The history of the dog : its origin, physical and moral characteristics, and its principal varieties / by W.C.L. Martin.

  • William Charles Linnaeus Martin
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of the dog : its origin, physical and moral characteristics, and its principal varieties / by W.C.L. Martin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    respecting these Cuban bloodhounds have been pub- lished ; some exaggerating their powers, others decrying them. We have had abundant opportunities of scruti- nizing the specimens which from time to time have been kept in the Zoological Gardens, and we hesitate not to regard them as mastiffs rather than hounds, though they have not the heavy head and extremely pendulous lips of the English mastiff. Their colour is tawny, with black about the muzzle ; the ears are comparatively small, but pendent; the muzzle is shorter, and the jaws thicker than in the hound, yet not so truncate as in the bulldog. The limbs are remarkably powerful, and the general con- tour is compact, indicating both activity and strength ; the chest is very broad ; their height at the shoulder is about two feet. In their disposition they are faithful and attached, and, unless irritated, very gentle; they make excellent guard-dogs, and will attack both the bull and the bear with determined resolution. It will be seen that in our arrangement of dogs we place these fine ani- mals in the mastiff group. There appears to exist a race of most beautiful hounds in Central Africa, of which Colonel (then Major) Den- ham brought over three, two males and one female, on his return to England from that country, and presented them to the then existing royal menagerie in the Tower, under the care of Mr. Cops. The colonel informed Mr. Cops that he had himself hunted the gazelle with them, and that they displayed great cunning, frequently quitting the circuitous line of scent for the purpose of cutting off a double, and recovering the scent again with ease. They would hit off, and follow a scent after the lapse of two hours from the time when the animal had
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