The Irish Wolfhound. 197 



reliable and convincing as to what the Irish wolf- 

 hound really was in the (i Sportsman's Cabinet," 

 published in 1803. Here we have an excellent 

 engraving from a picture by Reinagle, of a huge 

 dog, an enormous deerhound in fact, the identical 

 creature popular reputation stated such a dog to 

 be. Unfortunately the letterpress describes quite a 

 different animal more of the Great Dane type than 

 of the deerhound. And so the authorities who wrote 

 at that time differed quite as much on the matter as 

 do the admirers of the race at the present time. 



To Captain Graham, of Dursley, in Gloucester- 

 shire, we owe considerable gratitude for the trouble 

 he has taken to resuscitate the Irish wolfhound. 

 Enthusiast though he be, he is not like so many 

 other enthusiasts, led away to say things he cannot 

 prove, or, indeed, to lay claim to his hounds being 

 descended in a direct line from those animals which 

 may have or may not have killed the last wolf 

 near Dingle over 180 years ago. The gallant 

 gentleman acknowledges that the breed in its original 

 integrity has disappeared, but he believed, when first 

 writing on the subject twenty years ago, that so 

 much of the true strain remained that, with the aid of 

 the modern deerhound, and with judicious manage- 

 ment, the breed in its " pristine grandeur" could be 

 recovered. 



