Ireland swarmed with wolves, and its colonists and aborigines
would in time have alike shared the fate of 'little Red Riding
Hood;' when, lo! up started the noble _Canis familiaris
Hibernicus_, which, greatly improved by a cross with the wolf
itself, was found everywhere in fierce antagonism with foreign
ferocity; and for his eminent services was not only speedily
adopted by patriot kings and heroes, as part of their courtly and
warlike parade, but sung by bards and immortalised by poets, as
worthy of such illustrious companionship. It is thus Bran, the
famous and beloved hound of Fingal, has become as immortal as his
master; and a track is still shown on a mountain in Tyrone, near
New Town Stuart, called 'The Track of the Foot of Bran, the Hound
of Fionne Mac Cumhall.' So much for poetry and tradition. Modern
naturalists, however, in their animal biography and prosaic view
of things, have assigned the introduction of the wolf-dog in
Ireland to the Danes, who brought it over in their first invasion;
and its resemblance to '_Le gros Danois_' of Buffon favours the
supposition. 'When Ireland swarmed with wolves,' says Pennant,
'these dogs were confined to the chase; but as soon as these
animals were extirpated, the number of the dogs decreased, and
from that period were kept chiefly for state.' Goldsmith mentions
having only seen in his time in Ireland one Irish wolf-hound that
was four feet high. And though the father of the late Marquis of
Sligo endeavoured to preserve the breed, his kennels in latter
years exhibited but a scanty specimen. These majestic and
beautiful animals are now, I believe, quite extinct in Ireland,
where their scarcity is accounted for by Mr. Pennant as 'the
consequence of the late King of Poland having procured from thence
by his agents as many as could be purchased.' The last notice
taken of the Irish wolf-dog in fictitious narrative may, I
believe, be found in one of my own national novels, 'O'Donnel,'
where the hero and his hound are first introduced to the reader
together. I borrowed the picture, as I gave it, from living
originals, which in my earliest youth struck forcibly on my
imagination, in the person of the celebrated Archibald Hamilton
Rowan, accompanied by his Irish hound Bran!

"This is all I know or can recollect of my noble and beautifu