The Mastiff 559 



pedigree he would undoubtedly have given it. Ansdell's Leo was a reputed 

 Lyme Hall dog. The Lyme Hall strain was undoubtedly of alaunt descent, 

 and it was claimed that the original of the strain was a bitch which defended 

 Sir Peers Leigh when he lay wounded on the battlefield of Agincourt, Oc- 

 tober 25, 1415. Sir Peers was removed to Paris, where he died, and there 

 the bitch had whelps which must have been from a foreign service. The 

 body of the knight was brought to Lyme Hall, Stockport, for burial, and the 

 bitch and puppies were brought to the hall at the same time and are said to 

 have founded the Lyme Hall strain. Such of the Lyme Hall strain as we 

 have seen lacked very much the short face of the mastiff, and were light in 

 body, being altogether too much of the Dane in type. 



Nothing is known of the dam of Raymond's Duchess nor of George's 

 Leo. Bill George was a dealer living at Kensal New Town, on the road from 

 Paddington to Harrow, and at that time dealt largely in mastiffs and bull- 

 dogs. He had a prominent dog named Tiger (always named as Bill George's 

 Tiger) which he got as a present from Mr. J. W. Thompson, to whom we 

 shall shortly refer. Tiger was a particularly good-headed dog, but de- 

 fective in legs and hindquarters owing to an accident as a puppy. 



The next line, Garrett's Nell, is also short, and this brings us to the first 

 extended pedigree, that of Cautley's Quaker, not Cantley's as it is spelled 

 all through the studbook. Cautley's Quaker runs out to terminals owned 

 by Lukey and Thompson, and we will take them in that order, although 

 Thompson was the older breeder. 



Mr. Lukey began his breeding as follows: He saw a large black mastiff 

 in Hyde Park, in charge of a footman, and on inquiry found it was the prop- 

 erty of the Marquis of Hertford. He called on that nobleman and received 

 permission to breed to the dog provided the marquis was satisfied with the 

 bitch. Mr. Lukey thereupon commissioned George White, a dealer, to get 

 him the best mastiff bitch he could put his hands on. He got a cropped and 

 docked brindle bitch, which Wynn states was one of an Alpine mastiff line. 

 Lukey wrote some time afterward that it was of the Duke of Devonshire's 

 Chatsworth strain, and Wynn says that they were Alpines. Pluto was un- 

 doubtedly in whole or in part Thibet mastiff. He was black and in his des- 

 cendants the coats would at times come rough and black. He was not Eng- 

 lish anyway, nor was the cropped bitch, Countess by name. Now those two 

 were the starters of the Lukey strain and from this union came two bitch 

 puppies, one of which was named Yarrow; the other died. 



