CHAPTER XLIV 



THE SCOTCH DEERHOUND 



F a clear line of descent could be established to the Irish 

 wolfhound precedence would be given to that dog as the 

 oldest type of hunting dog preserved in its original purity, 

 but such not being the case the off-shoot therefrom, the 

 deerhound of Scotland, is entitled to priority. It is a little 

 more than singular that modern writers on the two breeds have contented 

 themselves with the surmise that they were possibly of similar origin, when 

 the fact of their having been the same could have been authenticated so read- 

 ily. There is a question as to whether there were not two Irish wolfhounds 

 a smooth and a rough, but that there was a rough is not contraverted and 

 it was this rough dog which was also kept in the Highlands of Scotland 

 and has been preserved to this day, not in what we should call original 

 purity, but with his original appearance and characteristics. 



The first descriptive reference to these dogs is found in Taylor's " Penni- 

 lesse Pilgrimage," published in 1618, and is given in the account of one of 

 the great red-deer hunts of the Earl of Mar. ' The manner of the hunting 

 is this: five or six hundred men doe rise early in the morning and they doe 

 disperse themselves various ways, and seven, eight or even ten miles com- 

 pass they doe bring or chase the deer in many beards (two, three or four 

 hundred in a heard) to such or such a place, as the nobleman shall appoint 

 them. Then when the day is come, the Lords and gentlemen of their com- 

 panies doe ride or go to the said places, sometimes wading up to their mid- 

 dles through bournes and rivers, and then they being come to the place, 

 doe lye down on the ground till these foresaid scouts, which are called the 

 tinckell, doe bring down the deer; but as the proverb says of a bad cook, 

 so tinckell men doe lick their own fingers, for besides their bows and ar- 

 rows which they carry with them we can hear now and then a harque- 

 busse going off, which they doe seldom discharge in vain; then after we 

 had stayed three houres or there abouts, we might perceive the deer appear 

 in the hills round about us (their heads making a show like a wood), which 



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