NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 65 



about half way home, that I had forgotten my towel, in the 

 shed appropriated to the accommodation of bathers at the pier 

 end. More in jest than earnest, I turned to the dog, and said, 

 showing my empty hands, " Lincoln, I have lost my towel, 

 go and seek it." To my surprise, the sagacious creature, 

 after looking for an instant, first at my empty hands, and 

 then at the towel of my companion, turned and set off at a 

 rapid pace back towards Newhaven. At the moment I 

 thought but little of the matter ; for I concluded that the 

 dog would retrace his steps for a short distance, and then re- 

 turn ; but he had not reappeared when I reached the gate of 

 the Botanic Garden : so I entered, and, as usual, heard 

 lecture ; but what was my astonishment when, lecture being 

 over, I left the gardens, and found the faithful and intelligent 

 animal waiting for me, with my missing towel in his mouth. 

 Colonel H. Smith (Nat. Lib. Mam., vol. x.) describes the 

 boar-dog as an allied breed to the Dane, yet not altogether 

 identical with him, and speaks of one that stood " little less 

 than four feet high at the shoulder." It was doubtless so re- 

 puted ; but Colonel Smith did not himself either see or 

 measure the dog in question. I doubt not but that the ani- 

 mal was very tall, but I most strenuously deny any dog 

 being as large as a horse. I am also disposed to the belief 

 that the smooth Dane is the true dog, and his rough brother 

 a cross. Colonel Smith also styles the boar-dog the " Suliot 

 dog." Now Suli is a very limited district of Albania, oc- 

 cupying scarcely six hundred square miles in extent, and 

 lying south, whereas these dogs are natives chiefly of the 

 regions north of the Balkan. I think that Colonel Smith has 

 been led into this misnomer from a hasty view of Gmelin's 

 Latin designation of the great Dane, Cants Suillus, derived 

 evidently from the employment to which the dogs were de- 

 voted, viz., hunting the sus or hog, and not from the locality 

 where they were bred. In the older paintings, the boar-dogs 

 are evidently of the great Danish stock, with a dash of the 

 great rough greyhound ; and probably such were many of 

 our later Irish wolf-hounds, after the original breed had 

 grown somewhat scarce. 



THE SPANISH BLOODHOUND. 



This is the dog rendered so infamous by its employment in 

 the chase of runaway negro slaves in South America and 

 the Spanish West Indian Islands. 



6* 



