6o4 The Dog Book 



being followed close by the tinckell, are chased down into the valley where 

 wee lay; then all the valley on each side being waylaid with a hundred 

 couple of strong Irish greyhounds, they are let loose as occasion serves upon 

 the heard of deere,that with the dogs, gunnes,arrowes, durks and daggers, in 

 the space of two houres four-score fat deer were slaine, which after were 

 disposed, some one way and some another, twenty or thirty miles; and 

 more than enough left for us to make merry withal at our rendezvous. 



" Being come to our lodgings there was much baking, boyling, roasting, 

 and stewing, as if cook ruffian had been there to have scalded the devil in his 

 feathers — ^the kitchen being always on the side of a banke, many kettles and 

 pots boyling, and many spits turning and winding, with great varietye of 

 cheere, as venison baked, sodden, roast and stu'de; beef, mutton, goates, 

 kid, hares, fish, salmon, pigeons, hens, capons, chickens, partridge, moor- 

 coots, heathcocks, caperkillies and termagants, good ale, sacke, white and 

 claret, tente (or aligant), and most potent aqua vitee. All this, and more 

 than these, we had continually in superfluous abundance, caught by faul- 

 coners, fowlers, fishers and brought by my Lord Marr's tenants and pur- 

 veyors to vitual the camp, which consisted of fourteen or fifteen hundred 

 men and horses." 



The quotation is lengthy, but it is worth giving as showing the number 

 of red deer at that time in the Western Highlands of Scotland and the whole- 

 sale manner in which they were killed when attacked in this method of 

 driving. The minuteness of the detail carries with it the conviction that 

 the "pilgrim" was very exact in his statements and being a participant at 

 such gatherings he would not use the term "Irish greyhounds" unless he 

 was fully justified in so doing. Whether, if these dogs had been such im- 

 mense animals as we read about in some old books, the author of this des- 

 cription would have dwelt upon that fact we leave to the opinion of the 

 reader. Our mind was made up long ago that the many claims to gigantic 

 height in the wolfhound are gross exaggerations, to give them a mild term. 

 Goldsmith mentions them as being as large as a calf of a year old and being 

 four feet high. BufFon eclipses Goldsmith entirely when he says that he 

 had only seen one which when sitting down seemed to be five pieds (a pied 

 was 13I inches) high, and resembled the dog to which is given the name of 

 Great Dane. There is no evidence that these measurements were taped 

 and when we come to reliable data we find that the Irish and Scottish dogs 

 diflPered but little. The Marquis of Sligo was one of the last to keep any 



