The St. Bernard. 255 



two Alpine monasteries, but how it is now impossible to say. Both Tell 

 and Monarque exhibited this peculiarity, as well as most of the dogs 

 admitted to be imported from the Hospice. Gessler, however, who 

 showed every other point of the breed in a very marked degree, had no 

 dewclaw at all on his hind legs, and his son Alp, though out of Hedwig, 

 sister to Tell, was equally deficient. It is very doubtful whether this 

 peculiarity is sufficiently permanent in any strain to be an evidence of 

 purity or impurity, and consequently its value is only placed at 5, making 

 the negative deduction 10 when wholly absent. 



" The temperament of the St. Bernard is very similar to that of the 

 mastiff that is to say, if suitably managed, the dog is capable of great 

 control over his actions, whether in the absence or presence of his owner. 

 When kept on the chain he is, like other dogs, apt to become savage, and 

 there is almost always an instinctive dislike to tramps and vagabonds. 

 He is a capital watch and guard, and attaches himself strongly to his 

 master or mistress. 



" The colour of this dog varies greatly. The most common is 

 red and white, the white being preferred when distributed after the 

 pattern described above. Fawn and white and brindle and white 

 come next, marked in the same way, the brindle being a very rich 

 one, with an orange-tawny shade in it, as shown in Tell, and in a 

 lesser degree by his nephew, Alp. Sometimes the dog is wholly 

 white, or very nearly so, as in the case of Hospice and Sir C. H. 

 Isham's Leo. 



" The coat in the rough variety is wavy over the body, bushy in the 

 tail, and feathering the legs, being generally silky, but sparsely so, on the 

 ears. In the smooth variety the depth and thickness of the coat are the 

 points to be regarded." 



Believing the weights, measurements, and other particulars of well- 

 known dogs would interest readers, I give the following of a few of those 

 whose owners have kindly obliged me. 



The particulars given of the Eev. J. Cumming-Macdona's grand 

 old dog Tell now dead many years I have copied from "Stonehenge's" 

 first edition of the "Dogs of the British Islands," thinking it might be 

 interesting to be able to compare at a glance the dimensions of some of 

 our dogs of the day with those of the dead champion. 



Mr. Armitage's Oscar is in colour a rich orange tawny and wkite with 



