Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/342

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324
DOG—DOG

orders he relinquished his fellowship in 1666, and resided for some time at Oxford, Dublin, and London successively. In 1688 he was elected Camden professor of history at Oxford; but in 1691 he was deprived of his professorship for refusing to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary. Retiring to Shottesbrooke in Berkshire, and living on the produce of a small estate in Ireland, which he had at first generously relinquished in favour of a near relation, he devoted himself to those literary labours in chronology and ecclesiastical polity on which his fame now rests. In the former department he published Discourse on the Phenician History of Sanchoniathon (1681) ; Annales Thucydidei et Xenophontei (1696) ; Chronoloyia Grceco- Komana pro Htjpothesibus Dion. Ilalicarnassei (1692) ; Annales Velhiani, Quintiliani, Statiani (1698); and a larger treatise entitled De Veteribus Groecorum Romanor- nmque Cyclis, obiterque de Cyclo Judceorum ac ^Etate Christi, Dissertationes (1701). All these obtained con siderable reputation, and were frequently reprinted. Gibbon speaks of his learning as " immense," and says that his " skill in employing facts is equal to his learning." In the department of ecclesiastical polity his works are more numerous and of much less value, his judgment being far inferior to his power of research. In his earlier writings he wag regarded as one of the greatest champions of the non-jurors ; but the absurd doctrine which he afterwards promulgated, that immortality could be enjoyed only by those who had received baptism from the hands of one set of regularly ordained clergy, and was therefore a privilege from which dissenters were hopelessly excluded, justly de prived him of the confidence even of his friends. It is in teresting, however, in view of the recent revival of the same doctrine, to know that he published in 1706 a treatise pro fessing to prove from Scripture and the first fathers that the soul is naturally mortal. Dodwell died at Shottes brooke, 7th June 1711. His eldest son Henry is known as the author of a pamphlet entitled Christianity not founded on Argument, to which a reply was published by his brother William, who was besides engaged in a contro versy with Dr Conyers Middleton on the subject of

miracles.
DOG, a name common to several species -of Canidce- a

family of Carnivorous Mammals widely distributed over nearly every part of the globe. Many of the species belonging to this f amily, as the wolf and the jackal, are social animals, hunting in packs, and are readily tamed ; while in confinement they show little or no repugance to breeding. In a group thus eminently capable of domestica tion, it is not surprising that in the earliest times one or more species should have been brought under the dominion of man, or that under human care the domestic dog should have become, as Baron Cuvier calls it, "the completest, the most singular, and the most useful conquest ever made by man." There is sufficient evidence to show that the dog existed in the domesticated state during prehistoric times ; consequently neither history nor tradition is avail able to solve the question of its origin. That must bs decided, if at all, by the naturalist, and the variety of opinion existing on this point at the present time renders it exceedingly improbable that the parentage of the dog will ever be ascertained with certainty. Some suppose that all our breeds have sprung from a single wild source, others that they are the product of the blending of several distinct species. Of the former, the majority regard the wolf as the parent form, others favour the claims of the jackal, while a few regard them as the descendants of an extinct species, and point to the fossil remains of a large dog, found in the later Tertiary deposits, as the probable wild stock. The prevalent belief at the present day is probably that which regards the domestic dog as the pro duct of the crossing of several species, living and extinct. This opinion is founded on such considerations as the presence in the earliest historic times of many breeds (totally distinct from each other, and nearly lesembling existing forms), the existence of wild species of dogs in all quarters of the globe, the fondness of savage man for taming wild animals, and the extreme improbability that among so many presumably equally tameable canine species only one should have been chosen for domestication. Nor is it to be forgotten, as Darwin has well shown, that fear of man in most wild animals is a gradually acquired instinct, and that before its acquirement a wild species would have been much more readily tamed than after. Thus the wild dog of the Falkland Islands (Canis antarctic us), when these were first visited by man, approached him without sign either of fear or of aversion. The weightiest reason for this opinion, however, lies in the fact that many of the breeds of domestic dogs, found in different countries, bear a more or less striking resemblanco to the wild species still existing in those countries. The Esquimaux dogs of North America so closely resemble the wolf of the same regions, both in appearance and in voice, that Sir J. Richardson on one occasion mistook a pack of those wild animals for a troop of Indian dogs ; and the Indians are said to take the young of wolves in order to improve their canine breed, which would seem to prove that the dog and wolf are sufficiently fertile inter se. The Hare Indian or Mackenzie River Dog, although somewhat smaller in size than the prairie wolf (Canis latrans) occur ring in the same regions, so resembles the latter that Richardson could detect no decided difference in form. It seems, in fact, to bear the same relation to the prairie wolf that the Esquimaux dog does to the great grey wolf already mentioned. The wolf certainly exhibits few peculiarly dog-like qualities, being both ferocious and cowardly, and showing no attachment to man ; but instances, neverthe less, are on record of tamed wolves which in their gentle ness, in love for their masters, and in intelligence, showed true dog-like capacity. The Esquimaux dogs are likewise decidedly wolfish in disposition, showing little or no attachment to their owners, and sometimes, it is said, even attacking them when pressed by hunger. Distinct varieties of the wolf occur in Europe and in India, and such European breeds as the shepherd dog of Hungary so closely resemble the wolf that an Hungarian has been known to mistake that animal for one of his own dogs ; while certain of the Hindu pariah dogs are said by Blyth to resemble the Indian variety of wolf. The large semi-domesticated dogs of the northern parts of both hemispheres may thus be regarded as principally derived from the various speciea and varieties of wolves still existing there. The period of gestation in the wolf and dog is the same, being 63 days in both. In the tropical regions of the Old World tho wolf disappears, and with it the prevalence of vvolf-liko dogs, their places being taken by smaller breeds, such aa certain of the pariah dogs of India and of Egypt, between which and the jackals abounding in those countries no structural difference can, according to Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, be pointed out. Their period of gestation agrees with that of the dog and wolf, and like dogs, tamed jackals when caressed "will," saya Darwin, "jump about for joy, wag their tails, lower their ears, lick their master s hands, couch down and even throw themselves on the ground belly upwards ; " when frightened, also, they carry their tails between their legs. Jackals associate readily with dogs, and their hybrid offspring are not sterile ; there is also an instance on record of one of these which barked like an ordinary dog. The habit of barking, so characteristic of dogs, is not, however, universal among them, the domestic

dogs of Guinea and certain Mexican breeds being described