These experiments prove at least that the wolf and fox are very different in their natures from the dog; and that their species are so distinct as to prevent their intermixture, at least in our climates; that consequently the dog does not derive his origin from the wolf or fox, and that the nomenclators who look on these two animals as nothing more than wild dogs, or who imagine the dog to be a wolf, or a fox, become tame, and give to all three in common the name of Dog, have deceived themselves by not having sufficiently consulted nature. In climates which are warmer than ours, there is a ferocious animal which is less different from the dog than either the fox or wolf: this animal, which is called the jackall, has been taken notice of and tolerably well described by many travellers. They are found, we are told, in great numbers in Africa and Asia; about Trebisond and Mount Caucasus; in Mingrelia, Natolia, Hyrcania, Persia, India, Goa, Guzarat, Bengal, Congo, Guinea, and many other places; and though this animal is considered by the natives, where he is found, as a wild dog, yet as it is very doubtful whether they intermix, we shall treat of him as a separate species, as well as the fox and wolf, and keep their histories apart from each other as well as from the dog. Not that I pretend absolutely to affirm, that the jackall, or even the wolf and fox, have never in any age or country coupled with dogs. The ancients have so positively asserted the contrary, that there still remain some doubts, notwithstanding the proofs I have adduced. Aristotle says that although it is very rare for animals of different species to intermingle, yet it certainly happens among foxes, dogs, and wolves; and that the Indian dogs proceed from another wild beast like themselves and a dog; and we may suppose that this wild beast, to which he gives no name, is the jackall. But he says in another place that the Indian dogs come from the tiger and the bitch which appears to me more improbable, because the tiger is of a disposition and form more different from the dog than either the fox, wolf, or jackall. It must be allowed that Aristotle himself seems to invalidate his own argument, for after having said that the Indian dogs proceeded from a wild beast resembling the wolf or the fox, he afterwards says they come from the tiger. If they are from a tiger and a bitch, or from a dog and a tigress, he only adds, that it does not succeed until the third trial; that the first litter is solely tigers; that if dogs be tied up in deserts, unless the tigers are in season, they are often devoured; that the frequent production of monsters and prodigies in Africa is occasioned by the great heat and scarcity of water making a number of different animals assemble together to drink where they grow familiar, and often couple together. All this seems too conjectural, uncertain, and suspicious to deserve any credit; for the more we observe the