NOTED MASTIFFS. 2OQ 



narrowness of head belong to the hound, while shortness and 

 breadth are true characteristics of the British mastiff, and 

 more expressive of strength than dignity perhaps. Formerly 

 the English mastiff appears to have stood not more than from 

 27 to 30 inches at shoulder, and a writer, a stickler for purity, 

 has recorded that he doubts the purity of any mastiff standing 

 over 30 inches at shoulder, and if we recross the mastiff with 

 the pure breed, the bulldog, (as suggested by Mr. Thompson 

 and other breeders and writers) we still lessen the height, 

 bringing it nearer to the old standard of the breed when it 

 was bred for work and use, not mere useless ornament or 

 crippled over-forced monstrocities that can hardly walk. , 



Before concluding this history of the British mastiff, I may 

 say in 1874, The Kennel Club Stud Book was published, and 

 having revised the mastiff pedigrees in it for the editor, (Mr. 

 Pearce) and also furnished him with considerable information 

 for the work, I know that the pedigrees in the 1874 v l- are 

 fairly accurate, although one or two errors crept in. The 

 breeder will find it a most useful work. 



In breeding animals " Pedigree " is a most important partic- 

 ular. By pedigree I do not mean merely a carefully written, 

 extended chart of ancestral names, the kind of thing I fear 

 that too many breeders swallow with the same avidity that 

 a salmon does a highly dressed, gaudy, artificial fly. If 

 breeders would only bear in mind that all the stud books in 

 existence, and all the mere paper that has pedigree written 

 on it, will not shorten the muzzle of a mastiff one quarter of 

 an inch, or add one inch to the girth of skull or chest. A 

 mere chart of the ancestry for a number of generations back 



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