"General Description of Body (Height and Substance) Value 10.-Massive, broad, deep, long, powerfully built, on legs wide apart and squarely set. Muscles sharply defined. Size a great desideratum, if combined with quality. Height and substance important if both points are proportionately combined.

"Skull (Value 12).-Broad between the ears, forehead flat, but wrinkled when attention is excited. Brows (superciliary ridges) slightly raised. Muscles of the temples and cheeks (temporal and masseter) well developed. Arch across the skull of a rounded, flattened curve, with a depression up the centre of the forehead from the medium line between the eyes, to half way up the sagittal suture.

"Face or Muzzle (Value 18).-Short, broad under the eyes, and keeping nearly parallel in width to the end of the nose; truncated, i.e., blunt and cut off square, thus forming a right angle with the upper line of the face, of great depth from the point of the nose to under jaw. Under-jaw broad to the end; canine teeth healthy, powerful, and wide apart; incisors level, or the lower projecting beyor d the upper, but never sufficiently so as to become visible when the mouth is closed. Nose broad, with viewed from the

widely spreading nostrils when

front; flat (not pointed nor turned up) in profile.

D

Lips diverging at obtuse angles with the septum, and slightly pendulous, so as to show a square profile. Length of muzzle to whole head and face as I to 3. Circumference of muzzle (measured midway between the eyes and nose) to that of the head (measured before the ears) as 3 to 5.

"Ears (Value 4).-Small, thin to the touch, wide apart, set on at the highest points of the sides of the skull, so as to continue the outline across the summit, and lying flat and close to the cheeks when in repose.

66

Eyes (Value 6).-Small, wide apart, divided by at least the space of two eyes. The stop between the eyes well marked, but not too abrupt. Colour hazel-brown, the darker the better, showing no haw.

Chest and Ribs (Value 8). - Neck, slightly arched, moderately long, very muscular, and measuring in circumference about one or two inches less than the skull before the ears. Chest, wide, deep, and well let down between the fore-legs. Ribs arched and well rounded. False ribs deep and well set back to the hips. Girth should be one-third more than the height at the shoulder. Shoulder and Arm, slightly sloping, heavy and muscular.

"Fore Legs and Feet (Value 6).-Legs straight, strong, and set wide apart; bones very large.

Elbows square.

Pasterns upright. Feet large and

round. Toes well arched up. Nails black.

Back, Loins, and Flanks (Value 8).—Back and loins wide and muscular; flat and very wide in a bitch, slightly arched in a dog. Great depth of flanks.

Hind Legs and Feet (Value 10).-Hind-quarters broad, wide and muscular, with well developed second thighs, hocks bent, wide apart, and quite squarely set when standing or walking. Feet round.

"Tail (Value 3).-Put on high up, and reaching to the hocks, or a little below them, wide at its root and tapering to the end, hanging straight in repose, but forming a curve, with the end pointing upwards, but not over the back, when the dog is excited.

"Coat.-Colour (Value 5).—Coat short and close lying, but not too fine over the shoulders, neck, and back. Colour, apricot or silver-fawn, or dark fawnbrindle. In any case, muzzle, ears, and nose should be black, with black round the orbits, and extending upwards between them."

The executive of the Mastiff Club have not in their description issued any numerical scale of points, evidently believing-as so many others do— the uselessness of figures in arriving at the good, or bad, or indifferent qualities of any dog. However, there are some individuals who would apply figures

to anything and to everything; so to satisfy them, and to make the description of the mastiff uniform with that of other dogs described in the previous volume, the following scale has been compiled:

Weight of a dog, from 155lb. to 175lb.; of a

bitch, from 140lb. to 160lb.