The Scotch Deerhound 605 



wolfhounds and to pay attention to their breeding. And it was one of his 

 dogs which Aylmer Bourke Lambert, vice-president of the Linnean Society, 

 measured and found to be lo inches in length of head, "from tip of nose to 

 back part of skull," and "from the toe to top of the fore shoulder" 28^ 

 inches. That is to say a 27-inch dog, standard measure. As Mr. Lambert 

 was not seeking to depreciate the wolfhound we may presume that this was 

 a large dog which he measured. That height would not have been at all 

 uncommon for a Scottish deerhound. Sir Walter Scott's Maida cannot be 

 given as an example of the latter for he was a black and white dog, a cross 

 between a large Pyrenean sheep dog and a deer hound. He was bred by 

 Macdonell of Glengarry, or Glengarry, as he was commonly called, and he 

 made no secret of his introducing the West Indies bloodhound and the dog 

 of the Pyrenees into his kennel "to prevent the degeneracy which results 

 from consanguinity." Maida must have been a very large dog, but we have 

 not found any record of his height. Coming to later times, we have in 

 Dalziel's " British Dogs" a number of measurements of dogs of about 1880, 

 and of the sixteen heights recorded only two were under 27 inches; the others 

 ranging from 27 inches to 32 inches. The contributor of much of the 

 article in " British Dogs " did not believe in the usefulness of large dogs, 

 considering that 28 inches was as tall as a working dog should be. He 

 stated that he had measured the deerhounds at the Birmingham show of 

 1873 and gives the particulars of seven named ones, two at 26^ inches, three 

 at 27, one at 28 and one at 30^ inches, adding that there were seven dogs over 

 30 inches and that the second prize was taken by one of 26 inches. This 

 was in the early days of dog shows and before there could have been any of 

 the breeding for size which dog shows cultivated. 



The tallest dog we have had here to our knowledge was Mr. John E. 

 Thayer's Chieftain which measured 31 inches, and he was a dog that beat all 

 England and to the best of our recollection was the largest of the deerhounds 

 of his day. Since then Mr. Lee in his " Modern Dogs " mentions one of 

 32f inches at twenty months. Stonehenge also illustrated a deerhound 

 said to be 33 inches in height, but of that there is much doubt. 



Height is not at all an essential in a deerhound, in fact if the dog is to be 

 considered as one for work his height should be limited to a size that would 

 keep him a workman and not merely a show poser. We had but the one 

 objection to Chieftain of his being too large and for that reason always pre- 

 ferred his kennel mate, the bitch Wanda, who was 28^ inches. She showed 



