We are informed by such disjointed scraps of Celtic verse as Time, that merciless destroyer, has suffered to come down, though in a mutilated form, to our days, that in the times of old, when Fionn Mac Cumbaill, popularly styled Fin Mac Cool, wielded the sceptre of power and of justice, we possessed a prodigious and courageous dog used for hunting the deer and the wild boar, with, though last not least, the grim and savage wolf which ravaged the folds and slaughtered the herds of our ancestors. We learn from the same source that these dogs were also frequently employed as auxiliaries in war, and that they were “mighty in combat, their breasts like plates of brass, and greatly to be feared.” We might adduce the songs of Ossian, but that we fear to draw upon ourselves the envious rancour of some snarling critic. We cannot, however, avoid observing, that the epithets “hairy-footed,” “white-breasted,” and “bounding,” are singularly characteristic of some of the striking peculiarities of the dog in question, and strangely coincide with the descriptions furnished by other writers respecting him; so that M’Pherson must at all events have been at the pains of considerable research if he actually forged the beautiful poems which he put forth to the world under Ossian’s name. The word “Bran,” the name given to Fingal’s noble hound, employed by others than Ossian, or I should not mention it, is Celtic, and signifies “mountain torrent,” implying that impetuosity of course and headlong courage so characteristic of the subject of my paper. I have said that many assert the Irish wolf-dog to be no longer in existence. I have ventured a denial of this, and refer to the wolf-dog or deer-dog of the Highlands of Scotland as his actual and faithful living representative. Perhaps I am wrong in saying “representative.” I hold that the Irish wolf-dog and the Highland deer-dog are one and the same; and I now proceed to cite a few authorities in support of my positions.