The Scotch Deerhound. 29 



in many of the specimens one sees on the show benches at the present 

 day. The ear should be small, set on very high, and at the back of the 

 skull more like the rat's, and when at rest the flaps should be turned a 

 little outwards, so that one sees inside the ear ; this I have always noticed in 

 the best bred ones. Avoid a large ear, it is an abomination, and look for 

 a black fringe on the tips of the ears ; it is seen in the best specimens. The 

 neck should be moderately long, and very muscular, and the shoulders broad 

 and deep and obliquely set ; this is of great importance, as anyone must 

 understand that a dog with an upright shoulder cannot have any pace ; 

 the fore legs should be straight, with plenty of bone, and well set on the 

 feet, which should not be spreading, but the toes well held together. In 

 an old rhyme on greyhounds one line is, "a back like a beam," which 

 holds equally good with the deerhound, for without strength in this 

 department it is impossible to maintain a high speed long, and a deer- 

 hound is required to have speed, endurance, and strength ; where the 

 loins are weak the animal is useless for the purpose the breed denotes ; 

 the loins, then, cannot be too strong, which applies to the hind quarters 

 likewise, as they are the chief element of progression. Strong stifle joints 

 and hocks, with great length between them, and from the stifle to the hip, 

 in conjunction with a short leg, is to my mind the beau ideal of hind 

 quarters. 



" A few words may be said not inaptly about coat, as now-a-days one 

 sees so many types even in animals of the same parentage. The Scotch 

 deerhound, unadulterated, has a strong wiry coat, not silken, or any ap- 

 proach of it. Perhaps one of the finest specimens of the breed that has 

 been for years for symmetry is W. Hickman, Esq.'s, Morni, but then he 

 failed in coat, which was very soft, and that is seen likewise in some 

 to the descendants from his sister Brenda, who has thrown a number 

 of winners ; and I cannot help fancying, without any disrespect to 

 the good dogs, that within this last ten or twelve years a little 

 foreign blood has been infused. I should always doubt the purity of 

 a deerhound with a head narrow between the ears, or which may have 

 a fine silky coat. Well can I recollect my first, a black grizzle, with a 

 strong wiry coat, and all the good ones I have seen imported from the 

 Land of Cakes had the same texture hair, strong and wiry. I am fully 

 convinced if the advocates of the soft-haired deerhounds would only try 

 their hounds against the hard-coated ones in Scotland, standing on the 



