CLASSIFICATION OF DOGS. 81 



The Bulldog. — It is quite impossible to understand this 

 dog either physically or psychically apart from its history. 

 In tlie days when our ancestors delighted in badger and 

 bull baiting a dog was formed adapted in every way to 

 seize and to pin down these animals ; and a study of the 

 bulldog will show that for this purpose he could scarcely 

 be improved upon. He was taught to attack the bull (and 

 other animals) at the head, and if he could not hold, either 

 from lack of courage or lack of jaw power, etc., he woukl 

 have little chance in the contest. It may be said that the 

 whole dog exists for his jaws ; hence that enormous head 

 and front generally as compared with the parts behind tlie 

 ribs ; hence that indomitable courage, that tenacity, in fact, 

 which knows no yielding, for, as Stonehenge well says, the 

 bulldog is not only " the most courageous dog, but the 

 most courageous animal in the world." This breed may 

 be considered the very opposite in all particulars of the 

 greyhound, and taking these as the extremes, we can learn 

 the extent to which man's capacity to take advantage of 

 the variations Nature produces has been carried. Viewed 

 from another standpoint, these are the results of " artificial 

 selection " in the most pronounced way (p. ^^44). 



A breed like the bulldog should not be expected to 

 possess high intelKgence, great affection, or indeed any 

 long list of noble qualities ; nor to be amenable in a high 

 degree to training. His skull is immense, but it is largely 

 made up of bony processes for the attachment of muscles 

 to work the enormous jaws, and is not capacious as a 

 brain case ; nor is the bulldog's brain larger than that of 

 other dogs, as might at first be inferred from his enormous 

 skull. 



