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CHAPTER XI.

THE IRISH WOLFHOUND.

SOME there are who believe that this historical hound became extinct soon after the last wolf was killed in Ireland, which happened in 1710. Others hold the opinion that it never became extinct at all; but survives in the Scotch deerhound, with which they say it was identical. A third division have equally strong opinions, something between the two, which are to the effect that so recently as eighty or ninety years ago very few real Irish wolfhounds remained, and these not readily traceable back to the oldest strains. Others advocate the smooth greyhound as the true article. Then, to complicate matters still further, the Great Dane has become mixed up in the controversy. There is no doubt that at one time or another this big dog has passed himself off to the believing and credulous inhabitants of the Emerald Isle as their own beloved native dog, and, as a fact, many authorities of the past generation write to prove that the Irish

wolfhound was, if not a Great Dane, a smooth-coated creature very like him; and additional evidence that such was the case is to be found in the following instance.

Some four years or so ago, I was shown by the Earl of Antrim a life-sized painting of an enormous hound which had been in his family for about a hundred years. Through generations this had been handed down as a true Irish wolfhound, a noble creature that had saved the life of one of his lordship's ancestors under peculiar and extraordinary circumstances, so the faithful creature had its portrait painted. Now this dog was a huge southern hound in appearance, marked like a modern foxhound, with long pendulous ears, possibly an animal identical with the matin of old writers. The painting gave the idea that the subject had, in life, stood about thirty-four inches high at the shoulders.

It was but natural, when I introduced this interesting discovery to the public through the columns of the Field, that discussion and controversy thereon would arise, and such was the case. Little new material as to the history of the Irish dog was elicited, and it was to be regretted that Lord Antrim could afford no further particulars as to the animal to which attention was first drawn.

One might have expected to find something

reliable and convincing as to what the Irish wolfhound really was in the " Sportsman's Cabinet," published in 1803. Here we have an excellent engraving from a picture by Reinagle, of a huge dog, an enormous deerhound in fact, the identical creature popular reputation stated such a dog to be. Unfortunately the letterpress describes quite a different animal-more of the Great Dane type than of the deerhound. And so the authorities who wrote at that time differed quite as much on the matter as do the admirers of the race at the present time.

To Captain Graham, of Dursley, in Gloucestershire, we owe considerable gratitude for the trouble he has taken to resuscitate the Irish wolfhound. Enthusiast though he be, he is not like so many other enthusiasts, led away to say things he cannot prove, or, indeed, to lay claim to his hounds being descended in a direct line from those animals which may have or may not have killed the last wolf near Dingle over 180 years ago. The gallant gentleman acknowledges that the breed in its original integrity has disappeared, but he believed, when first writing on the subject twenty years ago, that so much of the true strain remained that, with the aid of the modern deerhound, and with judicious management, the breed in its "pristine grandeur" could be recovered.

The difficulty, to my mind, would be to exactly define the original Irish wolfhound. The popular idea and this is not always correct-was of a big powerful dog, with a wire-haired or rough coat, built on the lines of a deerhound, but altogether a heavier and stronger animal. What height a fullgrown specimen should be there is a diversity of opinion. Old writers have said he was as big as a donkey; others that he stood from 36 inches to 40 inches at the shoulders. In the museum of the Royal Dublin Society there are two skulls of wolfhounds dug out of barrows by the late Dr. Wilde. The dimensions of them have been very useful to those who believed in the bigness of the wolfhound. Unfortunately for the side of the latter, these skulls, when carefully measured and compared with others of living dogs, deerhounds, wolfhounds, and greyhounds, could not have been possessed by animals more than 29 inches high at the shoulders.

However, it is not my province here to say what kind of an animal the historical Irish deerhound was, whether there were two, three, or four varieties, or whether any dog that would tackle and hunt a wolf was, from the moment he did so, called a wolfhound. This would only be similar to what occurs in our own days; for have we not the ordinary fox

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