278 British Dogs. 



figure the Danish dog, but greatly exceeded the latter in stature. As 

 Buffon, however, says, he never saw but one Irish wolfhound, and 

 estimates that one at five feet high when sitting, he evidently exaggerated 

 the dog's size or failed to express his meaning clearly, for it might well 

 be that the dog would measure five feet from the rump up to end of nose 

 held up while sitting. 



From all I have been able to gather, there appears among the best 

 writers a strong agreement that there was a close affinity between the 

 great Dane and the Irish wolfhound, and to an infusion of great Dane 

 blood do I look as most hopeful to resusitate the Irish breed. 



Eichardson, in his " Monograph of the Mastiff," says: " The Dane 

 rarely stands less than 30in. at the shoulder, and is usually more. His 

 head is broad at the temples, and the parietal bones diverge much, thus 

 marking him to be a true mastiff ; but, by a singular discrepancy, his 

 muzzle is lengthened more than even that of an ordinary hound, and the 

 lips are not pendulous, or, at least, but slightly so. His coat, when 

 thoroughbred, is rather short than fine, the tail is fine and tapering, the 

 neck long, the ears small and carried back, but these are invariably 

 taken off when the dog is a whelp." Eichardson further describes a dog 

 of the breed, named Hector, the property of His Grace the Duke of 

 Buccleugh, that measured, when eighteen years old and his legs had given 

 way, 32in. high at the shoulder, and computed that he must have 

 measured 33^in. high when in his prime. Hector was bought from a 

 student at Dresden. 



In 1863 Sir Eoger Palmer exhibited an immense black and white dog 

 of this breed called Sam ; he stood fully 35in. at the shoulder and 

 weighed 2001b. In a letter to Mr. Adcock Sir Eoger says that he was 

 extremely intelligent, very quiet, but will stand no nonsense from 

 strangers, and so acute were his scenting powers that he never failed to 

 find his owner, although liberated as much as twenty-five minutes after 

 he had left the house. 



I do not pretend to draw a clear and distinctive line between the 

 German boarhound, which it is now proposed to call the German mastiff, 

 and the great Dane, but those of the former which I have seen had 

 neither, as a rule, the length of muzzle nor the kind of ear described by 

 Eichardson. 



That this breed is well worth encouraging, no one who has carefully 



