NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 47 



eighteen inches, which would have furnished a living head 

 of upwards of twenty inches. The living owner of the skull 

 must have been at least four and a half or five feet high at 

 the shoulder. I do not, however, believe this to have been 

 the skull of our wolf-dog ; although I cannot, at the same 

 time, agree with those who suppose it to be the skull of a 

 bear. Many of these gentlemen are comparative anatomists, 

 and their opinions are deserving of some attention ; but to 

 a close observer, the skull in question will be found to present 

 many discrepancies, from the characters of the ursine group 

 of animals. It certainly differs also from the canines, in the 

 absence of the last molar tooth of the upper jaw, and some 

 other particulars. My own opinion is, that this is the skuli 

 of an extinct animal, allied to, but by no means identical with 

 the dog ; and an animal with which we are now unacquaint- 

 ed ; partaking, likewise, somewhat of the characteristics of 

 the bears, and perhaps, also, the hyaenas. It differs from the 

 skull of the hyaena even more than it does from that of the 

 bear. The only bear to whose skull this at all approaches is 

 the Great White Bear, (Ursus Maritimus,) whose head is not 

 at all unlike that of a shaved deerhound. This skull, then, 

 I only mention, in order to avoid any misconception arising 

 relative to it; or any misrepresentation as to my own views 

 respecting it. 



The canine skulls found by Surgeon Wilde, at Dun- 

 uhaughlin, afford a very rational mode of .determining the 

 size, or at least, the extreme size, of the wolf-dog in ancient 

 times. The longest of these skulls (at present preserved in 

 the Royal Irish Academy) measures in length, as accurately 

 as may be, eleven inches in the bone. This, at a small com- 

 putation, allowing for muzzle, hair, skin, and other tissues, 

 would give fourteen inches as the length of the head in life. 

 As the skulls are those of greyhounds, we must take the head 

 of a greyhound to furnish an analogy. Oscar,* the noble dog, 

 property of Mr. J. J. Nolan, which so long proved an orna- 

 ment to our Zoological Gardens, Phoenix Park, measured nine 

 and a half inches, from muzzle to occiput : his height at the 

 shoulder was twenty-nine inches. The calculation is thus 

 resolved into a common sum in proportion : which may be 

 stated thus ; for the sake of brevity we assume Oscar's head 

 to have measured ten inches : 



Figured in our frontispiece 



