Few subjects, and certainly no animal, has been treated with so much written eloquence as the Dog, nor do we grudge the lavish encomiums heaped upon him, for they are well deserved.

That we do not follow in the usual course pursued by writers on this subject there are several reasons. First, the felt want of ability to give expression to our views and feelings in language at once sufficiently laudatory and appropriate; secondly, that the several writers who have assisted in compiling this book may be trusted to do justice to the breeds they treat of in better terms than we can; and, lastly, that as the book is intended to be in great part descriptive of the varieties as seen and classified at our dog shows, and therefore a practical work, both for the experienced exhibitor and the tyro whose love for the dog needs no stimulus, panegyrics on his good qualities are not needed.

In carrying out our purpose, we have, on a plan we will presently more fully explain, grouped the dogs, and, as far as possible, given a full, minute, and accurate description of each variety as it at present exists and is recognised at our principal dog shows, and illustrated these descriptions by faithful portraits of dogs of the day that are acknowledged by the highest authorities to be true representatives of their class.

The subdivision of classes is now so great, and the points that separate one from another in some cases so minute, that an illustration in every case is needless, but wherever a sufficient difference of type to require it exists, we have called in the aid of the artist to explain our meaning. The pencil greatly assists the pen in showing the difference between closely allied breeds, and in this the several artists have in most cases been eminently successful.

No book on dogs would be complete without some notice of the history and development of the various breeds, as far as it can be traced by direct testimony or fair inference, but we have not attempted that well-trodden ground which has hitherto proved so barren, and discussed the vexed question of the origin of the dog, which remains to the present time hopelessly obscure, and surrounded with the entanglements of contradictory opinions waiting to be unravelled by a Darwin or a Wallace.

In reference, however, to the origin of the very great number of varieties which exist, and are ever increasing, we may in many instances hazard a speculation which may be accepted or rejected at the reader's option.

We cannot accept the theory propounded by a recent writer that each country or district had a peculiar type of wild dog created for it from which the various breeds of domesticated dogs have sprung. Varieties can, we think, be accounted for more reasonably and more in accord with the result of modern research.

Whoever would write the history of dogs must write the history of man, for in periods as remote as history reaches we find this animal associated with him as his useful servant. When or how the close intimacy sprung up which mutual advantage has kept and improved century after century, it may be impossible, with accuracy, to determine; but when we consider the extraordinary capacity for service natural to the dog, his wonderful scenting powers, his great speed, his strength and endurance, his marvellous cunning, his indomitable courage, his power of arranging, and facility in carrying out a preconcerted attack on his prey, we see a combination of qualities in the dog of the greatest value to man in his most primitive state, which man's superior intelligence would quickly perceive and lead him to wish to appropriate to his own use, and possibly the conquest was rendered easy by a natural instinct in the lower animal to trust, love, and serve him. At least in favour of this we have the fact, which applies with more or less force to all breeds, that their greatest pleasure is in serving man and receiving his praise.

When man depended largely on the spoils of the chase for sustenance the dog would be of the utmost value to him, and when the time came that other of our more domesticated animals were subdued, or partially so, and the shepherd's crook was taken up in addition to the rude instruments of war and chase, the pliant nature of the dog would be quickly moulded into agreement with the new state of things, and become, as we find he had in the days of the patriarch Job, and as he still is in many countries, both tender and defender of the flocks and herds.

In this case the new duties and conditions of life would develop new traits of character and variety of form and shape. The shepherd's dog would gradually assume a character of his own, and the Nimrods of those early days would have their own branches of the family chosen as best suited for their particular purpose, which, being used for special work, certain faculties being constantly used whilst others were allowed to lie dormant, the latter would become almost extinguished, and thus still further divergence of type from the original and differences between existing breeds become more distinct.

This alone, carried out extensively, as it was certain to be, would produce great variety in form, size, colour, and capabilities, and with the growth of civilisation these influences would increase in strength and variety, and, together with the powerful influence of climate and accidental circumstances, impossible to gauge, fully account for the extraordinary varieties of form we see in the dog as he exists at present.

Anecdotes of dogs are not embraced in our scheme. We have not inflicted insipidities of that kind on our readers; these are usually mere extensions of personal vanity, using the dog as the medium of praising the writer, and are generally, in addition, a compromise between the marvellous and the silly, that might be fairly described as attenuated twaddle. All such we have mercilessly excluded, and found room only for a few which are exceptionally apt and strongly illustrative of some distinguishing characteristic.