THE MASTIFF DURING ELIZABETH S REIGN. 97 



do double work, hence the confusion many have been thrown 

 into, when they have essayed at tracing out either breed; and 

 it is ridiculous to fall into the error some have, in thinking 

 that neither the bulldog nor mastiff existed separately as a 

 distinct breed about 1550, as Caiiis himself plainly mentions 

 the lighter or smaller sort of bandog or mastiff. 



Cains terms the mastiff also ' canis laniarius," i.e. butcher's 

 clog, so called from its use, as it renders great service to the 

 butcher in taking his cattle when needed/' Here we see 

 plain reference to the ancestor of the bulldog, or as that breed 

 was sometimes called formerly, the beast-dog, Vide Useful 

 Domestic Dogs, plate on page 368 of Dickson's Live Stock. 



\Yc should remember Cains was writing for a naturalist, 

 and endeavouring to class the various breeds into groups, 

 was not so careful as we are now to distinguish the sub- 

 divisions into breeds. One reason for Caius's varied and 

 manifold titles for the various sorts of dogs, may have arisen 

 from the same difficulty that presented itself to Caxton, who 

 stated that the difference between the terms of the educated and 

 vulgar was so great that at times he was puzzled to know 

 what word to employ in his translations, so as to be intelligible 

 to all classes of his readers. Naturalists still rightly follow 

 the plan of classing the mastiff, bulldog, and pugdog, under 

 the mastiff group. In his fifth section "cross bred dogs" 

 Caius mentions the Urcanus (i.e. Hyrcanian) stating it to be 

 engendered between the bandog and bear. This Urcanus 

 was plainly a mastiff, as he states it to be produced in England 

 from a cross with the bandog, being evidently a cross between 

 the bandog and some larger, and probably foreign dog, and 

 it is plainly only a piece of credulity on the part of Caius, 



