into early
Britain by the adventurous Phoenician traders who, in the sixth
century B.C., voyaged to the Scilly Islands and Cornwall to barter
their own commodities in exchange for the useful metals. Knowing the
requirements of their barbarian customers, these early merchants from
Tyre and Sidon are believed to have brought some of the larger
_pugnaces_, which would be readily accepted by the Britons to
supplant, or improve, their courageous but undersized fighting dogs.

In Anglo-Saxon times every two villeins were required to maintain
one of these dogs for the purpose of reducing the number of wolves
and other wild animals. This would indicate that the Mastiff was
recognised as a capable hunting dog; but at a later period his hunting
instincts were not highly esteemed, and he was not regarded as a peril
to preserved game; for in the reign of Henry III. the Forest Laws,
which prohibited the keeping of all other breeds by unprivileged
persons, permitted the Mastiff to come within the precincts of a
forest, imposing, however, the condition that every such dog should
have the claws of the fore-feet removed close to the skin.

The name Mastiff was probably applied to any massively built dog.
It is not easy to trace the true breed amid the various names which
it owned. Molossus, Alan, Alaunt, Tie-dog, Bandog (or Band-dog), were
among the number. The names Tie-dog and Bandog intimate that the
Mastiff was commonly kept for guard, but many were specially trained
for baiting bears, imported lions, and bulls.

There is constant record of the Mastiff having been kept and carefully
bred for many generations in certain old English families. One of
the oldest strains of Mastiffs was that kept by Mr. Legh, of Lyme
Hall, in Cheshire. They were large, powerful dogs, and longer in
muzzle than those which we are now accustomed to see. Another old
and valuable strain was kept by the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth.
It is to these two strains that the dogs of the present day trace
back.

Mr. Woolmore's Crown Prince was one of the most celebrated of
Mastiffs. He was a fawn dog with a Dudley nose and light eye, and
was pale in muzzle, and whilst full credit must be given to him for
having sired many good Mastiffs, he must be held responsible for the
faults in many specimens of more recent years. Unfortunately, he was
indiscriminately bred from, with the result that in a very short time
breeders found it impossible to find a Mastiff unr