THE BULL-DOG. 
241 
Its extraordinary courage is so well known as to have passed into a proverb, and to have 
so excited the admiration of the British nation that they have been pleased to symbolize their 
peculiar tenacity of purpose under the emblem of this small but most determined animal. In 
height the Bull-dog is but insignificant, but in strength and courage there is no Bog that can 
match him. Indeed, there is hardly any breed of sporting Bog which does not owe its high 
courage to an infusion of the Bull-dog blood ; and it is chiefly for this purpose that the pure 
breed is continued. 
Those cruel and cowardly combats between the bull and the Bog, which were a dis- 
grace, even in the earlier part of the present century, have long been abolished, and a few 
“bull rings,” still remaining in the ground, are their sole relics. In these contests the Bog 
BULL-DOG. — Cams familiaris nwlossus. 
was trained to fly at the head of the bull, and to seize him by the muzzle as he stooped 
his head for the purpose of tossing his antagonist into the air. When he had once made 
good his hold it was almost impossible for the bull to shake off his pertinacious foe, 
who clung firmly to his antagonist, and suffered himself to be swung about as the bull might 
choose. 
There seems, indeed, to be no animal which the Bull-dog will not attack without the least 
hesitation. The instinct of fight is strong within him, and manifests itself actively in the 
countenance and the entire formation of this creature. 
It is generally assumed that the Bull-dog must be a very dull and brutish animal, because 
almost every specimen which has come before the notice of the public has held such a char- 
acter. For this unpleasant disposition, a celebrated writer and zoologist attempts to account 
by observing that the brain of the Bull-dog is smaller in proportion to its body than that of 
any other Bog, and that therefore the animal must needs be of small sagacity. But “ Stone- 
henge” well remarks, that although the Bull-dog’s brain appears to the eye to be very small 
