Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/535

 JUNE so, woo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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tions from all other writs, and no one has a yet been able to supply an authoritative explanation, though many suggestions have been put forward. MR. JUBAL STAFFORD i confusing the dual character of baron anc lord of Parliament. A baron by tenure was a man who " held land in barony " ; h was not thereby a lord of Parliament. A lord of Parliament was one whom the king summoned to Parliament as a peer. Frorr the fact that the king summoned the mosi powerful men to Parliament, and also from the fact that all power in those days was due to the possession of land, and, further, thai nearly all land was "held in barony " at thai period, it naturally followed that nearly al" lords of Parliament were barons ; but thai the dual character was recognized is provec by the fact that Thomas de Furnivall, the first Lord Furnivall, denied successfully that he held any of his lands by barony. The application of the word " baron " to a lord oi Parliament is a much later growth, and at the present day the writ of a baron simply describes him as chevalier. John de Beau- champ de Holt, the first baron by letters patent, was created Lord de Beauchamp and Baron of Kidderminster.

A. C. FOX-DAVIES.

ANCIENT DOGS (9 th S. v. 269, 341). Prof. Boyd Dawkins, in ' Cave Hunting ' Cpp. 256-7), says that the dog was "introduced into Europe by Neolithic peoples." Prof. Rolleston ('Scientific Papers and Addresses,' p. 822) writes of " the bones of a dog who was keep- ing his mistress faithful company in a grave undoubtedly of the earliest Neolithic period in England"; and (p. 337) he says of the same dog:

"This dog bears no resemblance to the wolf-like Esquimaux dog on the one side, nor to any such small terrier-like breed on the other as might sug- gest that it represents a lately domesticated jackal. It may be conveniently spoken of, as Riitimeyer ('Fauna der Pfahlbauten,' p. 118) does sneak of the dog, similarly rare in the relics from Swiss lake- dwellings, as a 'middle-sized' dog, 'einen Hund von mittlerer Grosse'; a description which, how- ever vague, is decisive as to its representing a long- domesticated breed. The lower jaw, the only part of the head which had been left undisturbed in sifit, had the stoutness and was about the size of that bone as seen in some of the smaller English mastiffs ; its trunk bones are still incomplete, but may be supposed to have made ur> the framework of a body about the size of that of an ordinary shepherd's dog."

This "find," which was at Eyford, Glou- cestershire, is more fully described in 'British Barrows,' by Green well and Rolleston (pp. 514- 520), and there the dog is said "to have been about the size of an English mastiff."

Considering that dogs were not found earlier than in Neolithic times ; that this burial belonged to "the earliest Neolithic period "; and that Gloucestershire borders on Devonshire, we have evidence that "in the most ancient times" a dog not unlike the English mastiff was domesticated in that part of the country. ERNEST B. SAVAGE.

St. Thomas's, Douglas.

MR. CONNETT asks what breed of dog is known to have existed in Devonshire in most ancient times. If he consults Stonehenge on 'The Dog,' second edition. 1872, p. 115, he may read about the Devonshire cocker spaniel, which is practically identical with the ancient liver-coloured Welsh spaniel.

Prof. Low, in his 4 Domestic Animals of Great Britain,' says of the spaniel (p. 744) :

"The spaniel is a race we owe to the countries of the Mediterranean, and in which it is possible the blood of the African Canidae has been mixed with that of dogs of Western Asia. But the spaniel appears to be proper to the African rather than to the European side of the Mediterranean," &c.

In my 'History of the Mastiff,' 1886, p. 37, I incidentally mentioned that Dr. S. Birch, of the British Museum, had identified the spaniel on the early Egyptian monuments ; and, on p. 49, that "my lady's brach" of Shake- speare was probably a spaniel, termed in his dav generally a " comforter." See Caius.

MR. CONNETT will find some interesting particulars relating to British dogs in the Rev. Mr. Whitaker's 'History of Manchester,' 1773. Except the cocker spaniel, I cannot recall ever having read of any ancient breed of dogs peculiar to Devonshire. ^

It was customary in ancient times to figure great ladies' pet dogs at their feet on monu- ments. A careful study of such figured on sepulchral monuments throughout Devon- hire would reveal the ancient type of these comforters.

I see (ante, p. 341) MRS. B. F. SCARLETT writes, "The mastiff was the English dog par excellence" In all my research into the ancient history of the mastiff, as revealed in sculpture, pottery, carvins;, paintings, and engravings, I cannot recall ever having met with any trace of that breed anciently in Devonshire ; but at Cotehele House, Devon- shire, there are some brazen fire-dogs, stand- ng some four feet high and upwards of 250 rears old, mentioned on p. 32 of my ' History >f the Mastiff.' M. B. WYNNE.

Allington Rectory, Gran th am.

The dogs of this country, although now presenting the widest differences, were pro- lably derived from a single stock. In pre- listoric times there appears to have been but