The most curious limitation which we find in dogs is as to the measure of expression to which they have attained. No one who has well considered the facts can doubt that our civilized varieties of this species have something like a hundred times as much which deserves utterance as their savage forefathers possessed. Yet the capacity for giving note to these thoughts or emotions has not gained anything like the proportion to the needs. It seems, however, that some gain in this direction has been made, and that much may be won hereafter in the way of further advance. Never having known the species whence our dogs came in its wild state, we are uncertain as to its modes of expression; but, observing the varieties of dogs which are kept by savages, it seems probable that the primitive canines used their voice only in howling or yelping; that is, as a continuous sound akin to the bellowings or other cries of the various wild mammals. It is characteristic of all these primitive forms of utterance that they are, to a great extent, involuntary, and that when the outcry is begun it continues in a mechanical manner, with no trace of modulation arising from the conditions of the moment. In other words, these actions resemble, in a way, sneezing or hiccoughing in human kind; actions which are stimulated by certain states of the body, but which are not at all under the control of the will. Howling or bellowing doubtless represents, in a measure, a state of mind as well as of body, but the action is of a general and uncontrolled kind.