322 



DOG. 



have there been wanting instances in which a dog of 

 this kind has thrown a refractory intruder on his back, 

 and held him there uninjured, though in no very 

 enviable situation, till the return of day, and the 

 arrival of those for whom he kept watch. It is also 

 worth while to observe a really good dog of this kind 

 going his rounds over extensive premises. One 

 would almost imagine that he has got a complete 

 catalogue of the property, together with plans of all 

 the holes and hiding places, for he leaves not a 

 suspicious spot unexamined ; and he does it all 

 peaceably, if all is right, and then returns good 

 humouredly to his watch-house. 



The mastiff has no trick or play about him, very 

 little disposition to hunt any animal, and it does not 

 appear that his sense of smelling is at all acute. His 

 character is too dignified, and his deportment too 

 grave, for these matters, but still he has a wonderful 

 aptitude in acquiring a knowledge of those duties for 

 the performance of which his nature more immediately 

 fits him ; and when he has acquired this knowledge, 

 no servant can be more faithful, or, generally speaking, 

 more quiet and orderly in the performance of them. 

 As we have said, the period of especial necessity for 

 the mastiff, except in particular situations, has gone 

 by, but still there is something respectable in the 

 memory of this animal, which makes one almost 

 regret that the pure race have been, in many cases 

 where watch-dogs are still used, supplanted by 

 mongrels. There is one circumstance in the charac- 

 ter of modern depredators, as compared with those of 

 former times, which has rendered watch- dogs of much 

 less value than they were then. The depredators of 

 the olden time came by force, and therefore they 

 could be met and repelled by force ; but the modern 

 ones proceed by craft, and the art of silencing a 

 watch-dog is, we believe, part of the regular system 

 of education among our midnight plunderers. In 

 consequence of this, the dog merely serves to alarm 

 the timid, while against those who are bent upon 

 mischief he is of little or no use. 



THE BAN-DOG. This appears to have been the 

 old name of all watch-dogs in England which were 

 not of the true mastiff breed, The name is evidently 

 a corruption of " baying-dog," that is, a dog very prone 

 to give tongue one whose bark was more formidable 

 than his bite. Such dogs were of course mongrels, 

 and differed in their dispositions and qualities accord- 

 ing as they were more allied to one race or to 

 another. Of such dogs no general description can 

 be given, nor is any necessary. 



THE CUBAN MASTIFF. This breed is very common 

 in the island from which the trivial name is derived, 

 and there it answers the purposes both of a mastiff 

 and a bull-dog, being used for watching, and also in 

 bull fights. These dogs are represented as being very 

 faithful, and at the same time very courageous and 

 staunch ; they are smaller in size, and somewhat less 

 dignified in expression than the true mastiff, but they 

 have the broad head, the produced upper lip, and the 

 pendent ears. Their bodies are about a mean in size 

 between the mastiff and the bull-dog, and they are 

 rather more muscular than the first of these, and less 

 so than the second. Their covering is very short and 

 close, but, as is the case with all dogs in a state of 

 complete domestication, their colours are very various. 



There are many breeds of what may be called 

 useless dogs belonging to the short-nosed division, of 

 which it will be quite enough to mention a few of the 



names ; and, indeed, they may all be regarded as in 

 some way or other varieties of the pug-dog, which is 

 a cowardly little animal, and at the same time snap- 

 pish, and not susceptible of much education, or much 

 attachment even to those who make a pet of it. 



Cuban Mastiff. 



The enumeration which we have given includes at 

 least as full a view of the leading varieties of the dog 

 as is necessary for the purposes of general knowledge, 

 that is, for those who are neither professional zoolo- 

 gists nor dog-fanciers, and, of course, the technical 

 information which they require would be useless to 

 the public. We shall, therefore, close this article by 

 one or two remarks on the dreadful malady to which 

 this faithful, and, in its own place, valuable race of 

 animals, is sometimes subject, and which, in the 

 bitterness of their own agony, they sometimes most 

 unhappily impart to human beings. This is the 

 malady usually designated as canine madness, from 

 its affecting dogs more readily than any other 

 animals ; and it is also called hydrophobia, because a 

 dread of water is usually, though not invariably, one 

 of its symptoms. But neither of those names is 

 exactly expressive of the nature and characters of this 

 dreadful malady a malady which is more terrible 

 than any other casualty to which human nature is 

 subject, and which, we may add, is generally or inva- 

 riably communicated by dogs which are altogether 

 useless to their keepers, and very often nuisances to 

 every one else. The most usual symptoms of this 

 malady are said to be dulness, loss of appetite, and, 

 in particular, a departure from the animal's ordinary 

 habits. If a stick, held out by a person with whom 

 it is familiar, excites resentment, this is reputed an 

 infallible criterion. But the dog still continues 

 tractable, and the persons generally around it are the 

 least in danger 01 attack. Its voice next becomes 

 more of a continued howl, with the head elevated in 

 the air ; great anxiety appears ; it labours under 

 apparent suffering, and testifies the strongest im- 

 patience of controul. At length it eagerly hurries 

 from the house to which it has always been attached 

 it bites every animal in the way its pursuit is inces- 

 sant of all except mankind, for they are more rarely 

 the objects of injury ; and, when worn out with 

 wandering, it will sometimes return. If escaping 

 intentional destruction, the dog seldom survives the 

 fourth or fifth day, refusing all food, and dying raging 

 mad. It is a lamentable fact, that a mortal malady, 

 known by the name of hydrophobia, may be imparted 



