220 THE MASTIFFS. 



varied in colour, and larger than other canines, but 

 not real tigers : thus there was a Tlioa different 

 from the already described group, and evidently a 

 large wild dog. Oppian likewise remarks Thoas to 

 be like wolves in form, but like panthers in colours : 

 here then we find a spotted or brindled animal of 

 the canine family in Asia, not of the true Thoes, 

 which we have seen are only speckled, nor yet the 

 Lynx, so strangely confounded with the Canidce by 

 earlier writers. We have before shown the mastiff 

 form became distinctly known to the Greeks only 

 about the period of the Macedonian conquest, and 

 that the classic writers of the Roman Empire then 

 first enter into particulars concerning it : such is the 

 description of Oppian's war-dogs, who attack the 

 Urus, and prostrate the wild boars of the forest, 

 not even fearing their king, the lion.* He dis- 

 tinctly mentions the fiery light brown eyes, the 

 truncated muzzle, loose folded skin above the brows, 

 broad backs, great stature, and muscular legs of 



* Aristotle, from the information of his correspondents in 

 Alexander's army, either applied or invented the name of 

 Leontomyx for the Tibetan or Indian race, and, perhaps with 

 some nationality regarded the Arcadian breed of Greece as 

 belonging to that form of dogs ; but Nieander of Colophon, 

 with right Hellenic feelings, made the mastiff of India a pro- 

 geny of Aetaeon's dogs, who, after eating their master, expa- 

 triated themselves, swimming the Bosphorus, the Euphrates, 

 the Tigris, and the Indus, to colonize the far East. Cselius, 

 however, makes the Arcadian dogs, Cypseli, with marbled 

 ears, and the same as the Apodse, a kind of fleet greyhoundg, 

 certainly not likely to be from a cross breed with lions. 



