The St. Bernard Dog 575 



scroll at the top it states that the counts founded the monastery of Wibling- 

 ensis in 1099, but that tells nothing as to when the painting was done; and 

 Baumgartner did not engrave it till five hundred years later, hence it is of no 

 value as a representation of a dog of 1099. 



Wynn, in his "History of the Mastiff," says that the first dogs at the 

 Hospice were of bloodhound type and that after that the monks got dogs 

 "more nearly resembling the spaniel type, probably identical with the 

 Italian wolfdog, used to defend their flocks in the mountains of Abruzzo." 

 Where Wynn got that idea from he fails to say, and immediately proceeds to 

 show that it could not have been so, for to this cross he attributes the long- 

 coated variety, whereas we have very positive evidence that the dogs at the 

 Hospice were smooth-coated and that the roughs were got rid of as not suited 

 for the work. 



The first positive proof we have of the St. Bernard type is the stuffed skin 

 of Barry in the Museum at Berne. Barry was of the old breed before the ken- 

 nels were brought so low by accidents and sickness in the winter of 1815. 

 We need not describe Barry, for we show what the stuffed figure looks like, 

 that of a medium-sized, smooth-coated dog. Herr Schumaker in his sketch 

 of the breed from 1815 to 1880 says that about 1830 the kennel was so much 

 reduced once more that the monks had recourse to Newfoundland and Great 

 Dane bitches to get healthier and stronger dogs, but he does not say what 

 was done at the 18 15 emergency. Doubtless the same course was followed. 

 Barry is the dog that Idstone stated had saved forty-two lives. Stonehenge 

 copied him, and then the number was raised to seventy-five by Mr. Mac- 

 dona, then the Reverend Macdona, whose importations were the first boom 

 the breed got in England, though they were not the first St. Bernards in 

 that country by a long way. Idstone also started the erroneous tale that 

 Barry was killed by a traveller he was seeking to resuscitate, whereas he was 

 sent to Berne because of his growing incapacity for the arduous work the 

 dogs had to do, and there he lived till his death. 



That there was another variety of dog, in Switzerland at that time is 

 absolutely certain; but whether they were cast-offs from the monastery, as 

 not being what was wanted there, and were the results of some necessary 

 outcrossing, there is no means of knowing. We cannot quite understand, 

 however, why with this large dog at hand the monks went to the trouble of 

 getting Newfoundlands, which could not have been very common there at 

 that time. This other Swiss dog became known in England as the Alpine 



