THE ILLUSTRATED 



BOOK OF THE DOG 



CHAPTER I. 



HISTORICAL AND LITERARY. 



|S in former works relating to dogs but small attention has 

 been devoted by the authors to the modes of classification adopted 

 by the earlier writers on the subject, a brief notice of the 

 principal cannot but be of interest. As to later works, in 

 several encyclopaedias there has been an attempt made to 

 classify the different varieties, but such classification has, so 

 far as our observation carries us, invariably been founded on 

 the structural development of the different breeds alone, and 

 aot unfrequently on comparison with the characteristics of 

 other animals, little or no attention having been paid to the 

 various temperaments and capabilities of the several breeds. 

 Visitors to the great shows of the present day, on the con- 

 trary, must be struck by the extreme simplicity of the 

 arrangement of the catalogues, which invariably divide the 

 candidates into two divisions, namely, one for sporting, and one for non-sporting dogs. In 

 our opinion this is an ample distinction, for all practical purposes ; since in the present day, in 

 consequence of dogs being so much better understood than they formerly were, the uses and 

 capabilities of each breed are well appreciated by those at all interested in them. Moreover, 

 the large increase in the number of breeds (owing to the manufacture of so many new varieties 

 of late years) has rendered an elaborate classification undesirable, as being likely to complicate 

 instead of facilitating the task of distinguishing between the various breeds. 



The majority of the earlier writers on the dog, however, adopt different classifications in the 

 lists of dogs published by them, and these, being of some considerable historical interest, we 

 propose recapitulating ; whilst due attention shall be given to the scientific division of Cuvier, 

 in which the structural development of the dog is compared with that of other mammals. 



Ik-fore turning our attention to the various works on the dog which have from time to time 

 appeared in our own language, we may mention that in the earlier part of the Christian era only 

 two races of dogs out of the sixteen or seventeen known to the ancients, are stated to have been 

 recognised by them as hunting dogs. These were Greyhounds, and dogs hunting by scent. Arrian, 



