From Roman antiquity, dogs have been classified according to their skills. Originally, they were divided into herders, hunting dogs and house dogs. Aristotle recorded seven separate dog breeds, but made no reference to greyhounds, which had long lived in Egypt. In the eighteenth century, Buffon attempted to classify dogs by ear shape, separating them into thirty straight-eared breeds, drop or semiprick, whereas Cuvier proposed dividing the canines into hounds, mastiffs, and spaniels based on the shape of the dog's skull. In 1885, the Livre des Origines Français (French Stud Book) divided canines into twenty-nine separate sections. These sections were narrowed to eleven groups in the early twentieth century, then in 1950, reduced to the ten groups that are recognized today.
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