CROSSES USED ON DEERHOUNDS. 23! 



"Idstone" says : " Many crosses have been adopted, as I have already observed, and one of 

 the Deerhound and Mastiff has been used by the proprietor of a deer-pack in my immediate 

 neighbourhood, where there is a fine herd of red and fallow deer. Though I prefer the Deerhound, 

 it must be granted that whilst the breed was not procurable such a measure as manufacturing 

 a dog for the work was meritorious. The best I have noticed of this description were produced by 

 the skill and patience of Mr. Norwood, of the South- Western Railway, at Waterloo. I have 

 never seen these hounds in action, but I have been assured that nothing can be finer than 

 their work. They had the race-horse points, the long neck, the clean head, the bright intel- 

 lectual eye, the long sloping shoulder, the muscular arms, the straight legs, the close well-knit 

 feet, the wide muscular arched back and loins, the deep back ribs, the large girth, the esprit, the 

 life, the activity which when controlled and schooled is essential to every domesticated animal." 



It is a well-known fact that the late "Glengarry," finding the breed of Deerhound de- 

 teriorating, resorted to several crosses amongst them the Cuban Bloodhound and Pyrenean 

 Wolfdog ; from the latter especially he gained much. He was at the time condemned loudly 

 for thus contaminating the breed ; but, in the writer's opinion, he acted with great good judgment, 

 for he resuscitated his strain very completely, and from his so-crossed dogs have all our modern 

 Deerhounds descended, all symptoms of any such cross having long been obliterated. Mr. 

 Gillespie, the owner and breeder of the notorious Torrom, says : " With regard to your remark 

 about the Glengarry dogs not being pure, I too have often heard it ; but my experience is that 

 there were few, if any, better strains." His Torrom was the son of a true Glengarry dog. Of 

 this breed also was the world-wide-famed Maida, Sir Walter Scott's devoted and constant 

 companion ; but he was the offspring of the first cross between Pyrenean Wolfdog and Highland 

 Deerhound, the former being sire, the latter dam. He was a magnificent animal, of great size, 

 power, and endurance, partaking mostly of the appearance of the dam, gaining somewhat in 

 power, bulk, and height from the sire. He was of an iron-grey colour (according to Irving), and 

 of gigantic size. He died at eleven years of age. From this very Maida many of our best 

 modern dogs claim descent ! 



A gentleman who has had much experience in breeding Deerhounds for the last thirty 

 years and upwards, and who has bred many grand dogs, says : " My brother informs me 

 that McNiel went all over the world to get dogs to breed from to Albania amongst other 

 places and that his breed represents a breed he himself founded, and that prior to that there 

 was no real existing breed of Deerhounds in Scotland (! !). I think that their extreme delicacy 

 and the difficulty of rearing them, also the way in which they feel the cold in bad weather 

 in October, indicate their foreign origin." 



It is thought that there must have been some misapprehension on this matter, as, putting 

 aside the existence of Morison of Scalascraig's breed in 1830 (McNiel's dating a few years 

 later), as well as that of Menzies of Chesthill, asserted to date from 1780 or thereabouts, 

 Lord Colonsay, then Sir J. McNiel, communicated with the writer about 1865 in the following 

 terms : " There seems to be no doubt that the Deerhound of the Celtic Highlands is of 

 precisely the same race as the Irish hound sometimes called Wolfhound ; and all attempts 

 to get size or speed by crossing have, it is believed, failed, or only succeeded in giving 

 size by destroying the characteristics of the race. I imported Wolfhounds from Russia of 

 fair speed and large size, but silky-haired, with a view to cross them with the Deerhound, 

 but the result was by no means satisfactory. The late Lord Breadalbane crossed with the 

 Bloodhound, and produced some good Retrievers for his deer-stalking ; but they were no 



