The Mastiff. 15 



reputation they have borne, that of our modern 

 mastiff so much is due to an animal that was 

 known as the Alpine mastiff, and which in reality 

 cannot have been more nor less than a smooth- 

 coated St. Bernard. One writer has written that 

 the black dog of Lord Hertford's was a Thibet 

 mastiff. Most likely he was a very dark coloured 

 brindled dog of our English strain, for certainly 

 none of Mr. Lukey's dogs ever showed the hound 

 type and bloodhound expression which would have 

 been obtained from a cross with a Thibetian dog ; 

 and if it had been used, the evil would have 

 kept cropping up generation after generation. 



Writing in " Dogs of the British Isles/' Captain 

 Gamier came into prominence as a mastiff breeder, 

 and his communication is worth reproducing 

 here in part. He says : 



About this time (1847) I bought of Bill George a pair of 

 mastiffs, whose produce, by good luck, afterwards turned out 

 some of the finest specimens of the breed I ever saw. The dog 

 Adam was one of a pair of Lyme Hall mastiffs, bought by Bill 

 George at Tattersall's. He was a different stamp of dog to the 

 present Lyme breed. He stood 3o|in. at the shoulder, with 

 length of body and good muscular shoulders and loins, but was 

 just slightly deficient in depth of body and breadth of forehead; 

 and from the peculiar forward lay of his small ears, and from his 

 produce, I have since suspected a remote dash of boarhound in 

 him. The bitch was obtained by Bill George from a dealer in 

 Leadenhall Market. Nothing was known of her pedigree, but I 

 am as convinced of its purity as I am doubtful of that of the dog. 



