Notes on hybridity : designed as a further supplement to a memoir on that subject in a former number of this journal, being a second letter to the editors of the Charleston Med. Journ. and Review / by Samuel George Morton.

  • Morton, Samuel George, 1799-1851.
Date:
[1851?]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on hybridity : designed as a further supplement to a memoir on that subject in a former number of this journal, being a second letter to the editors of the Charleston Med. Journ. and Review / by Samuel George Morton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    the dog and cayotte are capable of inter-breeding ? On this point, I have as yet no positive information; but the attention which is now awakened to the subject, bids fair to furnish a remarkable series of developments in relation to the hybrids of the great dog family. As I remarked, on a former occasion, so little benefit, in the sporting sense, results from these crosses, that they have been, for the most part, the result of mere accident, or have followed a careful experiment, as in the instance recorded by Buffon. If any economical advantage was to be gained by the process, I have no question that hybrids of every grade could and would be obtained from many dissimilar species of animals, respecting which, in this particular, but little is yet known to us. I hope to obtain the cayotte alive, and to make my own observations on its hybrid powers. V. My friend Dr. J. C Fisher, to whose sojourn in the Indian coun- try, and remarks upon the prairie-wolf and indigenous dogs, I have heretofore adverted, has made the following suggestion. He does not regard the Hare-Indian dog, (Canis\familiaris layojms) as an analogue of the prairie-wolf, as some zoologists have supposed, but as a domesti- cated representation of the American jackal, (C*. frustor) j and he ar- rives at this conclusion from a comparison of the latter animal, as figured by Audubon and Bachman, (under the name of C. latrans) with the Hare-Indian dog in the same work, and in Richardson's Fauna, and these again with the specimens presented to the Academy by Dr. Woodhouse. That the Hare-Indian dog mixes freely with the other Indian dogs, and also with the European breeds, appears to be settled beyond dispute; and should Dr. Fisher's opinion be confirmed by further observation, we may be able to trace the common Indian dog to at least three specific wild sources, viz: the grey and prairie wolves, (as mentioned in a former paper) and the American jackal. VI. In some districts, as among the Esquimaux and other northern tribes, the domestic dog is the grey wolf, ( C. occidentalis) or its ana- logue. In other places, the Upper Missouri and Michigan, for exam- ple, it seems to be identical with the prairie wolf; while in the country about Mackenzie river, the dog may be presented by a domesticated cayotte. But over the greater part of this great region, the three species are more or less blended together, giving rise to that remarkable differ- ence of size which has been noticed by all travellers, and whieh, I trust, is now satisfactorily explained. But I must repeat, that independently of these primitive indigenous forms, and the resulting hybrid breeds, the latter are undergoing a yet further modification by the infusion of the various races of European dogs; and I am informed that in some