NATURAL HISTORY OF TII DOG. 109 



Frenchman, named Casserane, a butcher in Ormond Market. 

 He had male and female, and their whelps were eagerly 

 purchased at five guineas each, as soon as weaned. W. 

 Flood, Esq., of Stillorgan, possesses a noble specimen, of which 

 we give a figure ; and there was also, until lately, a beauti- 

 ful specimen, named " Donna," in possession of my relative, 

 John Richardson, Esq., of Newington Terrace, Rathmines. 

 Donna was one of the best water-dogs I ever saw. She was 

 gentle ; but very wild and playful, and her tremendous size 

 rendered her romping caresses any thing but agreeable. My 

 relative went on one occasion to bathe, accompanied by Don- 

 na, who watched the progress of unrobing with much appa- 

 rent curiosity. No sooner had her master plunged into the 

 water, however, than Donna sprang after him, and, doubtless 

 uneasy for his safety, seized him by the shoulder, and dragged 

 him, in spite of all his resistance and he is both a powerful 

 man and a capital swimmer with more zeal than gentleness, 

 to land ; nor could he ever enter the water in Donna's pres- 

 ence. 



Mr. Otley, of Rathmines, possesses a noble dog of this breed, 

 of remarkably large size and striking appearance : and Mr. 

 Bryan (late Sheriff Bryan) has a fine dog, which was brougl 

 some years ago from the Alps direct. 



THE SPANISH OR CUBAN MASTIFF 



Is not to be confounded which he, however, has been 

 with the Spanish or Cuban bloodhound. This is a totally 

 different dog. 



The Spanish or Cuban Mastiff is a very powerfully built 

 dog, of from twenty-six to twenty-eight inches in height, with 

 extraordinary development of bone and muscle. His head is 

 of prodigious size, even apparently too large in proportion to 

 his body ; his eyes are placed very far apart ; his upper lip 

 pendulous, but not so much so as in the preceding dog ; the 

 ear is small, and not perfectly pendulous, being erect at the 

 root, but the tip falling over ; color usually tawny or light ru- 

 fus ; the under jaw is also undershot, and I do not think I can 

 give my readers a better idea of the dog, than by describing 

 him as a gigantic bull-dog, occupying precisely the same po- 

 sition with regard to the prodigious mastiff of the Alps, which 

 our own British bull-dog does in reference to the English 

 mastiff. The Spanish or Cuban Mastiff is a dog of great cour- 

 age ; in Spain he is used in the combats of the amphitheatre, 



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