LAST SPECIMENS OF THE WOLFDOG. 209 



nature of the game that was then the object of the chase viz., deer of all sorts, wolves, and 

 foxes that the dogs would be of a larger, fiercer, and more shaggy description than the 

 Greyhounds of the present day." 



From the " Museum of Animated Nature," published in 1842-45, the following account 

 of the Irish Wolfdog is taken: "In Scotland and Ireland there existed in very ancient 

 times a noble breed of Greyhounds used for the chase of the wolf and deer, which appears to 

 us to be the pure source of our present breed. It is quite as possible that the Matin is a 

 modification of the ancient Greyhound of Europe represented by the Irish Greyhound or 

 Wolfdog as that it is the source of that fine breed, as Buffon supposes. Few, we believe, 

 of the old Irish Greyhound exist." 



From the very interesting book entitled " Anecdotes of Dogs," by E. Jesse, published 

 1846, the following is gleaned: 



" The dog flourished at the time of early kings of Ireland, and, with harp and shamrock, 

 is regarded as one of the national emblems of the country." 



" The Irish Wolfdogs were formerly placed as the supporters of the arms of the ancient 

 monarchs of Ireland. They were collared ' or,' with the motto, ' Gentle when stroked, 

 fierce when provoked.'" 



The well-known Mrs. S. C. Hall, wrote to Jesse the following interesting account of an 

 Irish Wolfdog: "When I was a child (probably 1812-15), I had a very close friendship 

 with a genuine old Wolfdog, Bruno by name. He was the property of an old friend of 

 my grandmother's, who claimed descent from the Irish kings. His name was O'Toole. His 

 visits were my jubilees. There was the kind, dignified, old gentleman, and there was his 

 tall gaunt dog, grey with age, and yet with me full of play. The O'Toole had three of 

 these dogs. Bruno was rough but not long-coated." 



Richardson tells us that the late Sir W. Betham, Ulster King-at-Arms, an authority of 

 very high importance on any subject connected with Irish antiquities, in communicating with 

 Mr. Haffield, who read a paper on the Irish Wolfhound before the Dublin Natural History 

 Society, about 1841, states as follows: "From the mention of the Wolfdogs in the old Irish 

 stories and poems, and also from what I have heard from a very old person, long since dead, 

 of his having seen them at the Neale, in the County of Mayo, the seat of Sir John Browne, 

 ancestor to Lord Kilmaine, I have no doubt they were a gigantic Greyhound. My departed 

 friend described them as being very gentle, and that Sir J. Browne allowed them to come into 

 his dining-room, where they put their heads over the shoulders of those who sat at table ; they 

 were not smooth-skinned like our Greyhounds, but rough and curly-haired." 



"The Irish poets call the Wolfdog ' cu,' and the common Greyhound 'gayer,' a marked 

 distinction, the word 'cu' signifying a champion." 



Some dogs were owned by the late Hamilton Rowan, of Merrion Square, Dublin, which 

 were erroneously asserted to be Irish Wolfhounds. Regarding these dogs the following com- 

 munication was kindly made to the writer by Mr. Betham, a son of Sir W. Betham before 

 alluded to : " My father was very intimate with the late Hamilton Rowan, who was the only 

 man possessed of the breed (Irish Wolfhound), and who was so chary of it that he would 

 never give away a dog pup without first castrating him. I have repeatedly seen the dogs with 

 him when I was a boy, and heard him tell my father how he became possessed of them. He 

 was in Paris about the time of the first French Revolution, and was given a dog and a bitch, 

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