CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 5. CARNIVORA. 



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nearly half grown — a male and a female — had inhabited the same cage from the time that the 

 young ones were born. Some cause of quarrel occurred on a certain night, and the two bitches 

 fell upon the dog and destroyed him. There was not a limb left whole. Even in their native 

 country all attempts to domesticate them perfectly, have failed, for they never lose an opportunitv 



to devour the poultry or attack the sheep. One that was brought to England broke his chain 



scoured the surrounding country — and, before dawn, had destroyed several sheep; and another 

 attacked, and would have destroyed, an ass, if he had not been prevented. These animals were 

 formerly numerous in New Holland, but they are now comparatively rare. 



A curious instance of the effect of domestication in producing variation in color has lately been 

 exhibited in a very striking and interesting manner in the menagerie of the Zoological Society by 

 a bitch of this variety. She had a litter of puppies, the sire of which was also of her own breed. 

 Both of them had been taken in the wild state, but were of the uniform reddish-brown color 

 which belongs to the race, and the mother had never bred before ; but the young, bred in con- 

 finement and in a half-domesticated state, were all of them more or less spotted. 



DIVISION VI.— THE MASTIFF AXD BULL-DOG. 



The ancients divided dogs into three kinds : the Celercs, or swift dogs, which hunted by siy;ht, 

 of which the greyhounds are the types; the Sajaces, or intelligent dogs, of which the spaniels are 

 the tvpes ; and the Pugnaces, or fighting dogs, of which the mastiffs and bull-dogs are the repre- 



THE MASTIFF. 



sentatives. Of this latter kind, there was a variety from Epirus, probably the same as the modern 

 Albanian dog, which had great fame ; but, after the discovery of Britain, these were pitted against 

 a native variety of that island — doubtless the progenitors of the modern mastiff or the bull-dog- 

 and completely beaten. The British pugnaces have maintained their ascendency from that day 

 to this. The climate, indeed, seems favorable to the development of the fighting faculty, as the 

 history of John Bull and his bull-dog alike testify. 



The Mastiff b doubtless an original breed of the British islands, and there it has its completest 



