202 Modern Dogs. 



This dog has been recommended as likely to be 

 useful with " big game," not elephants and hip- 

 popotami, but with wolves, hyenas, and such inferior 

 animals as are to be found in South Africa and 

 other great hunting countries. Whether they 

 would do so well as either the pure Dane or the 

 deerhound is an open question. They are not suffi- 

 ciently smart and active to cope successfully with 

 powerful beasts of prey, though perhaps, if brought 

 up to the work and at an early age trained to hunt, 

 they would be able to do as well as any other breed 

 of dog. But it is folly for a young fellow to obtain 

 a hound of any of these varieties Great Dane, 

 deerhound, or Irish wolfhound from some of the 

 show kennels, rush him over to the Cape, on into the 

 interior of Africa, and expect him to take as kindly 

 to hunt u the king of the forest" or the leopard 

 as he would to accepting a biscuit from the hand 

 of some fair mistress. An Irish wolfhound requires 

 to be properly entered to game just as carefully as 

 Ho the pointer, setter, and retriever ; and generations 

 passed in kennels or in the drawing-room have no 

 tendency to improve him as a destroyer of wild 

 animals when they come in his way. 



A modern Irish wolfhound is in appearance just a 

 big and rather coarse deerhound, and, previous to 

 giving his description as drawn up by the Wolfhound 



