136 The Irish Naturalist, December, 



enable the wolf to squarely look at a spectator standing 

 in front of him. This is because the eye-sockets are directed 

 slightly towards the sides instead of facing the object. 

 Prof. Studer first drew attention to this distinction in the 

 skulls of wolves and dogs, and argued that the plane of 

 the eye-socket is more obliquely inclined to the brow, that 

 is to say, the orbito -frontal angle is less in wolves than it is 

 in dogs. No doubt this feature is the most important 

 character of distinction between wolves and dogs; but, as 

 Professor Re 3^10 Ids points out, even it cannot be relied on in 

 all cases. ^ It requires an instrument called a clinometer 

 to measure the angle referied to, and it is by no means easy 

 to do so. Considering that the Irish W'olf-dog has probably 

 originated from the Wolf, it is not surprising tliat the 

 distinctive characters between Wolf and Dog should be so 

 very subtle and difficult to determine. 



The question whether the Irish Wolf was identical with 

 or belonged to the same species as the wolf still li^^ing in 

 France is not easy to answer. Although the Wolf was so 

 extremely abundant in Ireland in the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries, and probably before that . we do not possess 

 a single Wolf's skull or even a bone of that period. We have 

 no means, therefore, of comparing a modern Irish Wolf 

 skeleton with that of a modern French Wolf. But con- 

 sidering that large races cf the Wolf are known to have 

 existed on the Continent in Pleistocene times, that several 

 other large animals came to Ireland from Continental 

 Europe, it seems not unlikely that the Irish and French 

 Wolves originated from a common stock. 



The common Irish word for Wolf is " mac-tire," but a 

 number of other words signifying wild dog, such as " mad- 

 radh allaidh," " faelchii," " cii allaidh," and " niadra allta," 

 seem to have been in use. Two perhaps older words are 

 " sidheach " and " crian." There is still another woid that 

 has been employed lor ^\'olf, viz., "glaoidlieamhan." It 

 means a howler. 



Knockranny, Bray. 



P. H. Reynolds : The Canidae. Palaeontological Society, 1909. 



