202 Modern Dogs. 



and St. Clair, in a suitable place, uncoupled his 

 favourites in sight of the flying hind. St. Clair 

 followed on horseback, and as the deer reached the 

 middle of the brook, he in despair, believing his 

 wager already lost, and his life as good as gone, 

 leaped from his horse. At this critical moment, 

 "Hold" stopped her quarry in the brook, and 

 " Help " coming up, the deer was turned, and in the 

 end killed within the stipulated boundary. The 

 king, not far behind, was soon on the scene, and, 

 embracing his subject, " bestowed on him the lands 

 of Kirton, Logan House, Earncraig, &c., in free 

 forestrie." Scrope says the tomb of this Sir William 

 St. Clair, on which he appears sculptured in armour, 

 with a greyhound (deerhound) at his feet, is still to 

 be seen in Rosslyn Chapel. 



A common but erroneous idea has prevailed, that 

 the Irish wolfhound and the Scottish deerhound 

 were identical, and, indeed, that the latter was merely 

 an ordinary greyhound, with a rough, hard coat, pro- 

 duced by beneficent Nature to protect a delicate 

 dog against the rigours of a northern climate. 



About the end of the sixteenth century (1591), we 

 are told that the Earl of Mar had large numbers of 

 deerhounds, but at the same period the Duke of 

 Buckingham had great difficulty in obtaining Irish 

 wolf dogs, a few couples of which he wished to 



