THE WATCH-DOGS. 149 



a nose somewhat more widened ; still, upon com- 

 paring the skulls, their close resemblance to that of 

 the wolf is undeniable. The race we have now be- 

 fore us occupying a zone of the northern hemisphere^ 

 more temperate than the former, and extending from 

 the east of Asia to the west of Europe, with a few 

 straggling even to Africa and Mexico. We are 

 inclined to consider them as originally descended 

 from our Lysiscan group, and the same whence the 

 very different names of Chao, Caow, KW, Coo, 

 and, finally, our word Cur are derived. The typi- 

 cal colour of this tribe of dogs is rufous, and their 

 aberrant, the mixture of it with black and white, 

 or the fusion of them into bluish-grey. Great Bri- 

 tain having, from the remotest period, other valua- 

 ble races of dogs, seems never to have fostered the 

 large breeds, unless the ancient slow-hound, parent 

 of the Manchester and southern dogs, were of this 

 group, before, by crossing with real hounds, it as- 

 sumed their characters. It is in this tribe that some 

 of the largest and fiercest dogs of antiquity should 

 be sought; and that where the southern nations 

 have found their Matin, or Mastino, which the 

 English have improperly transferred to our original 

 great bull-dog, by altering it into mastiff, and the 

 Germans name Bauerhund, or farm-dog. 



Although, doubtless, some intermixture of the 

 mastiff race may be believed to have occurred in the 

 breeds known by the ancients in the north and east 

 of Greece, it is probable that the Epirotic, Molos- 

 eian, Chaonian, Hircanian, Albanian, and Iberian 



