388 



The Dog Book 



A DIALL PERTAINING TO THE FOURTH SECTION 



We can readily understand how with us the term terrier is a group 

 name, and that we have minor distinctions specifying variety, all the way 

 from the Airedale of sixty pounds to the toy of ounces. We divide terriers 

 mainly by location of their production, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Airedale, 

 Boston, while fox terrier is a name indicative of what the dog is used for. 

 We must apply the same idea to the dogs of olden times, when there was 

 first the group title and then the use name. As we find Caius divided his 

 spaniels for the falcon, for the pheasant and for the hawk, while "the 

 common sort of people call them by one generall word, namely Spaniells,'* 

 so in this case, while the general group or sectional name for what Caius 

 in another place calls "a homely kind, apt for sundry necessary uses," 

 was mastiffs, they had individual use names according to the purpose 

 for which they were kept; and a better definition of mastiff would really 

 be a low-caste dog, for the sporting dogs were said to be of a "gentle kind,'* 

 in the sense of gentle in gentleman. From this mastiff group the dog for 

 the bull was developed and became the bulldog of England. 



"Of all dogs it stands confessed 

 Your English bulldogs are the best. 

 I say it, and will set my hand to't, 

 Camden records it, and I'll stand to't." 



There is no question that there was also a similar dog in Spain as an 

 assistant in bull fights, attacking and holding the bull by the ear, and this 

 was the original method of attack in England, for Caius in describing the 

 dog, which was simply mastiff and had no particular assigned vocation, 

 says: "They are serviceable against the Foxe and the Badger, to drive 



