THE BULL-DOG. 



241 



Its extraordinary courage is so well known as to have passed into a proverb, and to have 

 so excited the admiration of the British nation that they have been pleased to symbolize their 

 peculiar tenacity of purpose under the emblem of this small but most determined animal. In 

 height the Bull-dog is but insignificant, but in strength and courage there is no Dog that can 

 match him. Indeed, there is hardly any breed of sporting Dog which does not owe its high 

 courage to an infusion of the Bull-dog blood ; and it is chiefly for this purpose that the pure 

 breed is continued. 



Those cruel and cowardly combats between the bull and the Dog, which were a dis- 

 grace, even in the earlier part of the present century, have long been abolished, and a few 

 "bull rings," still remaining in the ground, are their sole relics. In these contests the Dog 



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BULL-DOG. Canie familiaris malossue. 



was trained to fly at the head of the bull, and to seize him by the muzzle as he stooped 

 his head for the purpose of tossing his antagonist into the air. When he had once made 

 good his hold it was almost impossible for the bull to shake off his pertinacious foe, 

 who clung firmly to his antagonist, and suffered himself to be swung about as the bull might 

 choose. 



There seems, indeed, to be no animal which the Bull-dog will not attack without the least 

 hesitation. The instinct of fight is strong within him, and manifests itself actively in the 

 countenance and the entire formation of this creature. 



It is generally assumed that the Bull-dog must be a very dull and brutish animal, because 

 almost every specimen which has come before the notice of the public has held such a char- 

 acter. For this unpleasant disposition, a celebrated writer and zoologist attempts to account 

 by observing that the brain of the Bull-dog is smaller in proportion to its body than that of 

 any other Dog, and that therefore the animal must needs be of small sagacity. But " Stone- 

 henge " well remarks, that although the Bull-dog's brain appears to the eye to be very small 



