CHAPTER XXI 



THE DALMATIAN 



T is passing strange how such a man as Buffon came to name 

 the Dalmatian the Bengal Harrier, and Youatt was as bad 

 when he lumped him in with the Great Dane the Danish 

 dog, as he was called at that time as only differing in 

 size. The Dalmatian is a dog of ancient lineage and with 

 as straight a record as almost any dog. He was the hound that came from 

 Dalmatia, and there is little reason to doubt that he was of the same class 

 of hound that the pointer emanated from. Even to this day they have 

 very much in common, in appearance, habits and disposition, and the 

 Dalmatian is by no means a bad shooting dog, when any attention is paid 

 to his training. 



Spotted dogs were known in Egypt. The illustration of dogs in the 

 frontispiece of Part L, showing a number of dogs which were received as 

 tribute, should have shown the fore leg of the farther dog in the front row 

 as spotted, but the spots were omitted by the artist who copied the group in 

 line drawing only. Stonehenge points out that quite a good many black- 

 and-white pointers, while not marked so symmetrically as are Dalmatians, 

 could doubtless be much improved in that respect if attention was paid to 

 marking. All ticked dogs are usually heavily marked about the head, and 

 one of the difficulties with the Dalmatian is to avoid heavily marked ears, 

 which are nowadays objected to. In descriptions published earlier in the 

 nineteenth century tan cheeks were spoken of, and within the past thirty 

 years one of the recognised colours, the one placed second in point of merit 

 by Stonehenge and considered very desirable by Dalziel, was the black- 

 spotted dog with liver ticks on the legs. These were by no means uncom- 

 mon thirty years ago, and were thought equally good if not better than the 

 entirely black spotted. Why the Dalmation Clubs of England should 

 have barred this liver spotting on the legs is not quite plain, for the new 

 fanciers certainly do not know any more about the breed than those who 

 knew them at that period. We remember buying a Dalmatian some 



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