The Irish Wolfhound 6ii 



alauntes went also to Ireland and were kept there for the same uses that 

 they were in Southern France. If this is a tenable conclusion then we can 

 account for both smooth dogs of Dane type and rough dogs of greyhound 

 conformation being kept and bred in Ireland according to the fancy of vari- 

 ous owners, with the possibilities of their being inter bred and adding still 

 further to the varieties of dogs which went by the uniform name of wolfdogs 

 or wolfhounds. 



In this breed also we meet with the exaggerations of height common 

 to all large dogs, spoken of comparatively. Goldsmith said that they were 

 the largest of the dog kind to be seen in the world. " The largest of those 

 I have seen — and I have seen about a dozen — ^was about four feet high and as 

 tall as a calf of a year old. He was made extremely like a greyhound, but 

 more robust and inclining to the figure of the French matin (Buffon's) or the 

 Great Dane." This certainly suggests a smooth coated dog. Richardson 

 wrote very fully regarding the wolfhound and also credited the dog with 

 excessive height. One of his arguments was that from the fact that some 

 skulls found at Dunshauglin were 1 1 inches long, he took it that 3 inches 

 could be added as the length of the head in life, but that is far too much 

 allowance, and Captain Graham in referring to this said that ij or 2 inches 

 at the most was all that should be allowed. Richardson then assumed that 

 with a deerhound of 11 inches head standing 29 inches, a dog of 14 inches 

 head would be 40 inches in height, and that is how he figured wolfhounds as 

 giants. Captain Graham's formula was that the head should be accepted 

 as 13 inches at the outside, and that a deerhound of 29 inches should have 

 an 1 1 -inch head, and one of 13 inches in head could not therefore exceed 34 

 inches, a reduction of 6 inches from Richardson's figures. 



The calculations of Captain Graham would not be far out if all dogs 

 preserved the same uniformity of measurements, but length of head is not 

 a safe basis to take for height at shoulder. Dalziel gives the measurements 

 of nine deerhounds, two of which were 12J inches in head and both were 

 exactly 31 inches at the shoulder. Of two dogs which had ii^-inch heads 

 one measured 28 inches at the shoulder and the other 30^. The whole 

 business looks very much like a house of cards and when we come to actual 

 tape measurements of dogs we find that while the various breeds all main- 

 tain their relative proportions the giants have dwindled to very ordinary 

 specimens. We have already quoted Mr. Lambert's measurements of the 

 Marquis of Sligo's dogs, one of which had a lO-inch head and from point of 



