The Mastiff. 241 



typical way, and the descriptions handed down to us are far too meagre 

 and widely-scattered to allow the changes that have taken place to be 

 traced with any degree of accuracy, therefore much is necessarily left 

 to conjecture. The great Buff on supposed the mastiff to be "a mongrel 

 generated between the Irish wolfhound and the bulldog, but much larger, 

 and more resembling the latter than the former." Practical dog breeders, 

 with I think good reason, lean to an opposite conclusion namely, that 

 the Irish wolfhound was a combination of mastiff and greyhound blood ; 

 and in that or similar directions all attempts at the resuscitation of 

 that lost variety must be made. 



It seems clear enough that, co-extensive with the known history of 

 these islands, a dosr representing, however roughly, the modern mastiff, 

 has existed, and at an early date he was known in England by that name. 

 In the forest laws of Henry II., if not earlier, the keeping of these dogs 

 in or near royal forests was the subject of special regulations, which 

 would now be considered cruel and oppressive. The statute which 

 prohibited all but a few privileged individuals from keeping greyhounds 

 or spaniels provided that farmers and substantial freeholders, dwelling 

 within the forests, might keep mastiffs for the defence of their houses 

 within the same, provided such mastiffs be expeditated according to the 

 laws of the forest. 



This " expeditating," "hambling," or " la wing," as it was in- 

 differently termed, was intended so to maim the dog as to reduce to a 

 minimum the chances of his chasing and seizing the deer, and the law 

 enforced its being done after the following manner : " Three claws of the 

 forefoot shall be cut off by the skin, by setting one of his forefeet upon a 

 piece of wood Sin. thick, and 1ft. square, and with a mallet, setting a 

 chisel of 2in. broad upon the three claws of his forefeet, and at one blow 

 cutting them clean off." 



This just enables us to look at the mastiffs of that day as through a 

 narrow chink in the wall of silence that hides from us the past. The 2uu 

 chisel was intended to cut the three doomed claws off at one blow ; how 

 much wider would it require to be to perform its work efficiently on some 

 of our best modern specimens ? considerably so, I think to make the 

 " clean" job of it the instructions intended to provide for ; and we may, 

 therefore, fairly infer that the dogs were altogether less in size than, 

 the grand massive animals that we can boast of to-day. 



