630 The Dog Book 



old drawing reproduced from the Bronze Dog and to be found in the Great 

 Dane chapter, page 535. That has quite a borzoi look about it and at 

 the same time comes somewhat near to the mastin type. 



This illustration was placed in the position it occupies with some mental 

 reservation as to whether it was not more entitled to be put with something 

 of the greyhound order. It bears every look of being a portrait, or modelled 

 from life and not merely a study, but as many of the illustrations of French 

 mastins of about the same date were not unlike this dog in many ways it was 

 put with them, the intention being to draw attention to it as we do now. 



The first positive representation of the borzoi we have seen was in a 

 volume of illustrations made of engravings from some French work. There 

 was no title page nor any description of the engravings other than their titles 

 in French. A memorandum in pencil on a front blank page stated they were 

 from a natural history work and many of them bore marked resemblance to 

 many of the BufFon engravings. In our edition of Buffon there is not, how- 

 ever, any particular reference to this dog, although mention is made of the 

 matin being connected with the Russian dog. No engraving of it appears in 

 our edition nor is there any mention of one as in the case of all other dogs 

 illustrated. The fact remains, however, that it was known about 1750 and 

 the illustration is perfect enough to stand duty as representing the breed 

 as seen at our shows. Colonel Hamilton Smith mentions them as part of 

 the greyhounds of the Persian type. What the latter looked like is shown in 

 Jessie's "Anecdotes," 1858 edition. The author stated that several of these 

 hounds had been brought to England from time to time and the one given 

 as an illustration was a bitch bred in England, painted by Hamilton. 



It is only within the last twenty years or so that the Russian hound has 

 become known to any extent in England or America, and his career has been 

 a diversified one in this country. In England the borzoi had the advantage 

 of being taken up by royalty and we recall seeing one at Mr. Macdona's 

 kennels when he was rector of Cheadle, near Manchester, in 1879, the dog 

 having been a present from the Prince of Wales, now King Edward. It was 

 not a large dog as we now remember it. 



When they were introduced in this country there was a very animated dis- 

 cussion as to their correct name, the late Mr. Huntington leading on the side 

 for the name psovoi, while others held for borzoi, the name accepted in Eng- 

 land. As the disputants did not seem able to come to an agreement we sug- 

 gested using the name Russian wolfhound, as fully descriptive of what they 



