It is only in temperate climates that dogs preserve their ardour, courage, sagacity, and other natural talents, the whole of which they lose when taken into very warm climates. But, as if Nature never made any thing perfectly useless, in those countries where they cannot serve the purposes for which we employ them, they are in great estimation for food, and the Negroes prefer their flesh to that of any other animal. Dogs are sold in their markets at as dear a rate as mutton, venison, or game of any sort; a roasted dog being the most delicious feast among the negroes. It is possible that their fondness for the flesh of this animal may be occasioned by an alteration in its quality by the heat of their country, and that although extremely bad in our temperate climates it may receive a superior flavour by the warmth of theirs. But I rather think this appetite dependent more on the nature of man than on the change in the flesh of the dog, for the savages of Canada have the same partiality for dog's flesh as the Negroes; and even our missionaries sometimes eat of them without disgust. "Dogs," says Father P. Sabard Theodat, "serve in the room of mutton at feasts. I have been several times at these dog-feasts, and I own that at first they excited in me a degree of horror, but after tasting them twice, I found the flavour to be good, and not unlike pork." In our climates the fox and the wolf are the wild animals which approach nearest the dog, particularly the shepherd's dog, which I look upon as the stock and type of the species; and as their internal conformation is wholly the same, and their external differences very trifling, I had an inclination to try whether they would breed together: I hoped at least to make them couple, and that if they did not produce fertile individuals, they would bring forth a species of mules which might participate of the nature of both. For this purpose I procured a she-wolf, of about three months old, from the woods, and reared her with a shepherd's dog of nearly the same age. They were shut up together in a pretty large yard, where no other beast could get access, and where they were provided with a shed for their retirement; they neither of them knew any individual of their own species, nor even any man but him who constantly supplied them with their victuals. In this manner they were kept together for the space of three years, without the smallest restraint. During the first year they played perpetually together, and seemed to be very fond of each other; in the second year they began to quarrel about their food, though they were always supplied with more than they could eat. The wolf always began the dispute. They had meat and bones carried to them on a wooden trencher, when the wolf, instead of seizing the meat, would drive off the dog, then take the trencher so dexterously between her teeth as to let nothing fall off, and carry away the whole; and I have frequently