724 THE DOG. 



generally remains even when the colour of the rest of the 

 body has become changed. His voice is hoarse and deep, 

 striking when heard in the silence of the night. His sense 

 of smell is acute, but he is little fitted for the exercise 

 of speed, and does not join other dogs to hunt in concert. 

 The powers with which he has been endowed for his own 

 defence are strength, vigilance, and courage. Were we to 

 suppose such a dog to exist in the state of nature, his prey, 

 we should infer, would be the larger animals, as the wild 

 bull, the buffalo, and the boar. But we do not know of any 

 species of Canis yet existing in the natural state which may 

 be regarded as the parent stock of the Mastiff, though that 

 such may exist, or have existed, is rendered probable by the 

 characters of the race, which have remained constant from 

 age to age, and distinguish the true Mastiff from any other 

 race of dogs. Neither do we know whether Africa, in which 

 some very large and fierce dogs are found, has not likewise 

 produced its Mastiffs. 



The Asiatic Mastiff appears to have been known from the 

 earliest periods in which we have any records of the Dog. He 

 was familiar to the Greeks, who derived their finest breed from 

 Molossis, a district of Epirus, opposite to the Island of Corfu ; 

 and hence the Romans employed the term Molossus as a ge- 

 neric term for this class of dogs. From the high lands of 

 Middle Asia, where the typical form of the race seems to be 

 the most developed, the Mastiff may be supposed to have 

 been carried northward by the Scythi, and all westward to 

 the extremities of Europe. It was particularly cherished by 

 the Celtee, to whom a dog so powerful and vigilant must have 

 been of inestimable price, in countries of dense forest, pos- 

 sessed by the larger wild animals, and by human enemies 

 yet more dangerous. The Roman writers, accordingly, speak 

 of the Molossi of the Barbarians, and especially of those of 

 the Gauls, which they describe as being savage and power- 

 ful, and as being employed by the natives in war. They 

 speak, likewise, of the Molossi of the Britons, which were so 



