DOGS OF ANCIENT BRITAIN. 261 



the chase, should be that which is least known to the 

 present generation of naturalists and sportsmen. While we 

 are presented with delineations and descriptions of every 

 race of dog, from the mastiff down to the pug, we find no 

 writer of the present day who speaks with any degree of 

 certainty as to the size, colour, or appearance of the deer- 

 hound, once so highly prized, and for a great period of the 

 history of this country, the only dog fitted for the sports of 

 the field. One would naturally have thought that the 

 gigantic, picturesque, and graceful form of this animal (the 

 constant attendant of nobility), would have insured for the 

 present generation a faithful description of its appearance 

 and habits, but it is to be feared that none such has been 

 transmitted to us, and that to the effusions of the bards, 

 and traditional tales of former days, we are chiefly indebted 

 for any idea of the perfection to which this breed at one 

 time attained in this country. 



From modern writers we learn nothing further than 

 that such a race of dogs at one time existed in Ireland, 

 that they were of a gigantic size, and that they are now 

 extinct. 



One great obstacle in the way of investigating the history 

 of this dog has arisen from the different appellations given 

 to it, according to the fancy of the natives in different parts 

 of the country, of Irish wolfdog, Irish greyhound, Highland 

 deerhound, and Scotch greyhound. 



But for these apparently distinctive designations, sufficient 

 information would probably have been recorded regarding 

 a breed of dogs really the same, and in such general use 

 throughout the different parts of the kingdom. 



That dogs resembling the greyhounds of the present day 

 were known in this country as early as the third century 

 we have ample proof from the writings of Roman authors, 

 and, in particular, from the works of Nemesianus and 

 Gratius. In his Cynegeticon Gratius mentions two distinct 

 breeds of dogs as natives of England, the one termed 

 Molossus, which is supposed to have been the mastiff, and 

 the other Vertraha, which, from the description, seems to 

 correspond, in many points, with the greyhounds at present 

 in use in this country. 



