COLONEL HAMILTON SMITH'S HISTORY OF DOGS.

THAT cheap and elegant serial the Naturalist's Library has had fi.esh spirit infused into it, in the thirty-fifth epoch of its existence.

With the exactness of description which has distinguished the pre-

ceding numbers, and with sufficient of their literary merit, Colonel Ihmii.ToN SMITH brill"e'S to his task a racy and original cast of mind, whose occasional roughness gives a character to its vigour. Ile has abundance of what IMr..M‘GaLravaay would call knowledge of books and stuffed creatures ; but he has also surveyed his subjects

in their original haunts, and acquired information from adventurous sportsmen, who have bearded even the lion in his den. The two Americas and Europe, if not parts of Asia and Africa, have been visited by the Colonel ; and friends have imparted to him accounts of the animals they have seen or slain in their Indian or other battues ' • their personal feats on the occasion being judiciously

suppressed. Our naturalist, too, is acquainted with the writings of antiquity, and endeavours to identify the animals described by classical authors ; a task of considerable difficulty, and not capable of rigid proof, from the generality of their accounts. The generic term. Dogs, which forms the subject of the present and following volumes, embraces wolves, jackalls, the lycisci or

wild dogs, foxes, and fox-dogs, with the countless variety of the domesticated animals, and some wild tribes, respecting which it is doubted whether they are a civilized race run wild, or the original

stock of the domestic dogs of the country. The primitive parent, the canine Adam of the different varieties existing in Europe, has indeed been a theme of much dispute. BeeyoN held that all our dogs were derived from the shepherd's dog ; Mr. BELL in an argument of great force and fulness, in which the knowledge of the physiologist is mixed with the reason of a man of sense, rather inclines to the wolf, but leaves the question open. Looking at the great variety of the same species of animals found in ditibrent parts of the world, and the evidence furnished by geology of the constant extinction of sonic species and the production of others, it is as logical to consider with Colonel SMITIL that the varieties found wild in different regions, or in a domesticated state, may possibly have been produced from various stocks. The theory of one primi- tive type for certain animals seems to be a mere assumption, un- supported by authority or evidence. The Scriptures assure us as to one man being the parent of the human race, but they are silent as to other creatures. Existing filets are equally incon- clusive. The elephant, the lion, and other of the nobler ani- mals found in different continents' differ so slightly as to war- rant the inference that the variety has arisen from local circum- stances; but many races, neither domesticated nor capable of domestication—deer and monkies for example—have as many varieties as those brought under the dominion of' mail. At the same time, the subject is uncertain, and very curious.. Passing by the anatomical facts of .Mr. lima., the circumstance' that the offspring of a wolf and a dog are prolific, is one of swat weight ; not less curious is the successive generations it requires to get rid of the sympans of the wild blood—to civilize the savage ; and the beneficial effects of what breeders call a cross, with its efreets in changing the charzieter, can be shown by a reference to human history. Look at a Southern Spaniard and tut Englishman : the variety in feature and expression, and still more in disposition, is as strong as exists between many ani- mals ; :mud history enables us to trace the crosses which these respective peoples have undergone. In Spain the Carthaginians first, then the Romans, then the Goths, and finally the Moors, mixed with the blood of the aboriginal in:eibLants. lo Britain the Romans were followed by the Saxons, then by the Danes or Northmen,. and they in turn by the :Commas (Northmen with a cross of the Franks.) The origin of the indigenous races, and of the peoples who f,0 inVadell theuti, is indeed a hunter of tioestioa ; but the sub- ject of original and migratory races, with the etli2cts resulting, is too large a subject to embark in here. The true mode of investigating varieties, either in man or animals, is first to draw a distinct line between established flicts and conjecture, and a line equally de- finite between the conclusions we mav deduce from one and the speculations we may build upon the other. Returning to Colonel llisiwrox SMITH, we have another illus- tration of the proverb " nothing like leather." Mr. 31innE, in con- sidering the effects which animals have produced on the civiliza- tion of mankind, noticed the dog, merely to dismiss him as useless for the purpose, with all his amiable qualities and the assistance he may render to the savage hunter. The Colonel, treating only of the dog, considers him the prime and primitive adjunct in the progressive advance of man.

