B04 THE BULL-DOG. 
attacking it in front. A boar has been known to turn with such terrible effect wpon a 
pack containing fifty Dogs, that only ten escaped scathless, and six or seven were killed 
on the spot. 
Great tact is required on the part of the hound in getting into a proper position, so as 
to make his onset without exposing himself to the retaliating sweeps of the foam-flecked 
tusks, and at the same time to act in concert with his companions, so as to keep the 
animal busily engaged with their reiterated attacks, while their master delivers the death 
blow with a spear or rifle-bullet. 
As we have no longer any wild boars ranging at will through the few forests which 
the advance of agriculture has suffered to remain as relics of a past age, the Boarhound is 
never seen in this country except as an object for the curious to gaze upon, or imported 
into this island through the caprice of some Dog-loving individual. But in many parts of 
Germany it is still employed i in its legitimate avocation of chasing the wild boar, and is 
used in Denmark and Norway for the pursuit of that noble animal the elk, The latter 
creature is so large, so fleet, and so vigorous, that it would easily outrun or outfight any 
Dog less swift or less powerful than the Boarhound. 
In the fur of the Boarhound the colour of the mastiff generally predominates, the 
coat being usually brown or brindled uniformly over the body and limbs, but in some 
animals the colour is rather more varied, with large brown patches upon a slate-coloured 
eround, The limbs are long and exceedingly powerful, and the head possesses the square 
muzzle of the mastiff, together with the sharp and somewhat pert air of the terrier. It 
is a very large animal, measuring from thirty to thirty-two inches in height at the 
shoulder. 
The BuLt-pog is said, by all those who have had an opportunity of judging its 
capabilities, to be, with the exception of the game-cock, the most courageous animal in the 
world. 
Its extraordinary courage is so well known as to have passed into a proverb, and to 
have so excited the admiration of the British nation that we have been pleased to symbolize 
our peculiar tenacity of purpose under the emblem of this small but most determined 
animal. In height the Bull-dog is but insignificant, but in strength and courage there is 
no Dog that can match him. Indeed, there is hardly any breed of sporting Dog which 
does not owe its high courage to an infusion of the Bull- dog blood ; and it is chiefly for 
this purpose that the pure breed is continued. 
We have long ago abolished those cruel and cowardly combats between the bull and 
the Dog, which were a disgrace to our country even in the earlier part of the present 
century, and of which a few “bull- rings” still remaining in the ground are the sole relies. 
Jn these contests the Dog was trained to fly at the head of the “pull, and to seize him by 
the muzzle as he stooped his head for the purpose of tossing his antagonists into the air. 
When he had once made good his hold it was almost impossible for the bull to shake off 
his pertinacious foe, who ‘clung firmly to his antagonist, and suffered himself to be swung 
about as the bull might choose. 
There seems, indeed, to be no animal which the Bull-dog will not attack without the 
least hesitation. The instinct of fight is strong within him, and manifests itself actively 
in the countenance and the entire formation of this creature. 
It is generally assumed that the Bull-dog must be a very dull and brutish animal, 
because almost every specimen which has come before the notice of the public has held 
such acharacter. For this unpleasant disposition, a celebrated writer and zoologist attempts 
to account by observing that the brain of the Bull-dog is smaller in proportion to its body 
than that of any other Dog, and that therefore the animal must needs be of small sagacity. 
But “Stonehenge” well remarks, that although the Bull-dog’s brain appears to the eye to 
be very small when compared with the body, the alleged discrepancy i is only caused by 
the deceptive appearance of the skull. It is true that the brain appears to be small when 
compared with the heavy bony processes and ridges that serve to support the muscles of 
the head and neck, but if the brain be weeghed against the remainder of the body, it will 
be found rather to exceed the average than to be below it. 
