It is not uncommon for people to be misled by sound as to fact. Quoting from "Hudibras" in confirmation of this statement:

Agrippa kept a Stygian Pug I'th' garb and habit of a dog, That was his tutor.

To go from Butler to Gay, we find these lines:

Poor Pug was caught, to town conveyed, There sold. How envied was his doom, Made captive in a lady's room!

Howell, writing in 1660, says: "My pretty pug, ma belle, irtamie." This appears to have been, at the time, a commonly familiar and endearing form of address.

From the more pleasing poetical allusions and illusions let us turn to the practical naturalist.

Richardson says: "The Pug is a flat-nosed dog, so called from its resemblance to a monkey."

Bell, author of "British Quadrupeds," says: "The Pug, which has somewhat the aspect of the Bulldog, is a small variety with the same projection of the lower jaw, the same close, short hair, and similar conformation of body. It is, however, the very reverse of that savage race in disposition, being remarkably timid, and though possessing little sagacity, tolerably good-tempered. It is useless in the field, and kept only as a pet, for which purpose, however, it is greatly inferior to most other dogs."

Although the word pug originally meant an imp, or little demon, the name is not applied to the dog in a sinister sense, but with a kindly feeling, as we playfully call a spirited child a little imp, as that most kind-hearted of poets, the Ettrick Shepherd, wrote of his children:

My imps, though hardy, bold, and wild, As best befits the mountain child.

This point has been dwelt upon because so many present-day writers have copied " Idstone's " errors.

Every writer on Pugs since the issue of "Stonehenge's" work, in 1859, has informed his readers that twenty, thirty, or fifty years ago - according to the date of their writing - the Pug dog was exceedingly scarce, and, indeed, all but lost. There is no need to lament any such scarcity now. As soon as the tide of fashion turned and again set in for Pugs, the creation of the supply commenced, and now, like so many others, the Pug market is overstocked, and everywhere, in town and country, these animals abound.

"Idstone," writing in 1872, hazards the opinion, or, rather, expresses a doubt, whether we could produce half a dozen specimens equal to what existed a century ago. "Idstone" apparently undervalued the Pugs of the day when he penned the remarks quoted; and ever since there have been dozens of first-class Pug dogs shown, and there are and always have been a very much greater number in private hands which are never exhibited. There are, however, still too few good ones, an immense quantity of mediocre ones, and a superabundance of "weeds." The fact is, dog shows have given a tremendous impetus to breeding. Yet, very few who take up dog breeding as a sort of "hobby that can be made to pay" seem to have any idea that there are certain laws of breeding which must be followed if success is to be attained, and that, together with the exercise of a grasping spirit, which will turn every pup, however worthless, into coin of the realm, fills the country with rubbish. It is quite certain that there are far more puppies of this and other breeds born than ought to be allowed to live. Many are so weak in vitality that they are sure, if they live at all, to grow up diseased and "weedy," and a majority are so wanting in the essential qualities of the breed that no one with a real desire to improve our dogs would think of rearing them. But such dogs are reared and bred from on account of a supposed value attaching to their pedigrees, and so faults are propagated and intensified.

Much has been written on the origin of the Pug, but all seems to be merely conjecture. One writer says we first obtained the Pug from Muscovy, and that he is an undoubted native of that country; another, that he is indigenous to Holland; whilst others assert the Pug to be a cross between our English Bulldog and the small Dane.

Dogs of Pug character are widely distributed: a dog nearly akin to him is met with in China and Japan, he is well known in Russia, a favourite in Germany, plentiful in Holland and Belgium, and common enough in France.

From the date of his resuscitation in this country his history is much clearer, and by the aid of the Stud Books and other means will be kept so. In "Dogs of the British Islands" "Stonehenge" states, and no doubt on the best authority, that in the decade 1840-50, among other breeders who attempted to bring the

Pug up to its former distinguished position in this country, foremost and most successful was the then Lady Willoughby d'Eresby, who succeeded, by crossing a dog obtained in Vienna with a bitch of a strong fawn colour imported from Holland, and afterwards by carefully selecting from their stock dogs for breeding, in establishing the once celebrated Willoughby strain. The same excellent authority states that the pale-coloured Morrison strain is lineally descended from a stock in the possession of Queen Charlotte, and through them, no doubt, to inherit the blood of the favourites of King William III., who, it seems, from historical memoranda, first established the breed in this country. The late Mr. Morrison, it is assumed, obtained the breed through the servants of the Royal household, and by careful breeding established a strain that bears his name. It appears, therefore, that both the Willoughby and Morrison strains were strong in Dutch blood, the Morrison being the more purely Dutch.

No doubt there were many other sources to which the present race of Pugs is partly due, but it is not now usual to call every fawn or stone-coloured Pug a Willoughby, and the paler yellowish ones Morrisons; the two strains have been frequently united, and in a class of twenty almost every shade of colour between the two that mark these strains is met with.

The popularity of the Pug seems to have been at neap tide at the beginning of last century, if we may judge from the following remarks of a cynical writer of that period: "Perhaps in the whole catalogue of the canine species there is not one of less utility, or possessing less the power of attraction, than the Pug dog; applicable to no sport, appropriated to no useful purpose, susceptible of no predominant passion, and in no way remarkable for any extra eminence, he is continued from era to era for what alone he might have been originally intended - the patient follower of a ruminating philosopher, or the adulating and consolatory companion of an old maid." With these views and sentiments Pug-lovers, whether "ruminating philosophers," maids, or matrons, are not likely to be in sympathy. One would suppose the writer to have been a cantankerous old bachelor, caring for nothing but his pipe, his Pointer, and his gun.