46 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 



Mount Louise, county Monaghnn specimens of whose stock 

 have passed into the hands of Francis Carter, Esq., of Vicars 

 Field, county Dublin. Mr. Carter has be~en most assiduous 

 11 keeping up the breed, by crossing it with the best Scottish 

 aijd Welsh dogs he could obtain ; and I never could perceive 

 any difference between them, except that the Irish dogs were 

 thicker, and not so high on their legs, as either the Scottish 

 or Welsh. One of 'these dogs, sent by Mr. Carter to Amer- 

 ica, coursed and killed a wolf, upon the open prairie, without 

 assistance. Few dogs can do this ; and I refer for my au- 

 thority to Mr- Carter. 



As to the size to which the Irish wolf-dog attained, Gold- 

 smith says that he " saw above a dozen, and one was about 

 four feet highf or as tall as a calf of a year old." Buffbn 

 says he never saw more than one, and that it was five feet 

 high when sitting. Ray calls it " the greatest dog he had 

 ever seen." In the same communication from Sir W. Be- 

 tham,* which I have already quoted, that gentleman says, 

 "Sir J. Browne allowed them to come into his dining-room, 

 when they put their heads over the shoulders of those who 

 sat at table. 



If Goldsmith meant that he saw a wolf-dog four feet high at 

 the head, we may believe him ; and so may we believe 

 Buffbn, if we are to understand him as measuring the sitting 

 dog with a line along the back. I cordially agree that it was 

 " the greatest dog" Ray had ever seen ; but I am uncertain 

 as to tlie manner in which the dogs described by Sir William 

 Betham "put their heads over the shoulders" of the gii.-sts 

 seated at table. Did they place, as dogs are apt to do, their 

 forefeet on the back rung of the chair ? I think they did : 

 still, however, even with these limitations, they must be ad- 

 mitted to have been gigantic dogs. 



A large skull was recently found in a bog in Westmoath, 

 by a collector of antiquities and other curiosities, named James 

 Underwood a man long and favorably known to men of sci- 

 ence, for his unwearied diligence, patient research, and acute 

 discernment. Of this skull an account was subsequently 

 published in several of the newspapers, by Mr. Glennon, of 

 3, Suffolk-street, Dublin, describing it as the skull of our Irish 

 wolf-dog. Every allowance must, however, be made for Mr. 

 Glennon's zeal and anxiety to bring the matter forward in a 

 hurry. The length of this skull was between seventeen and 



Made to Mr Haffield in 1841. 



