172 



THE THIBET DOG. (Cam's molossus Thibetanus.) 



The pair of dogs here represented were brought from the 

 neighbourhood of Diggarchee, the capital of Thibet, by Dr. 

 Wallich, the celebrated botanist, and were presented by William 

 the Fourth to the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens, where 

 they died shortly after their arrival. Mr. Bennett says, they 

 were larger in size than any English mastiff that he had seen. 

 " Their colour was a deep black, slightly clouded on the sides ; 

 their feet and a spot over each eye alone being of a full tawny 

 or bright brown. They had the broad short truncated muzzle 

 of the mastiff, and lips still more deeply pendulous. In fact 

 there appeared throughout a general looseness of the skin j a 

 circumstance which M. Desmarest has pointed out as charac- 

 teristic of his Dogue du Thibet, of which, however, he gives no 

 particular description. It is, we have no doubt, the same 

 animal."* 



Dr. Wallich, who says that this pair were very gentle, informs 

 us that, " These noble animals are the watch-dogs of the table 



* Zoological Gardens Delineated, vol. i. (1831), p. 152. 



