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Dogs and All about Them
·
Robert Leighton
108
CHAPTER
XV
THE
IRISH
WOLFHOUND
It
is
now
some
thirty
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
disputants
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
as
issue
was
whether
the
dog
then
imperfectly
known
as
the
Irish
Wolfdog
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,
history
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
restored
to
a
semblance
of
the
original
type.
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