348 IRISH WOLF DOG. 



The exact size to which the deerhound once attained in 

 this country, it is now difficult, from the contradictory 

 accounts that have reached us, to determine. 



Buflfon, as we have already seen, informs us, that the 

 only one he ever saw was much larger than a mastiff, and 

 when sitting was about five feet high. 



Goldsmith, in his account of the species of dog known 

 in Ireland in his time under the name of Irish wolf dog, 

 represents him as being rather kept for show than for use, 

 there being neither wolves nor any other formidable beast 

 of prey in Ireland that seem to require so powerful an 

 antagonist. 



Judging also from the drawing of Lord Altamount's 

 dogs, given by Mr. Lambert, and from the measurements 

 taken by him, in 1790, it is evident that these wolf dogs, 

 as they are called, bore no resemblance whatever to the 

 Irish greyhound, as described by Holinshed, with which 

 also they hunted wolves, as is apparent from their broad 

 pendulous ears, hanging lips, hollow backs, heavy bodies, 

 smooth hair, straight hocks, drooping tails, and party 

 colour ; but were in all probability a remnant of the old 

 Irish bloodhound, w T hich was frequently used for tracking 

 wolves, and which at a later period might have been mis- 

 taken for a species then in that country nearly, if not 

 altogether, extinct. 



To these vague accounts, however, little weight can 



represented with very broad palmated horns, more like those of the 

 moose deer, or the extinct Cervus euryceros, whose remains are found 

 in the bogs of Ireland and the Isle of Man, than the true elk. This 

 serves to connect the Miol chu of Ireland and the Highlands still more 

 closely with the Albanian deer dog. Author. 



