THE MASTIFF AND GREYHOUND. 345 



Of the dog known in Ireland under the name of the 

 Irish greyhound, Holinshed, in his " Description of Ireland 

 and the Irish," written in 1586, has the following notice : 

 " They are not without wolves, and greyhounds to hunt 

 them, bigger of bone and lim than a colt ; " and, in a 

 frontispiece to Sir James Ware's " History of Ireland," 

 an allegorical representation is given of a passage from the 

 venerable Bede, in which two dogs are introduced, bearing 

 so strong a resemblance to that given by Gesner, as to 

 leave no doubt that they are the same species. 



The mastiff and the greyhound both appear, from the 

 old Welsh laws, to have been used from a very early 

 period by that people, and were termed by them, the 

 former Gellgi, and the latter Milgi, which latter is evi- 

 dently the same word with the appellation of Miol chu, 

 given by the Highlanders and Irish to the deerhound. 



Of the mode of hunting and using these dogs we have 

 descriptions by William Barclay, as far back as 1563, by 

 Taylor, the water poet, and by others. 



The term Irish is applied to the Highland dogs, as 

 every thing Celtic (not excepting the language) was 

 designated in England, probably in consequence of Ireland 

 being, at that period, better known to the English than 

 Scotland. This is, however, a proof of the similarity of 

 the dogs, and also that they were not then in use in 

 England in the same perfection. Nor is this supposition 

 inconsistent with the account given by Sir John Nicol, of 

 Queen Elizabeth's amusements at Cowdrey Park, in 1595. 

 " Then rode her Grace to Cowdrey to dinner, and about 

 six of the clock in the evening, sawe sixteen bucks pulled 

 down with greyhounds in a laund," since it will be 



