The Deerhound. 205 



A sportsman with a gun in his hand watches 

 the animal, and when he has wounded him traces 

 him by the blood." The same quaint volume 

 says that on one occasion the young laird of Coll 

 "was sporting in the mountains of Sky, and when 

 weary with following his game repaired to Talisker. 

 At night he missed one of his dogs, and when he 

 went to seek for him in the morning found two eagles 

 feeding on his carcase." Scottish hounds were by 

 no means uncommon then in the Hebrides and on 

 the western coast, where considerable pains were 

 taken to preserve the strain in its purity and 

 strength, and no doubt, in a great measure, we are 

 indebted to these smaller farmers for preserving a 

 fine variety of the canine race when it was within 

 quite an easy distance of almost entire extinction. 

 It is possible that, had the Irish wolfhound been 

 favoured in a similar manner, and obtained equally 

 warm admirers, there would have been no occasion 

 for the resuscitation of the breed by the introduction 

 of the deerhound and German boarhound cross. 



One or two authors have assumed that the 

 modern deerhound is a cross between the foxhound 

 and the greyhound, or between the bloodhound and 

 the greyhound, but this I consider quite incorrect, nor 

 in my researches have I been able to come across 

 anything likely to sustain such a statement. If the 



