igO THE NOTED BREEDERS MR. LUKEY AND MR. THOMPSON. 



That Mr. Thompson had no objection to the bull cross, 

 may be seen from the following, dated January 2gth, 1873 : 

 lt l also called upon John Turner, who informed me there was 

 " a very fine dog at Keighley, which he proposed breeding 

 " from. He is by Bradford Quaker, and out of a large bull 

 " mastiff bitch with the right character of head and ear, but 

 " perhaps not so large as you would want." 



In his Essay on the Mastiff, he wrote, " About 1840, our 

 ' k breed of British bulldogs were much larger than the gen- 

 " erality of our present race, standing 20 inches high at the 

 " shoulder and more ; and I cannot see, being so identical in 

 " character, that the cross would in an)- way deteriorate the 

 " mastiff with the exception of size." 



Again, " As to the judiciousness of crossing the mastiff with 

 " the bulldog, I must leave every breeder to follow the bent 

 " of his own individual opinion, as no private notions of my 

 "own would be sufficient to meet the varied tastes of all, 

 " at the same time I may perhaps be justified in saying, that 

 " it does not always follow, as has been asserted, that the 

 " bullet head and projection of the lower jaw is a sure cri- 

 " tenon of the bulldog cross. L'Ami, considered to have 

 " been one of the finest and most majestic of smooth Alpine 

 "mastiffs ever exhibited, had the bullet head and undershot 

 " jaw, so had Couchez, in fact, our largest and most eminent 

 " mastiffs have had this peculiarity. I have also seen hounds, 

 "pointers, terriers, and other kinds so formed, and even in 

 " human beings we find this peculiarity of the lower jaw. but 

 " surely no one would have t he audacity to say this is inherited 

 " from a bulldog cross ? Undoubtedly not, it is a natural 

 " production." 



