24 British Dogs. 



are better than narrow ; shoulders wide apart, not tied together, but as 

 loose and free as possible ; legs round, straight, and well jointed ; sides 

 strong ; loins broad, firm, not fleshy, but sinewy ; upper flanks loose and 

 supple ; hips wide asunder ; lower flanks hollow ; tail long, fine, and 

 supple; haunches sweeping and fine to the touch." In respect to the 

 chest, it is needless to say how all-important it is that it should be 

 capacious, but we must get capacity from the depth and squareness, not 

 from the bulged-out barrel form, which would produce slow movement 

 and a heavy fronted dog that would soon tire. Take Markham's 

 description in " The Country Farm :" "A long, broad, and square beam, 

 back, with high round fillets ; he must be deep, swine sided, with hollow 

 bended ribs and a full brest." 



"The Mayster of Game" gives an excellent description: "Her 

 shuldres as a roebuck ; the for leggs streght and grete ynow, and nought 

 to hind legges ; the feet straught and round as a catte, and great cleas ; 

 the boones and the joyntes of the cheyne grete and hard as the chyne 

 of an hert ; the thighs great and squarred as an hare ; the houghs 

 streight, and not crompyng as of an oxe." The shoulders should be set 

 on as obliquely as possible, to enable the dog to throw his fore legs well 

 forward in his gallop, the shoulder blades sloping in towards each other 

 as they rise, they should be well clothed with muscle, but not fleshy and 

 coarse, so as to look loaded ; the shoulders should not be tied together 

 but have plenty of freedom this with the strong muscles of the loin 

 enable the dog to turn fast and cleverly ; the elbows must be neither 

 turned out nor in ; the bone of the leg strong ; there must be good 

 length of arm ; and the leg below the knee must be short and very 

 strong, and the foot round and cat-like ; well sprung knuckles, a firm 

 hard, thick sole, and large strong nails are also essential. 



The beam-like back is to give the necessary strength ; the deep chest 

 is needed with sufficient width to give plenty of room for the lungs and 

 heart to freely perform their functions ; width is needed that the 

 necessary room may be got without making the chest so deep as to be in 

 the way and catch against stones, tussocks, and lumps of turf on rough 

 coarse ground, when the dog is fully stretched in the gallop ; the oblique 

 shoulders enable the dog to throw his legs well forward and close to- 

 gether, thus enabling him to cover a lot of ground at each stride, and 

 also, in connection with his long and supple neck, to throw himself 



