TIIF. MASTIFF DURING ELIZABETH S REIGN. 99 



part of the ignorant and credulous. And although inclined 

 to discredit the possibility of such a hybrid myself, I cannot 

 condemn Cains for stating what was thought possible, and 

 believed in long subsequently. 



In the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 40, published 17/0, is an 

 account of some travels in Holland, which runs as follows : 

 u On June 2ist, ijGS, on the road from Delft to the Hague, 

 our observers saw a large black and white dog following a 

 coach, as he seemed to be somewhat remarkable, M. Yanden 

 Hoever de Fienover, who was then acting as Consul of France 

 at Rotterdam, and who accompanied the visitors, informed 

 them that the dog was an offspring of a bear and bitch, which 

 could not be doubted, as he was whelped at the end of a long 

 voyage at sea, in which the bitch and the bear were the only 

 animals on board.'' 



This seems very conclusive evidence, and it is worthy 

 of notice that both in this and in the instance related by 

 Bonaisturau in his Histoires Prodigieuses, the bear was the 

 sire and the mother a dog, which renders it more probable, 

 but I have met with no mention of these supposed hybrids 

 procreating either with dog or bear. 



Having carefully and fairly studied Dr. Caius's work, I 

 consider it is wonderfully accurate considering the age it was 

 written in, and it affords great insight to dogology, and the 

 modern fancier, if he knows anything of Latin, will not find 

 the work so complicated and obscure as some writers have 

 stated, although to understand a work of this sort correctly, 

 a reader should have some knowledge of coeval and precedin 

 authors. 



