The above opinion of Colonel Garnier's, written, say, a quarter of a century ago, will scarcely find favour now. There is not the slightest similarity between the smooth St. Bernard and the mastiff, and our English bred specimens of the former are all, as a rule, bigger and heavier than any animals that have been imported. Nor can I see any resemblance, excepting, perhaps, in size, between Landseer's Alpine mastiffs, painted in the early part of that great artist's career, and our own English mastiff. No doubt crosses with some foreign bred dogs were introduced sixty years ago, and even more recently, but at that time canine education was not far advanced, and a dog with a foreign name would bring more money in the market than one that bore a national nomenclature. On this account I fancy pedigrees became somewhat mixed, and, reading all that has been written by Colonel Gamier and others, it would be difficult to believe in the British mastiff as little more than a mongrel rather than as a direct descendant of all that is old in our English dogs.

We hear of the bulldog cross and the bloodhound cross; but when were thev introduced, and by whom? These are important questions, which have not hitherto been answered. There is no doubt that amongst modern mastiffs specimens quite frequently occur that show in the round, broad skull, sunken eyes, and, shall I say, the undershot jaw, a decided leaning to the bulldog in expression. Some admirers of the breed say the mastiff ought to be undershot, and that he was so originally. A perfect mastiff ought to be as level in his teeth as a terrier. He should have a distinctive character of his own, not of the bulldog as above described, nor of the hound with a long square face, with loose skin under his throat, and deeply pendulous dewlaps.

Such dogs as I have in my mind bore none of these defects. They looked mastiffs pure and simple, and were such from the end of their noses to the tips of their tails. As my paragon I always took that grand dog Turk, who was bred by the late Miss Aglionby at Esthwaite Hall, near Hawks-head, one of the Lancashire portions of the English lake district. This fine dog, born in 1865, was one of an extraordinary litter by Mr. E. Field's King from the breeder's Hilda, the one whelping including Wolf, which his fair owner considered the better dog, Knight Templar, Emperor, and Turk. Thus there were four dogs in the same litter the like of which could scarcely be bred in twenty litters to-day. How these dogs won in classes that were far stronger then than now, and for years after likewise, is a matter of history. In 1871 sixty-nine mastiffs were benched at one of the Crystal Palace shows, and at Birmingham the same year there were twenty-nine competitors in the open dog class. There were men at that time who bred their dogs with care, and they had not commenced to breed for exaggerated heads to the sacrifice of qualities equally important.

Earlier than the Turk epoch, Mr. E. Hanbury, from Wiltshire, was showing some good dogs, and not many years later Mr. E. Nichols, of South Kensington, who survives, and takes as much interest in them as ever, would not look at any dog that possessed the round bull-headed skull introduced a little later. Bill George's Tiger, whose name will be found in the pedigrees of most modern mastiffs, was no great wonder in the way of size, but his head was correctly shaped, and if he was underhung at all it was very little. I never saw the dog myself, but whilst one authority says Tiger's lower jaw protruded, I am told that this was not the case. Mr. Lukey's Governor was not undershot, but no doubt some of the early dogs were so deformed, still with this defect they had not the additional ones of crooked and too twisted hocks, so prevalent as I write in 1893.

Other fine dogs that were not underhung were Mr. C. Bathurst's Peveril, Mr. Hanbury's Rajah, Sir T. Fermor Hesketh's Nero, Mr. Ralph Yeardsley's Anlaf, a son of Mr. M. B. Wynn's Monarch, and later Mr. Dickenson's Lion and Mrs. Rawlinson's Hector, with many others that could be mentioned, and with so much good stuff to breed from, the wonder is that the defects alluded to have not died out rather than increased. Then there is no getting away from the fact that the more any of the modern mastiffs resemble the bulldog in head, the greater probability that they resemble him in his walk - or waddle rather - a gait certainly quite out of place in a typical mastiff.

To my idea, that dog Crown Prince, who was bred by Mr. Woolmore in 1880, has much to answer for, so far as the present defects in the mastiff are concerned. He was a peculiarly coloured fawn dog, known to fanciers as "Dudley-faced" - that is, his nose was red, his eyes had a similar inclination, and a yellow redness pervaded his face and muzzle, which to me was always most repellant. Unfortunately, his evil marking notwithstanding, this dog attracted the notice of the judges, and by them was awarded the highest honours attainable, because they said his head was so extraordinarily good in its various developments. It was exaggerated all over, and so was not a good head. He was both "lippy" and "jowly," his skull was very wide, still proportionate with his muzzle, and he was but little undershot.

However, he, winning prizes, was used very much at stud, and continued, with that perverseness so marked in many instances, to transmit his very defects to his progeny, and any good points he had - well, he kept them to himself. Crown Prince was a straight-hocked dog, and a very moderate mover, nor were his fore-legs and feet nearly so good as they might have been.

The following communication is from one of the leading exhibitors and breeders of mastiffs at the present day, and the opinions expressed therein so thoroughly coincide with my own, that I have not the slightest hesitation in publishing it, however it may grate on the feelings of those who during recent years have tried to produce an abnormal head at the expense of good limbs, lengthy body, and other important attributes: