4 BRITISH DOGS 



the time, depending as he did for his sustenance largely on the 

 spoils of the chase. With man's subjection of the earth one can 

 readily imagine how the shepherd's crook was taken up in addition 

 to the rude instruments of war and the chase, and how the pliant 

 nature of the dog would be moulded into unison with the new order 

 of things. The dog would then become, as he was in Biblical times 

 and as he is more or less in the present day, alike a tender and a 

 defender of the flocks. New duties and conditions of life would 

 develop fresh traits of character as well as variety of form. 

 Gradually the shepherd's dog would assume a character of his own ; 

 while the Nimrods of those early days would have their own 

 branches of the family chosen as best suited for their particular 

 purpose. Special work would of necessity call into play certain 

 faculties : whilst others not required would, in process of time, be 

 so modified as to be scarcely in evidence. Thus, still further 

 divergence of type from the original ensued, and differences between 

 existing breeds became more extinct. This alone, carried out 

 extensively, would produce great variety in form, size, colour, and 

 natural capabilities. With the growth of civilisation, these influences 

 would increase in strength and variety, and, together with the 

 powerful influence of climate and accidental circumstances, fully 

 account for the extraordinary varieties of form met with in the 

 Domestic dog. 



Faint and imperfect as such an outline of a very big subject 

 must necessarily be, yet it is hoped that it will at any rate suggest 

 the leading lines upon which the varieties of historic dogs were 

 built, and serve to show how, by a gradual process of selection, the 

 large number of present-day varieties breeding true to type have 

 been slowly evolved by the painstaking fancier. 



In a work of this character something about classification will be 

 looked for. This, however, is another of the points on which such 

 a diversity of opinion exists that it would serve no good purpose to 

 fill space with details of the more or less artificial systems that have 

 existed for generations. As a matter of fact, only one serious 

 attempt of recent years has been made to arrange the Domestic 

 dogs on a natural basis. For this classification, which is founded 

 chiefly on the form and development of the ears, Mr. E. L. 

 Harting is responsible (see The Zoologist for 1884, vol. viii.). 

 Even that recent author, however, regards his as affording perhaps 

 only an " approximation to a natural classification." Mr. Harting 

 arranges the dogs in six groups, thus : Wolf-like, Greyhounds, 

 Spaniels, Hounds, Mastiffs, and Terriers. 



With the classification of the Kennel Club into Sporting and 

 Non-sporting varieties most fanciers are familiar ; but as this work is 

 intended to appeal to a much wider area than the necessarily 

 restricted one of the Fancy, the system is here given. 



