416 THE AMEEICAN BOOK OF THE DOG. 



Mr. Frank Aspinall, the brother of the Kennel Club secretary, lately brought 

 to show us. This was one of them, and a fine Wolfhound he would luive 

 made if he had continued to grow. He stood as high as a Collie, and look- d 

 to weigh fifty pounds or more; his coat was rough and hard; each hair was 

 wheaten from the body to the tip, which was red; the under coat was woolly 

 and dense. The head looked all of ten inches long, rather narrow across 

 the skull, and the muzzle powerful; and when he opened his mouth and 

 showed his "graveyard" well, we felt relieved that we were not an Irish 

 landlord. Mr. Aspinall told us his jaw-power was enormous, and that he 

 could pull up solid planks and bite through half-inch boards. More joy that 

 we are not a half -inch board! 



But to return to our Irishman and, by the way, we should say that this 

 dog looked Irish, and we like to see character in a national dog Mr. Aspinall 

 told us that he purchased him from a Waterford man, who said he came from 

 Connemara. on the West Coast. Mr. Aspinall told us several instances of his 

 stanchness. He has seen him swim a mile in a fast and swollen stream which 

 was thick with floating logs, and as he swam, turning from one bank to the 

 other after the rats that shot in and out. 



The history of i he present Irish Terrier may be said to 

 date from 1875, several dogs having that year been exhib- 

 ited at Belfast, Ireland, the home of Mr. G. Jamison. The 

 first Irish Terriers that were ever exhibited in England were 

 at the Brighton Show, in October, 1876 Banshee and 

 Spuds, owned by Mr. Jamison, winning first and second. 

 Since then the class of Irish Terriers has increased so 

 much that they almost equal in numbers the Fox Terrier 

 and surpass the Scotch Terrier classes, showing how popu- 

 lar the breed has become in a few years. The Irish Terrier 

 Club was formed in Ireland about the beginning of 1879, 

 and since that date the Irish have been well represented, 

 both on the bench and in the public press. 



Vero Shaw has devoted more attention to this breed than 

 any other modern writer, and little more can be said of it 

 than is found in his works. The information he gives was 

 obtained, principally, from Mr. G. H. Krehl, one of the 

 most enthusiastic admirers of the breed. 



The Irish Terrier is a true and distinct breed indigenous to Ireland, and 

 no man can trace its origin, which is lost in antiquity. Mr. Ridgway, of 

 Waterford, whose name is familiar in Irish Terrier circles from having drawn 

 up the first code of points, states that they have been known in Ireland "as 

 long as that country has been an island, and I ground my faith in their age 

 and purity on the fact that there exist old manuscripts in Irish mentioning the 



