Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 by Various
page 36 of 143 (25%)
page 36 of 143 (25%)
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dog remained undisturbed and did not even rise, and Alexander had it
killed. On hearing of this, the royal donor sent a second dog like the first, along with word that these dogs did not fight so weak animals, but rather the lion and the elephant, and that he had only two of such individuals, and in case that Alexander had this one killed, too, he would no longer find his equal. Alexander matched this dog with a lion and then with an elephant, and he killed them both. Alexander was so afflicted at the premature death of the first dog, that he built a city and temples in honor of the animal. Did the mountainous province of Epirus called Molossia, in ancient Greece, give its name to the _molossi_ that it produced, or did these large dogs give their name to the country? At all events, we know that it was from Epirus that the Romans obtained the molossi which fought wild animals in the circuses, and that from Rome they were introduced into the British islands and have became the present mastiffs. Although our hunting and shepherd's dogs have a European and the mastiffs an Asiatic ancestry, the ancestry of the harriers is African, and especially Egyptian; in fact, in Upper Egypt we find a sort of large white jackal (_Simenia simensis_) with the form of a harrier, and which Paul Gervais regarded with some reason as the progenitor of the domestic harrier, and a comparison of their skulls lends support to this opinion. A study of the most ancient monuments of the Pharaohs shows that the ancient Egyptians already had at least five breeds of dogs: two very slim watch dogs, much resembling the harrier, a genuine harrier, a species of brach hound and a sort of terrier with short and straight legs. All these dogs had erect ears, except the brach, in which these |
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