THE ALPINE MASTIFF. 163 



In 1829 a vast light brindle dog of the old Alpine mastiff 

 breed, named L'Ami, was brought from the convent of Great 

 St. Bernard, and exhibited in London and Liverpool as the 

 largest dog in England. Clarke of Holborn (himself a great 

 lover of dogs') made a splendid coloured lithograph of this 

 dog's head ; these are now very scarce, the one I saw belonged 

 to my late friend J. \V. Thompson, and Lieut. Col. Gamier, 

 R.E., made a copy from another, from which were taken 

 some photos, some of which, together with the negative, 

 eventually fell into my possession, but in these photos, owing 

 to the indifferent shading, the dog appears a very dark brindle, 

 whereas the lithograph shows him to have been very light, 

 the ground colour being of a light yellow fawn, otherwise the 

 photograph is a very accurate copy of the original lithograph. 

 L'Ami had the ears cropped close to the head, which was 

 remarkably large, and skull round, rather than flat, muzzle 

 very short, broad, and blunt, the lips pendulous, the flews 

 pronounced, and heavier than they should be. 



I have already mentioned Captain Brown, wiio in his work 

 published in 1829, represents the St. iiJernard of the Spaniel 

 type, and have also mentioned the Alpine mastiffs given by 

 Col. H. Smith, drawn about iS^S. Between that year arid 

 1840, Couchez, alias Turk, a reputed Alpine mastiff, was 

 brought over from Italy, he was a red smut, and first owned 

 by Geo. White of Knightsbridge, and subsequently by Captain 

 Waldegrave, an elder but illegitimate brother to the Lord 

 \Yaldegrave of that date, into whose possession Couchez 

 subsequently fell : and it was then a Sunday morning amuse- 

 ment among certain noble patrons of dog fighting who believed 

 less in the Homilies of St. Chrysostom which inform us. 



