64 



THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 



girl's basket to a coppice hard by and bring 

 it home again when it was filled with violets. 

 The St. Bernard is sensitive to a degree, 

 and seldom forgets an insult, which he 

 resents with dignity. Specimens of the breed 

 have occasionally been seen that are savage, 

 but when this is the case ill-treatment of 



ALPINE MASTIFFS. 



From the Painting by Sir Edwin Landsur, R.A. 



some sort has assuredly been the provoking 

 cause. 



The dogs at the Hospice of St. Bernard 

 are small in comparison with those that 

 are seen in England belonging to the same 

 race. The Holy Fathers were more par- 

 ticular about their markings than great size. 

 The body colour should be brindle or orange 

 tawny, with white markings ; the muzzle 

 white, with a line running up between the 

 eyes, and over the skull, joining at the 

 back the white collar that encircles the neck 

 down to the front of the shoulders. The 

 colour round the eyes and on the ears should 

 be of a darker shade in the red ; in the 

 centre of the white line at the occiput there 

 should be a spot of colour. These markings 

 are s.iid to represent the stole, chasuble and 

 scapular which form part of the vestments 

 worn by the Monks ; but it is seldom 



that the markings are so clearly defined ; 

 they are more often white, with brindle or 

 orange patches on the body, with evenly- 

 marked heads. 



In England St. Bernards are either dis- 

 tinctly rough in coat or smooth, but the 

 generality of the Hospice dogs are broken 

 in coat, neither rough 

 nor smooth, having a 

 texture between the 

 two extremes. The 

 properties, however, of 

 the rough and smooth 

 are the same, so that 

 the two varieties are 

 often bred together, 

 and, as a rule, both 

 textures of coat will 

 be the result of the 

 alliance. The late M. 

 Schumacher, a great 

 authority on the breed 

 in Switzerland, averred 

 that dogs with very 

 rough coats were found 

 to be of no use for 

 work on the Alps, as 

 their thick covering 

 became so loaded with 

 snow and their feet so 

 clogged that they suc- 

 cumbed under the weight and perished. 

 On that account they were discarded by 

 the Monks. 



In connection with the origin of the St. 

 Bernard, M. Schumacher wrote in a letter 

 to Mr. J. C. Macdona, who was the first to 

 introduce the breed into Great Britain 

 in any numbers : " According to the tradi- 

 tion of the Holy Fathers of the Great Saint 

 Bernard, their race descends from the 

 crossing of a bitch (a Bulldog species) of 

 Denmark and a Mastiff (Shepherd's dog) of 

 the Pyrenees. The descendants of the 

 crossing, who have inherited from the 

 Danish dog its extraordinary size and 

 bodily strength, and from the Pyrenean 

 Mastiff the intelligence, the exquisite 

 sense of smell, and, at the same time, 

 the faithfulness and sagacity which cha- 

 racterise them, have acquired in the space 



