PREFACE 



CHINA and Japan, their people and their customs, have 

 lured the foreigner in his thousands to the making of 

 many books. No writer, however, has thought fit to 

 devote much study to their canine race, though in the Far 

 East, just as in Europe, the dog has been for ages man's chief 

 help and protector : 



The rich man's guardian and the poor man's friend, 

 The only creature faithful to the end.* 



Those who have, in passing, deigned to notice the existence 

 of dogs in the Far East have paused only for brief comment, 

 usually by way of grasping another stick to beat the Celestial 

 for gastronomic eccentricity or superstitious delusions, and 

 have given to the Eastern canine races scarcely the proverbial 

 ' dog's chance " of being considered better than universally 

 mongrel. 



It is not claimed for the following pages, whose original 

 design included only the smaller races of Eastern dogs, that 

 they enumerate all the existing breeds, or that they deal con- 

 clusively with any one of them. China alone is a vast country 

 in which geographical difficulties render comprehensive study 

 difficult. It is hoped, nevertheless, that there has been laid a 

 foundation upon which further investigation may be firmly 

 based, and that the researches made may assist in the identi- 

 fication of new species as well as the preservation of certain 

 breeds which, like the St. Bernard in Europe, now run the 

 risk of following the Irish wolfhound and the hard-worked 

 turnspit dog of our great-grandfathers, to extinction. 



* Inscription on the monument to a Newfoundland dog. Byron. 



V 



4942^2 



