HISTORICAL NOTICES or* THE IRISH WOLPDOG. 205 



Romans, who, we are led to understand, frequently used him in their combats in the arena, 

 for which his great size, strength, and activity, eminently fitted him. It has always been 

 a moot point whether the Irish Wolfdog was, strictly speaking, a Greyhound, or was of a more 

 robust form, approaching the Mastiff. Let us, then, proceed to investigate the question. 



Richardson tells us that " Pliny relates a combat in which the dogs of Epirus bore a part. 

 He describes them as much taller than Mastiffs, and of Greyhound form, detailing an account 

 of their contests with a lion and an elephant." This, he thinks, suffices to establish the 

 identity of the Irish Wolfdog with the far-famed dogs of Epirus ! 



Strabo describes a large and powerful Greyhound as having been in use among the 

 Celtic and Pictish nations, and as being held in such high estimation by them as to have 

 been imported into Gaul for the purposes of the chase. 



Silius describes a large and powerful Greyhound as having been imported into Ireland 

 by the Belgae, thus identifying the Irish Wolfdog with the celebrated Belgic dog of antiquity, 

 which we read of in so many places as having been brought to Rome for the combats of 

 the amphitheatre. 



Sir James Warr, in his " Antiquities of Ireland," thus writes regarding the Irish Wolfdog 

 about 1630 (?) : "I must here take notice of those hounds which, from their hunting of 

 wolves, are commonly called Wolfdogs being creatures of great size and strength, and of a 

 fine shape," &c. 



Warr also gives as a frontispiece to his book an allegorical representation of a passage from 

 the Venerable Bede, in which two dogs are introduced bearing a very strong resemblance to 

 the Irish Wolfdog or Scottish Deerdog, in those days doubtless the same animal. The 

 Venerable Bede was born 672, died 735. 



We are informed by two very eminent authorities the Venerable Bede and the Scottish 

 historian Major that Scotland was peopled from Ireland. We know that by the early writers 

 Scotland was styled Scotia Minor, and Ireland Scotia Major, and it is scarcely necessary to 

 make any remark as to the native languages of the primitive inhabitants of the two countries. 

 The colonisation therefore of Scotland from Ireland under the conduct of Reuda being admitted, 

 can we suppose that the colonists would omit taking with them specimens of such a noble and 

 gallant dog, and one that must prove so serviceable to their emigrant masters, and that, too, 

 at a period when men depended upon the chase for their subsistence ? True, this is but an 

 inference, but is it not to be received as a fact when we find that powerful and noble dog, 

 the Highland Deerhound, a tall rough Greyhound, to have been known in Scotland since its 

 colonisation ? Formerly it was called the Wolfdog, but with change of occupation came 

 change of name. In Ireland wolves were certainly in existence longer than in Scotland, but 

 when these animals ceased to exist in the former country, the Wolfdogs became gradually 

 lost. Not so in Scotland, where abundant employment remained for them even after the days 

 of wolf-hunting were over. The red deer still remained, and useful as had these superb dogs 

 proved as Wolfdogs, they became perhaps even more valuable as Deerhounds. 



Richardson then goes on to show us, from Ossian's poems, that such dogs appertained to 

 the chieftains regarding whose prowess, &c., he sings ; but the writer does not apprehend that any 

 real value can be placed on Ossian's accounts prior to the date at which they professed to be 

 issued in a collective form by Macpherson, viz., about 1770, as in the judgment of many 

 persons competent to form a just opinion, those poems almost entirely owe their origin to 

 the prolific brains of the supposititious translator. Ossian is supposed to have flourished in 

 the third century. 



