i6o 



CHAPTER XV. 

 THE IRISH WOLFHOUND. 



BY FRED K GRESHAM. 



" An eye of sloe, with ear not low, 

 With horse's breast, with depth of chest, 

 With breadth of loin, and curve in groin, 

 And nape set far behind the head 

 Such were the dogs that Fingal bred." 



TRANSLATED FROM THE IRISH. 



IT is now some eight and twenty years 

 since an important controversy was 

 carried on in the columns of The Live 

 Stock Journal on the nature and history of 

 the great Irish Wolfhound. The chief dis- 



THE IRISH WOLFHOUND (1803). 



From " The Sportsman's Cabinet" By P. Reinagle, R.A. 



putants in the discussion were Captain G. A. 

 Graham, of Dursley, Mr. G. W. Hickman, Mr. 

 F. Adcock, and the Rev. M. B. Wynn, and 

 the main point at issue was whether the dog 

 then imperfectly known as the Irish Wolf- 



dog was a true descendant of the ancient 

 Canis graius Hibernicus, or whether it was 

 a mere manufactured mongrel, owing its 

 origin to an admixture of the Great Dane 

 and the dog of the Pyrenees, modified and 

 brought to type by a 

 cross with the Highland 

 Deerhound. It was not 

 doubted indeed, his- 

 tory and tradition 

 clearly attested that 

 there had existed in 

 early times in Ireland 

 a very large and rugged 

 hound of Greyhound 

 form, whose vocation it 

 was to hunt the wolf, 

 the red deer, and the 

 fox. It was assuredly 

 known to the Romans, 

 and there can be little 

 doubt that the huge 

 dog Samr, which Jarl 

 Gunnar got from the 

 Irish king Myrkiarton 

 in the tenth century 

 and took back with 

 him to Norway, was 

 one of this breed. But 

 it was supposed by 

 many to have become 

 extinct soon after the 



disappearance of the last wolf in Ireland, 

 and it was the endeavour of Captain Graham 

 to demonstrate that specimens, although 

 admittedly degenerate, were still to be 

 found, and that they were capable of being 



