"
Nevertheless, I will endeavor to bring together in this paper such
stray reminiscences of doggery in general as may occur to me while I
write, illustrating the subject, as I proceed, with occasional passages
from the careers, of humble, but eccentric individuals of the race.
Extinction has been the fate of some varieties of the dog, which have
been either superseded by the progress of machinery, or have gone to
decay in consequence of the annihilation of the animals for the chase
of which they were maintained. When there were wolves in the mosses and
caverns of Ireland, for example, there were wolf-dogs to hunt them. The
last wolf of that country--and _he_ was a wonder, from the then rarity
of the animal--was killed about one hundred and fifty years ago; and
although the breed of hound then known as the Irish wolf-dog--one of
the largest, noblest, and most courageous of the canine race--was kept
up to some extent for nearly a century later, we doubt much whether a
single pure specimen of the variety is now in existence; unless,
indeed, it may so happen that some _ultimus Romanorum_ of the tribe
still licks his patrician chops in the kennels of the Marquis of Sligo,
in the possession of which family the last litter was many years ago
supposed to be.
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