340 IRISH DOGS SENT TO ROME. 



Ilenibus ampla satis validis, deductaque cox as, 

 Cuique minis molles fluitent in cursibus aures." 



And again he says, 



" Divisa Britannia mittit 

 Veloces, nostrique orbis venatibus, aptos."- 



From the same authorities we learn that the mastiffs of 

 England were highly prized by the Roman emperors, and 

 were used by them for the combats of the amphitheatre. 



It also appears from Symmachus, that in the fourth 

 century a number of dogs of a great size were sent in iron 

 cages from Ireland to Rome, which were probably used for 

 the same purposes; and as the mastiff was purely an 

 English dog, it is not improbable that the dogs so sent 

 were greyhounds, particularly as we learn, from the 

 authority of Evelyn and others, that the Irish wolfdog was 

 used for the fights of the bear garden. 



How and when this species of dog came to be deno- 

 minated greyhound is a point on which naturalists are not 

 agreed. Some derive the appellation grey from Grascus, 

 whilst others, as Jn. Caius, derives it from gret, or great. 

 Without pretending to determine this point, it may be 

 suggested, as not improbable, that the name is derived from 

 the colour (which is still the prevailing one of these dogs 

 in the remote districts of Scotland), particularly as we find 

 them described as Cu-lia, or grey dog. 



Whatever may have been the origin of the name, there 

 is little doubt as to the antiquity of a species of dog in 

 this country bearing a great resemblance in many points 

 to the greyhound of the present day, and passing under 



