The most consistent and also persistent advocate for including the great Dane among the list of British dogs is Mr. Frank Adcock, of Shevington Hall, Wigan, and his monster dog Satan and bitch Proserpina, known among the habitues of dog shows as "the Devil and his wife," are the specimens of the breed most familiar to the dog showing public.

The great Dane is referred to by those eminent naturalists, Linnaeus and Buffon, as a prominent and distinct variety.

Buff on, who I am disposed to think held exaggerated views of the influence of climate, classes the great Dane among those varieties that had been modified and formed by climatic influence, and owing his origin to the sheepdog, and the small Danish dog in his thesis is a modified bulldog.

To follow out this argument would, however, carry us too far from the present subject, but I must, in passing, point out the discrepancy between Buffon, the author of the "Sportsman's Cabinet," and Youatt, the latter looking on the Dalmatian as the small Dane, and the great Dane identical with it in all but size.

The great Dane has long been a recognised breed throughout central Europe, and, as already observed in the article on the German boar-hound, that dog has probably a good deal of the Dane blood in him.

The Danish dog and the Irish wolfhound have been held, by Buffon and other writers, to be identical, and most of the best authorities on the subject admit a strong agreement in principal features.

Buffon observes of the Irish wolfhound that he strongly resembled in figure the Danish dog, but greatly exceeded the latter in stature. As Buffon, however, says, he never saw but one Irish wolfhound, and estimates that one at jive feet high when sitting, he evidently exaggerated the dog's size or failed to express his meaning clearly, for it might well be that the dog would measure five feet from the rump up to end of nose held up while sitting.

From all I have been able to gather, there appears among the best writers a strong agreement that there was a close affinity between the great Dane and the Irish wolfhound, and to an infusion of great Dane blood do I look as most hopeful to resusitate the Irish breed.

Richardson, in his "Monograph of the Mastiff," says: "The Dane rarely stands less than 30in. at the shoulder, and is usually more. His head is broad at the temples, and the parietal bones diverge much, thus marking him to be a true mastiff; but, by a singular discrepancy, his muzzle is lengthened more than even that of an ordinary hound, and the lips are not pendulous, or, at least, but slightly so. His coat, when thoroughbred, is rather short than fine, the tail is fine and tapering, the neck long, the ears small and carried back, but these are invariably taken off when the dog is a whelp." Richardson further describes a dog of the breed, named Hector, the property of His Grace the Duke of Buccleugh, that measured, when eighteen years old and his legs had given way, 32in. high at the shoulder, and computed that he must have measured 33½in. high when in his prime. Hector was bought from a student at Dresden.

In 1863 Sir Roger Palmer exhibited an immense black and white dog of this breed called Sam; he stood fully 35in. at the shoulder and weighed 2001b. In a letter to Mr. Adcock Sir Roger says that he was extremely intelligent, very quiet, but will stand no nonsense from strangers, and so acute were his scenting powers that he never failed to find his owner, although liberated as much as twenty-five minutes after he had left the house.

I do not pretend to draw a clear and distinctive line between the German boarhound, which it is now proposed to call the German mastiff, and the great Dane, but those of the former which I have seen had neither, as a rule, the length of muzzle nor the kind of ear described by Richardson.

That this breed is well worth encouraging, no one who has carefully inspected the specimens, more or less pure, seen occasionally at our shows, can doubt. Their immense strength, activity, and apparent "go," mark them as most valuable for hunting and bringing to bay the large and fierce game of our colonies and Indian possessions, and also for judicious crossing with some of our native breeds for the above and other special purposes. Of the breed Mr. Frank Adcock says in "Dogs of the British Islands: " "Enormous in size, sensitive in nose, of great speed, unyielding in tenacity and courage, and full of intelligence; there is no dog that can so well sustain the part of the dog of the hunter of large game," and this opinion is deserving of every respect from the writer's knowledge and experience of the breed.

As to the purity of the dogs exhibited as great Danes, I am not in a position to speak. Mr. Adcock's Satan I look upon as the grandest specimen I have seen - much superior in size, muscularity, and power-fulness of build, to any in the class of "Deutsche Doggen," at the Hanover International Exhibition of 1879, or in the excellent class of "Grand Danois," at the International Exhibition of Dogs, Paris, 1878, both of which lots I inspected most carefully. That Satan, at all events, retains the exact type of head which dogs of this breed possessed very far back, will be proved by the inspection of a very fine painting in the Spencer collection in the South Kensington Museum. This picture only shows the head of a dog of this breed, but there are several other extremely ancient pictures which conclusively prove how accurately the type has been maintained.

The following are the weight and measurements of a great Dane: Mr. F. Adcock's Proserpina, a blue brindled great Dane bitch: Age, 2 years; weight, 1351b.; height at shoulder, 30in.; length from nose to set on of tail, 51in.; length of tail, 20½in.; girth of chest, 34½in.; girth loin, 31in.; girth of head, 21in.; girth of forearm, 9in.; length of head from occiput to tip of nose, 12in.; girth of muzzle midway between eyes and tip of nose, 12½in.