40 . British Dogs. 



dog was a gigantic greyhound, not smooth-skinned, like our greyhounds, 

 but rough and curly -haired. In the face of this, Sir William Betham's 

 son, the well-known archer, wrote me some years ago to call my attention 

 to a specimen of the Irish wolfhound which was to be purchased in his 

 neighbourhood ; his description of the dog, however, showed him to be 

 distinctly a boarhound or Great Dane, of no great size. A Mr. Mahony, 

 of Dromore a large property near Muckross had, about twenty years 

 ago, a breed of these dogs, but they have been allowed to die out. He 

 had them, however, from the late Sir J. Power, so that the same blood 

 is now in my possession. He described them fully to me as being 

 similar to the deerhound, but more massive and powerful, and not so 

 high on the leg. 



" Two of these dogs, of the Power breed, were the property of a lady 

 living at Hyde, Isle of Wight, and of which I have photographs ; they 

 are however dead, and left no produce. I at great trouble traced out 

 the Mr. Carter who is referred to by Eichardson, but only to find that 

 his breed of dogs had passed into oblivion." 



At the Irish Kennel Club Show, held at Dublin, April, 1879, a class 

 was made for dogs showing the nearest approach to the old Irish 

 wolfhound as described by sporting writers of the past, and the com- 

 mittee did us the honour of appointing us to judge. The class was 

 composed of dogs differing very widely in character, and what we 

 considered our duty was to select for honours the elements out of 

 which the old race could be rebuilt. We therefore gave first prize to 

 a dog of very distinct deerhound type, but enormous stature a dog, 

 indeed, wanting nothing but more bone and substance to be our ideal of 

 an Irish wolfhound. These are great wants, no doubt, but in the class 

 brought together in this, the first public attempt to resuscitate the 

 breed an attempt that redounds to the honour of the Irish Kennel 

 Club, and in a marked degree to Mr. St. George, who laboured hard in the 

 interest of the breed the judge had to deal with elements and possibili- 

 ties only ; the actual has to come, and was not even looked for in this, the 

 first show of dogs under this name. The winning dog, Mr. Percy H. 

 Cooper's Brian, is by Captain G. A. Graham's Swanan Dr. Lammond- 

 Hemming's Linda. The latter is a well known deerhound bitch, while 

 Swanan, we believe, has as much of the genuine old Irish wolfhound blood 

 as any dog living ; and it was with a view to forward the resuscitation 



