8 



BRITISH DOGS 



the timid animal, about as much credit ought to have attached 

 in those days to a kill as should in the case of present-day dogs 

 employed to hunt the rabbit in an enclosed ground. Fig. 10 

 shows both the war dog and the coursing animal proper with the 

 huntsman, spear in hand, in the act of encouraging them. In the 

 earlier type of Gallic Greyhound the ears were erect, while in 

 the later ones they were disposed probably much as they are to-day. 



FIG. io. GRECIAN WAR OR HUNTING DOG AND COURSING DOG. 



From each of these three principal varieties there were many 

 sub-varieties, from the fierce Mastiff (an altogether heavier type 

 of dog than the war-dog) to the lapdogs like the Maltese, though 

 history is strangely silent as to the general appearance of these 

 latter. Nor is the Mastiff of the time described specifically enough 



FIG. ii. ROMAN BOARHOUND. 



to admit ot present-day dog-lovers forming a comparison between 

 their dogs and those, say, of the Assyrian or the Grecian periods. 

 What is recorded is the fact that the Assyrian war-dogs stood as 

 high at shoulder as 35in., that the Mastiff of Epirus in Grecian 

 times was at least heavier, and that the early British dog, in both 

 size and ferocity, eclipsed either. Rome also had her boar- 

 hounds ^Fig. IT), her Greyhounds, perhaps her Italian Greyhounds, 



