64 THE BRITISH PUGNACES. 



Col. H. Smith appears to have made a hasty, and somewhat 

 contradictory remark in suggesting that at the time of the 

 Roman supremacy, but one breed of broad mouthed dogs 

 existed, which were a sort of large bulldog, and he seemingly 

 overlooked the probability that the English mastiff had then 

 been manufactured from crossing the true but smaller pug- 

 naces of England with the imported Asiatic mastiff. As he 

 says " It may be doubted whether there were in Britain two 

 "races of broad mouthed dogs during the Roman era, but it 

 " seems to us there was but one, and in that case the bulldog 

 " was the animal in question, one indeed far superior in size 

 "to the present breed, little inferior to the mastiff, and 

 " probably very like the Cuban race." The latter he describes 

 as follows : Larger than our common bulldog and smaller 

 than the mastiff, stout in proportion, muzzle short, broad, and 

 abruptly truncate, with somewhat of an upward curve, lips 

 pendulous, ears partly so. 



In these remarks Col. H. Smith contradicts somewhat 

 what he previously advanced as to the probable importation 

 of the Asiatic mastiff ; but I have shown from the Romano 

 Britannic pottery that dogs identical with our short faced 

 English mastiffs existed at that date, some of about 30 inches 

 at shoulder. 



Writers of less authority have followed Col. H. Smith, 

 falling into the same error and exaggerating it, some contend- 

 ing the bulldog was the original and only breed, others that 

 the mastiff is an indigenous breed quite separate from the 

 bulldog, neither being exactly correct. 



Before closing this chapter I may draw attention to the 

 fact that it has constantly beei? advanced in a careless off-hand 