" As the dog alone, of all the brute creation, voluntarily associates himself with the conditions of man's existence, it is fair to presume also that he was

the first, and therefore the oldest of man's companions; that to his manifold good qualities the first hunters were indebted for their conquest aud subjugation of other species. We do even now perceive, notwithstanding the advance of human reason and the progress of invention, that in a thousand instances we cannot dispense with his assistance. " f we still feel the importance of his services in our state of society, what must have been the admiration of man, when, in the earliest period of pa- triarchal life, he was so much nearer to a state of nature 1—when the wild

hunter first beheld the joyous c i y„es of his voluntary associate, and heard his na- tive howl modulated into barking; when he first perceived it assuming tones of domestication fit to express a master's purposes, and intonate the language which we still witness cattle, sheep, and even ducks and hawks learn to inider- stand! What exultation must he have felt when, with the aid of his new Mend, he was enabled to secure and domesticate the first kid, the first lamb of the mountain race 1—when with greater combinations of three and skill be- tween man and his dogs, the bull, the buffalo, the camel, the wild ass, and then the horse, were compelled, to accept his yoke; and finally, when, with the same assistance, the wild boar was tamed, the lion repelled, and even attacked with success Although the total development of canine education must have been the work of ages, yet that it was very early, however imperfect, of great acknowledged importance, is attested by the prominent station assigned to the dog in the earliest theologies of Paganism. We know that his name was given to one of the most beautiful stars among the oldest designated in the heavens, and that it served for the purpose of fixing an epoch in the solar year by its periodical appearance. Other constellations, nearly as old, were likewise noted by the name of dogs ; and there are proofs, in typifying ideas by images representing physical objects, that the admiration of minikind degene- rating into superstition, moral qualities of the highest order were figured with characteristics of the dog, till his nein° and his image became conspicuous in almost every Pagan system of theology."

As a specimen of the close descriptive style of the author as a natural historian, we will take this account of

TLIE CHARACTERISTIC or EUROPEAN WOLVES.

Wolves howl more frequently when the weather is about to change to wet. They grovel with the nose in the earth, instead of digging with their paws, when they wish to conceal a part of their food or the droppings about their lairs. The parent wolves punish their whelps if they emit a scream of pain ; they bite, maltreat, and drag them by the tail, till they have learned to hear pain in silence. Wolf-hunters commonly assert that the animal is weak in the loins, and when first put to speed that his hind-quarters seem to waver ; but when warmed, that he will run without halting from the district where he bas been hunted, taking a direct line for some thyourite cover, perhaps forty miles or more in distance. On these occasions he will leap upon walls above eight feet high, cross rivers obliquely with the current, even if it be the Rhine, and never offer battle unless he be fairly turned; then he will endeavour to cripple the opponent by hasty snaps at the fore-legs, and resume his route. The track of a wolf is readily distinguished from that of a dog, by the two middle clawsbeing close together, while in the dog they are separated; the marks, however, When the Wolf is at speed and the middle toes are separated, can be determined by the claws being deeper and the impression more hairy ; the print is also longer and narrower, and the ball of the foot more prominent. Inferior in wily resources to the fox, the wolf is nevertheless endowed with great sagacity. 'His powers of scent are very delicate, his hearing acute, and his habits always cautious. The European variety is naturally a -beast of the woods ; those of the arctic regions and of the steppes of Russia and Tartary have different manners, probably from necessity, not choice.

HABITS OF WOLVES.

In well-inhabited countries, where wolves are an object of constant persecu- tion, they never quit cover to windward ; they trot along its edges until the wind of the open country conies toward them, and they can be assured by their

scent that no suspicious object is in that quarter ; then they advance, snuffing the comite, vapours, and keep as much as possible along hedges and brushwood to avoid detection, pushing forward in a single foray to the distance of inane miles. If there be several, they keep in file, and step so nearly in each other's track, that in soft ground it would seem that only one had passed. They bound across narrow roads without leaving a foot-print, or follow them on the outside. These movements are seldom begun before dusk, or protracted beyond daybreak. If single, the wolf will visit outhouses, enter the iiirmyard, first stopping, listening, snuffing up the air, smelling the ground, and springing over the threshold without touching it. When he retreats, his head is Mw, turned obliquely with one ear forward, the other back, his eyes butuing like flame. He trots crouching, his brush obliterating the track of his feet, till at a distance from the scene of depredation ; when going more freely, he conti- nues his route to cover, and as he enters it, first raises his tail and flings it up In triumph. It is said that a wolf, when pressed by hunger and roaming around farms, will utter a single howl to entice the watch-dogs in pursuit of him, if they come out, he will flee till one is sufficiently forward to be singled out, attacked, and devoured ; but dogs in general are more cautious, and even hounds require to be encouraged or they will not follow upon the scent.

The volume contains a memoir of PALLAS, with a portrait, and a vignette of the well-known dogs of St. Bernard rescuing a tra- veller. The most valuable, and we suspect the most popular illus- trations, however, are the thirty life-like portraits of different animals of the dog tribe, from the pencil of Colonel Snuff. The reader who has no other notion of dogs and wolves than what he gets from the streets, menageries, and common histories, will be astonished at the extraordinary variety of nature, although he only sees a part of it.