NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 107 



ccounts of such faithworthy persons as have actually seen 

 them. 



It is not every one whose description of a dog would have 

 weight with me. He must be a lover of the race in short, 

 a dog-fancier to understand the animal's points, and hence 

 give a correct description. By some writers, the St. Bernard 

 dog is described as a large spaniel! with soft, curly coat, and 

 long, fringed ears. My esteemed old friend, Captain Thomas 

 Brown, in his very amusing " Anecdotes of Dogs," actually 

 gives a figure of this dog, representing him as a large CQcker ! 

 Mr. Jesse does not describe the dog's appearance at all, and it 

 would not be easy to make out what the figure is intended 1o 

 represent, whether, indeed, a dog, or some nondescript ani- 

 mal. Mr. Martin places him with the Newfoundland and 

 Calabrian dogs, and, to a certain extent, he is not far astray. 



Colonel H. Smith, (Nat. Lib.) and whose valuable work 

 seems to-have furnished Mr. Martin with more than the ground- 

 work of his classes the St. Bernard dog also with the wolf- 

 dog group ; but he, at the same time, informs us, that more 

 than one description of dog is trained by the monks of the 

 Great St. Bernard, for their pious and charitable purposes. 

 One sort he describes as being long-coated, and resembling 

 the Newfoundland, and the other as being short-coated, and 

 resembling the Great Dane in color and hair, 



The animal figured by Colonel Smith ~a dog belonging to 



