206 THE BOOK OP THE DOG. 



In the ninth century the Welsh laws contained clauses entailing heavy penalties on 

 any one found maiming or injuring the Irish Greyhound, or, as it was styled in the Code 

 alluded to, "Canis graius Hibernicus," and a value was set upon them equal to more than 

 double that set on the ordinary Greyhound. 



" Camden," about 1568, says: "The Irish Wolfhound is similar in shape to a Greyhound, 

 bigger than a Mastiff, and tractable as a Spaniel." 



" Holinshed's," or rather Stainhurst's, description of Ireland, about 1560, contains this 

 short account of the noble Wolfdog : " Ireland is stored of cows, excellent horses, of hawkes, 

 fish, and fowle. They are not without wolves, and Greyhounds to hunt them bigger of 

 bone and limb than a colt." 



Gough, in his edition of " Camden," published 1789, has this passage on the Wolfhound : 

 " Bishop affirmed that wolves still infested the wild and solitary mountains. Under the 

 article of Greyhounds, Mr. Camden (writing probably about 1530-60) seems to place the 

 Wolfhounds, which are remarkably large, and peculiar to this country." 



In November, 1562, the Irish chieftain Shane O'Neill (possibly an ancestor of the Lords 

 O'Neill, to be alluded to as owning Irish Wolfhounds later on) forwarded to Queen 

 Elizabeth, through Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester, a present of two horses, two hawks, and 

 two Irish Wolfdogs ; and in 1585, Sir John Perrott, who was Deputy of Ireland from January, 

 1584, to July, 1588, sent to Sir Francis Walsingham, then Secretary of State in London, "a 

 brace of good Wolfdogs, one black, one white." Later still, in 1608, we find that Irish Wolf- 

 hounds were sent from Ireland by Captain Desmond of Duncannon, to Gilbert Earl of 

 Shrewsbury. When Sir Thomas Rowe was ambassador at the court of the Great Mogul, 

 in the year 1615, that emperor desired him to send for some Irish Greyhounds as the most 

 welcome present he could make him. The foregoing are from an article on the Irish Wolf- 

 hound, by Mr. Harting, that appeared in Bailey's Magazine for September, 1879. 



Ware is one of the few old writers (1654) who has said anything on the Irish Wolfdog, 

 and his words are scanty. "Although we have no wolves in England, yet it is certain we 

 have had heretofore routs of them as they have at present in Ireland. In that country is 

 bred a race of Greyhounds, which is fleet and strong, and bears a natural enmity to the 

 wolf." 



Evelyn, about 1660-70, says : " The Irish Wolfhound was a tall Greyhound, a stately creature 

 indeed, and did beat a cruel Mastiff. The Bull-dogs did exceedingly well, but the Irish 

 Wolfdog exceeded ! " He was then describing the savage sports of the bear-garden. 



Ray, about 1697, describing the Irish Greyhound, says: "The greatest dog I have yet seen, 

 surpassing in size even the Molossus (Mastiff?) as regards shape of body and general character, 

 similar in all respects to the common Greyhound ; their use is to catch wolves." 



The writer would remark in passing that there is but little doubt that the ordinary Grey- 

 hound of that date was a rough-coated dog. 



Buffon, about 1750-60, speaks of these dogs as follows: "They are far larger than our 

 largest Matins, and they are very rare in France. I have never seen but one, which seemed to 

 me when sitting quite upright to be nearly five feet high, and to resemble in form the dog we call 

 the Great Dane, but it differed from it greatly in the largeness of its size. It was quite white, 

 and of a gentle and peaceable disposition/' 



From Goldsmith, about 1770, the following is extracted: "The last variety, and the most 

 wonderful of all that I shall mention, is the Great Irish Wolfdog, that may be considered as 

 the first of the canine species. He is extremely beautiful and majestic in appearance, 



