The shepherd's dog, which I have considered as the original stock of every other dog, is, at the same time, that which approaches nearest in figure to the fox. He is of the same size, and, like the fox, he has erect ears, a pointed muzzle, and a strait trailing tail. He also approaches the fox in voice, sagacity, and instinct. The dog, therefore, may originally have been the issue of the fox, if not in a direct, at least in a collateral line. The dog, which Aristotle calls _canis-laconicus_, and which he affirms to have proceeded from an union of the fox and dog, might, possibly, be the same as the shepherd's dog, or, at least, it has more relation to him than to any other dog. We might, therefore, be inclined to imagine, that the epithet _laconicus_, left uninterpreted by Aristotle, was only given to this dog because he was found in Laconia, a province of Greece; and of which Lacedæmon was the capital; but if we attentively consider the origin of this _laconic_ dog we shall perceive that the breed was not confined to the country of Laconia, alone but must have been found in every country where there were foxes; and this induces me to presume, that the epithet _laconicus_ might possibly have been used by Aristotle in a moral sense, to express the brevity and acuteness of his voice, because he did not bark like other dogs, but had a shorter and shriller note, like that of the fox. Now our shepherd's dog is that to which we can justly apply this term of _laconic_, for of all dogs his voice is the sharpest and most rarely employed. Besides, the characters which Aristotle gives to his _laconic_ dog agree with those of the shepherd's dog, and perfectly persuade me they are the same.