The St. Bernard. 249 



the celebrated dog of Bernard de Meuthon, sire of the whole illustrious 

 race who lived and begat whelps in the seventh decade of the tenth 

 century." 



Whether the existing dogs are indeed descended more or less directly 

 from the dog of the noble-hearted monk whose name these hospitals and 

 the breed of dogs still bear, and to whose large-heartedness and manly 

 charity they constitute a noble monument, I am unable to say ; but, as 

 the portrait of the saint's original dog, still preserved with that of him- 

 self at the hospital, is described as a bloodhound, there are more 

 unlikely things ; for whatsoever their origin may be, it is an indisputable 

 fact that many specimens, acknowledged to be true St. Bernards, do still 

 exhibit some of the most marked bloodhound characteristics the red 

 haw, pendulous chops, and throatiness although these points are not 

 approved when strongly developed. That our present St. Bernards are 

 composed of different and somewhat discordant elements I think they in 

 themselves furnish sufficient evidence, for in large classes we meet with a 

 variety of types that, by pedigree, have an equal claim to be called pure 

 bred. 



It appears from the records in the various books on the subject that 

 some half century ago the monks lost all their dogs, they, with several 

 servants, having been swept away by an avalanche, and at that time, 

 according to " Stonehenge," two dogs that the monks had previously 

 given away were returned to them, and from these the existing breed are 

 descended. "Idstone," who wrote from information gleaned on the 

 spot when a guest of the monks, says (writing in 1872): "The breed of 

 St. Bernards has undergone some changes within the last thirty or forty 

 years. A pest or virulent distemper at one time carried off all the dogs 

 of the St. Bernard but one, and that, I believe, was crossed with the 

 Pyrenean wolfhound." "Idstone" doubtless had good ground for 

 making this statement, and possibly to the introduction of the wolfhound 

 cross we may attribute the tendency to a lanky form and elongated 

 muzzle seen in otherwise good specimens. 



What other crosses may have been at different times resorted to in the 

 course of nine centuries it is now impossible to say, but it is not likely 

 that strict in-and-in breeding either could or would be adhered to, and 

 no doubt the monks would aim more at preserving the characteristics of 

 strength, courage, endurance of cold, with that high intelligence and 



