48 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DOO. 



10 : 29 : 14 : 40-5 



This would give a height of three feet four inches ; but 

 this skull was much superior in size to any others ; and we 

 may, therefore, fairly come to the conclusion, that 

 thirty. six to forty inches was the ordinary stature of the 

 wolf-dog a height attained to by none of our modern High- 

 land dcerhounds, or by any dog with which we are acquainted. 



K has been asserted, that the large dogs in possession of the 

 late celebrated Hamilton Rowan, were Irish wolf-dogs an 

 assertion which I find contradicted by Mr. Martin, (Knight's 

 Weekly Volume, History of the Dog,} on the authority of a 

 " Dublin Correspondent," who has informed him they were 

 not wolf-dogs, but large bloodhound*. The truth is, Mr. 

 Rowan possessed several fine dogs, of the breed called the 

 Great Dane, animals of a slaty-blue mottled color ; but Mr. 

 Rowan was well aware of their proper designation, and never 

 by any chance called them by a wrong name. How any 

 person could be so ignorant of natural history as to call them 

 bloodhounds, I cannot conceive. Mr. Rowan also possessed 

 a wolf-dog, and knew him to be such, calling him the " last 

 of his race." This dog was a very large rough greyhound, 

 of an iron-gray color, perfectly similar to our Highland deer, 

 hound. Mr. Carter, a gentleman to whom I have already 

 alluded, recollects this dog perfectly, and affirms him t<> 

 in every respect resembled his own, but was superior in size. 

 Mr. Rowan subsequently presented this wolf-dog to Lord 

 Nugent. I suppose this is the dog that Mr. Jesse mentions as 

 having possessed so wondrous a power of detecting, by the 

 scent, the presence of the Irish blood royal !* 



The Irish wolf-dog forms the subject of several tradit 

 The following, relating to ' Bran," the favorite hound of 

 Fingal, the hero of Macpherson's Ossian, may not prove un- 

 interesting. There are two accounts of this transaction, one 

 given by Mr. Grant, in his work on the Gael, and the other 

 by Mr. Scrope, in his delightful volume on Deer-stalking. 

 They differ in the result of the encounter. I shall adopt .Mr. 

 Sc rone's, deeming it the most authentic. 



" Fingal agreed to hunt in the forest of Sledale, in company 

 with the Sutherland chief, his cotemporary, for the purpose 

 of trying the comparative merits of their dogs. Fingal 

 brought his celebrated dog Bran to Sutherland, in order to 



S< " Punch/' vol. x., P . 230. 



