pull them by the ears in sport, without their offering any other resistance than to pull back. Fierce and ravenous as these animals are when prowling for their prey, they are yet capable of domestication, and become as submissive as a dog. But they pine and fret under a deprivation of liberty, and when chained or confined in a cell like wild beasts, preserve the fierceness and indocility distinctive of their rudest condition. The Hyænas certainly approach very near, in certain characters, to the Dog; and it is just possible, that the blood of this rude and ravenous creature may have been mingled with that of certain domesticated breeds. It is said that the Dogs of some of the African tribes have much of the aspect of this animal; and even in our own country, we sometimes see, in the case of the larger dogs fed on the garbage of shambles, something like an approach to the marking of the fur, the expression of the eyes, and general appearance, of these animals.

But the true Canidæ are certain species of Dogs which exist in the Old and New Continents, including, 1st, the Wolves, the Jackals, and Foxes, so called; 2dly, various species of Wild Dogs, which approach more or less to the typical forms of the Wolf, the Jackal, and the Fox, and which might, doubtless, were our knowledge of them sufficiently precise, be included in one or other of these generic forms; and, 3dly, the Fennecs, or Zerdas, little animals of the Dog kind, inhabiting the African Continent.

Of these animals, the Wolf is that which, from his numbers, and the terrible ravages which his sanguinary appetites, his hardihood, and surpassing sagacity, have enabled him to inflict on other animals, has excited the greatest interest, and, in every age, been placed in a painful relation with the ruder as well as the more civilized inhabitants of countries. His howlings in the dead of night, or when the moon shines forth, the glaring of his eye, his mysterious crossing of the path of the lonely traveller, the pertinacity with which he tracks the steps of his human victim, and even enters his dwelling, have in all ages tended to excite ideas of a mysterious power, and notions which yet find a place in the superstition of the vulgar of different countries. Even the terror which this creature has inspired, has rendered him the object of preposterous adoration. He was held sacred to Apollo, whom a she-wolf suckled, and to other fabled divinities of the first ages. Under the gloomy superstition of the Scandinavian nations, he was regarded as a type of the destroying demon, who was to appear at that terrible epoch when even the Gods should perish. More often he was held to be typical of noble daring, ever the first of virtues amongst barbarians. He was an attendant upon Odin, in the gloomy Shades of the northern nations, as on Mars, in the fairer Heaven of the Olympic Gods. He suckled the founders of the Roman state, and gave cognominations to the noblest families of Greece and Home. But it is chiefly amongst the Teutonic nations that we find the Wolf associated with the memory of great actions; and giving names to nations, tribes, and warlike leaders.

The Common Wolf, Lupus vulgaris, the most numerous of the species, inhabits all Europe, from the Icy Cape to the shores of the Mediterranean. He is found, too, in all Northern and Central Asia, extending through the wilds of Siberia to the shores of Kamtschatka. He is found in the countries of the Caucasus, and all along the Himalayas; and, by analogy, he may be believed to occupy all the higher ranges in contact with that mighty mass of mountains. Stretching along the secondary chains, he appears in the plains of India, and beyond the Brahmapootra. His limits in the African Continent are unknown; but it is believed that he exists from Morocco eastward to the Libyan deserts, and even that he extends to the high land of Abyssinia, and the mountains stretching inland. In the New World, he is found from Behring’s Straits, by Baffin’s Bay, to the desolate shores of Greenland; and he extends through all the wilds of North America, to the narrow isthmus which separates the Pacific from the Caribbean Sea.

Within these vast limits, it may well be inferred that the Wolf has assumed characters which fit him for the varied conditions in which he must exist, with respect to place, climate, and the nature and abundance of his prey. Accordingly, he is often found so changed in colour, form, and general aspect, that naturalists remain in doubt whether certain wolves are to be regarded as distinct from one another, or varieties of the same specific form. Of these there are two, which naturalists generally regard as distinct species,—the Black Wolf, and the Dusky Wolf.

The Black Wolf, Lupus Lycaon, is sometimes termed the Pyrenean Wolf, from his being the prevailing kind of that lofty chain; but he inhabits other mountainous parts of Southern Europe, and appears to extend to the countries of the Arctic Ocean. He re-appears, likewise, of the same or nearly allied species, in the New World, stretching from the Arctic Circle into Florida. He has muscular limbs, and a shaggy coat, and is more like a dog than even the Common Wolf; and, indeed, so much resembles the Dogs of some countries of Europe, that, to the eye, he appears to be the same. The Dark or Dusky Wolf (Lupus nubilus, Willd.) inhabits likewise the high latitudes of both continents, but has scarcely the same claim to be regarded as a distinct species as the Black Pyrenean Wolf; and, in truth, neither differs so much from the Common Wolf as others which are regarded as varieties.

The Common Wolf, which may be regarded as the type of the group, is about the size of the larger class of the domesticated dogs. But he is longer in the body than they: his limbs are stouter, the ball of the foot is more hairy, and the claws are larger. The incisor teeth are more projecting, and his canines more trenchant and strong. His eyes, which in the dark glisten like globes of fire, are smaller, and, being placed more obliquely, give to the animal that cunning and sinister aspect which has been so often commented upon. His face is broader above the eyes than in the domesticated Dogs; and his ears are shorter and more erect. His muzzle, which he uses in place of his feet for making holes in the ground for hiding his prey, is narrow, and the edges of his lips are black. His tail is bushy and pendent, and is rarely curled upwards, in the manner of the common dogs, except for a moment when he is at play. His skin emits a strong odour, his hair is coarse, and he is furnished with a bristly mane, which he erects when in anger. His voice is a dismal howl, although, when tamed, he readily learns to imitate the barking of the common dog. In the higher latitudes, his fur is usually a fulvous-gray; and in the Arctic regions, it often becomes as white as that of the Polar Bear. In the very highest latitudes, too, his body is stouter than elsewhere, his feet are more webbed, and his habits more aquatic, so that he can cross from land to land, and pursue seals and other prey even in the water. Towards the temperate latitudes, his fur becomes more fulvous, and in the warmer, it deepens even to a russet-brown; and in countries of great cold, it is more shaggy than in those which are temperate. In elevated countries, destitute of trees, he has longer limbs, and is more swift of foot, than in woody plains where his prey is abundant; and, in short, there is no animal which presents, in the state of nature, greater variations than the Wolf. Hunters are aware of these differences, and distinguish the wolves of different parts of the same country. Even in the same litter, individuals are produced, so different in form and colour, that naturalists sometimes suppose them to be of distinct species.

The season of heat of the female is in autumn, and she goes with young about sixty-three days, which is the medium period of gestation of the Dog; but far otherwise than in the case of dogs, the male and female wolf retire apart to some secret covert, and when the time of parturition arrives, select some fitting place, as a hole in the earth, a crevice of a rock, or even a hollow tree, and prepare a bed with soft moss, which the female lines with the fur of her own body, which at that season is easily detached. The cubs, like all other dogs, are born blind, and remain so for ten or twelve days. During this period, ere light has dawned on the eyes of the young, the male, it is said, seeks to destroy them. The fact is questionable; but if it were true, it would not be without parallel, as in the case of the Wild Hog, the Rabbit, and other animals, to whom this remarkable