THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



49 



nimbler dogs being used for the purpose of 

 driving and herding. 



The type is easier to conceive from the pic- 

 ture than by a written description. Like all 

 dogs bred for utility, and not yet taken up by 

 "the fancy," he is bound by no standard of per- 

 fection and is subject to considerable variation. 

 The best dog is the one that does his work best, 

 which is as it should be. 



THE MASTIFF 



(For illustration, see page 58) 



If the Pyrenean dog is one of the most 

 beautiful dogs in the world, surely the English 

 mastiiif is one of the most famous. It is re- 

 garded as probably the oldest of all British 

 dogs, and, as we have seen, its ancestors were 

 used by the Assyrians for hunting big game. 



It is believed that this large, powerful dog 

 was introduced into Britain in the sixth cen- 

 tury B. C. by the adventurous Phoenician 

 traders, and was used by the Britons in hunting 

 and in warfare. The Romans found him well 

 established when they invaded the island in 

 55 B. C, and thereafter mastiffs, because of 

 their great size, strength, and courage, were 

 used to fight in the Roman amphitheaters. 



In more recent times the breed has become 

 heavier and less active and has been used 

 chiefly as a companion and a guardian of prop- 

 erty. 



Perhaps the most famous strain of mastiffs 

 in England is at Lyme Hall, in Cheshire ; it is 

 said to have come down in unbroken descent 

 from the fifteenth century. When I [Mr. 

 Baynes] was a small child my father's place, 

 "Harewood," was close to Lyme Park, and one 

 of my earliest recollections is of going with 

 my parents to an entertainment at Lyme Hall. 

 Coming away we descended into a flagged 

 court-yard, and I remember that we were at 

 once surrounded by a number of huge, tawny 

 dogs which I was told were the Lyme mastiffs. 



Many stories are told of the services ren- 

 dered by these splendid dogs to their masters, 

 the Lees of Lyme. It is said that when Sir 

 Peers Lee lay wounded on the battlefield of 

 Agincourt, he was guarded by a mastiff^ which 

 had followed him to the war and which lay 

 beside him through the night. Sir Henry Lee, 

 of the same family, was saved from death by 

 one of the dogs, which pinned to the floor a 

 valet who had come to his master's bedroom 

 to murder him. 



The perfect mastiff may be either fawn with 

 a dark face, ears and muzzle, or brindle. He 

 stands about 28 inches, and should weigh 

 about I/O pounds. There should be no dew- 

 claw, and the small, dark eye should show no 

 haw. Strong, straight and heavy, both of body 

 and limb, with a deep chest and massive square 

 head, the perfect mastifi^ is an exceedingly 

 splendid-looking animal. 



He is now bred mostly as a companion, and 

 never sees service in his old romantic calling. 

 He is probably part ancestor of the great Dane, 

 whose principal other component is greyhound. 

 One of the noblest of dogs, it is to be regretted 



that his unwieldiness and expensive keep have 

 rendered him rather unpopular, so that now he 

 is indeed rarely seen. 



Points to avoid are a light, narrow, or un- 

 dershot head, cow-hocks, sagging back and 

 rolling gait, weak legs and bent pasterns, curly 

 tail and pale face. 



BULLDOG 



(For illustration, see page 62) 



The English bulldog for hundreds of years 

 and in almost every land has typified unflinch- 

 ing courage and unshakable determination. As 

 the lion has been used to represent the majesty 

 of Great Britain, so the bulldog has been used 

 to represent her persistence — her ability to 

 "hang on" until she has accomplished whatever 

 she has undertaken. 



As his name implies, the bulldog got his 

 name from the fact that he was used in the 

 old-time "sport" of bull-baiting, which was 

 popular among certain classes in England for 

 at least 700 years, until it was made illegal in 

 1835. Even after that, occasional matches were 

 continued illegally until 1853, and the actual 

 rings for bull-baiting still remain in several 

 places in England. 



The "sport" was usually held at some "gar- 

 den" maintained for this and similar purposes, 

 or sometimes in a public market-place. Here 

 a bull with a rope about his horns was teth- 

 ered to a ring bolted to a rock or to a stake 

 driven into the ground. The rope being about 

 IS feet long, the bull had considerable room in 

 which to move without being able to endanger 

 the lives of the onlookers. 



The object of the dog was to seize the bull's 

 nose in his teeth, pin it to the ground and not 

 leave it. He was bred with an undershot jaw 

 and a retreating nose, that he might hang on 

 to the bull and breathe easily at the same time. 



The bull, of course, did his best to toss the 

 dog with his horns, and often succeeded. 

 Pepys, who witnessed a bull-baiting in~South- 

 wark in 1666, naively describes it as "a very 

 rude and nasty pleasure." 



The dogs were also used to bait full-grown 

 bears and for dog-fighting. For such work 

 they had to be not only strong, but very active. 

 They were real and splendid dogs in spite of 

 the barbarous uses they were put to. 



The bulldog of today is a grotesque deform- 

 ity — short-legged, short-winded, short-lived, 

 and barely able to reproduce its kind. It is 

 chiefly useful for infusing courageous blood 

 into other breeds, for adding variety to a dog 

 show, and as an example (to be avoided) of 

 what can be done by senseless breeding to spoil 

 a perfectly good dog. 



But they haven't quite spoiled him, for he 

 still retains his old-time dauntless courage, 

 and he has a homely smile that would melt the 

 hearts of even the few unfortunates who boast 

 that they hate dogs. 



And here is an appropriate place to register 

 a friendly protest against the arbitrary fixing 

 of points for which dog owners must breed in 

 order to win at the dog shows, without suffi- 



