CLASS I. MAMMALIA: 
ORDER 5. 
OARNIA^ORA. 
229 
nearly lialf grown — a male and a female — Had inhabited the same cage from the time that the 
young ones were horn. Some cause of quarrel occurred on a certain night, and the two bitches 
fell upon the dog and destroyed him. There w^as not a limb left whole. Even in their native 
country all attempts to domesticate them perfectly, have failed, for they never lose an opportunity 
to devour the poultry or attack the sheep. One that was brought to England broke his chain — 
scoured the surroirnding country — and, before dawn, had destroyed several sheep ; and another 
attacked, and would have destroyed, an ass, if he had not been prevented. These animals Averc 
formerly numerous in New Holland, but they are now comparatively rare. 
A curious instance of the effect of domestication in producing variation in color has lately beeii 
exhibited in a very striking and interesting manner in the menagerie of the Zoological Society by 
a bitch of this variety. She had a litter of puppies, the sire of which was also of her own breed. 
Both of them had been taken in the wild state, bnt were of the uniform reddish-brown color 
•which belongs to the race, and the mother had never bred before ; but the young, bred in con- 
finement and in a half-domesticated state, were all of them more or less spotted. 
DlVISIOJf YI.— THE MASTIFF AND BULL-DOa. 
The ancients divided dogs into three kinds : the Celercs, or swift dogs, which hunted by sight, 
of which the greyhounds are the types ; the Sayaces, or intelligent dogs, of which the spaniels are 
the types ; and the Pxignaces, or fighting dogs, of which the mastiffs and bull-dogs are the repre- 
THE MASTIFF, 
sentatives. Of this latter kind, there Avas a variety from Epirus, probably the same as the modern 
Albanian dog, which had great fame ; but, after the discovery of Britain, these were pitted against 
a native variety of that island — doubtless the progenitors of the modern mastiff or the bull-dog — 
and completely beaten. The British pugnaces have maintained their ascendency from that day 
^ to this. The climate, indeed, seems favorable to the development of the fighting faculty, as the 
history of John Bull and his bull-dog alike testify. 
Tlie Mastiff is doubtless an original breed of the British islands, and there it has its completest 
