Arrian on Coursing

The editors of the Greek libellus confine their remarks almost exclusively to critical annotations on the text. Indeed Holstein’s edition has no notes; Blancard’s, only a few marginal emendations; and Zeune’s and Schneider’s, very few parallel passages. Such classical citations, therefore, as are adduced by the translator, are for the most part of novel application.

The quotations from the Cynegeticus of Xenophon the elder refer to the chase-practices and kennel-discipline of Greece, antecedent to the institution of coursing.

This statement is limited to classical authors alone; the Biblical scholar might possibly arraign its accuracy, if made more general; though it scarce needs qualification to suit the doubtful interpretation of the Hebrew text of Proverbs ch. xxx. ver. 31. No allusion occurring elsewhere in the sacred volume to dogs of the chase, though many to the earlier varieties of Venation with predatory instruments, it is improbable that the words of Agur to his pupils Ithiel and Ucal should refer to the most uncommon of the canine tribe, the canis Leporarius, Gallicus, or Vertragus. The Hebrew expression, however, for Bocharti Hierozoic. L. ii. c. lvi.“accinctus lumbis,” “girt in the loins,” as explained in the margin of the English version, is understood by Jewish lexicographers to designate the greyhound, and is so rendered in the English text. But with the learned Bochart (Præfat. ad Lectorem—wherein he corrects a few errors of the body of his work, and gives his latest and most mature opinions on certain Scriptural difficulties—a part of his writings apparently overlooked by modern annotators, to the farther propagation of error) I should rather understand the horse to be the animal alluded to—Ejusdem Præfat. ad Lectorem.“equum intelligi malim, qui non solùm expeditè, sed et superbè, et cura pompâ quâdam incedit: et lumbos habet cingulâ vel zonâ verè succinctos. Quod an de cane dici possit valdè ambigo.” After all, perhaps, no particular animal may have been intended by the son of Jakeh. The term may have a general reference to any animal of the frame alluded to—Ovid. Metam. L. iii.“substricta gerens—ilia—”. The chapter containing the passage in question is not found in the Septuagint; indeed the Greek version of the LXX. terminates with the 29th chapter.

In the 27th oration of Themistius, the eclectic philosopher of Paphlagonia, a passage occurs, which, as far as merely mentioning Celtic dogs by name, may be said to prolong the notice to the fourth century. The whole passage, as illustrative of the author’s subject, “non loca attendenda sed homines,” is curious and worthy of citation—Themistii Orat. xxvii.ὅστις δὲ ἀγαπᾷ κύνας, τούτῳ προσφιλὲς μὲν κτῆμα, καὶ Κέλται, καὶ Λάκαιναι σκύλακες· δάκνει δὲ αὐτὸν καὶ τὸ Καστορίδων φύλον, καὶ τὸ Ἀρκαδικὸν αὐτὸ, καὶ τὸ Κρητικὸν, αἷς φύσις τῶν θηρίων ἐλέγχειν τὰς εὐνὰς κατὰ τὴν ὁδὸν ἐπισπομέναις. οὐ παρόψεται δὲ οὐδὲ τὰς οἴκοι σκυλακευθείσας, εἰ μήτε κάλλους ἐκείνων μήτε ὠκύτητος λείποιντο. In favour of the greyhound being here cited, it may be remarked that the Bithynian courser calls the Celtic dog μέγα κτῆμα (cap. xxxii.) and his shape καλόν τι χρῆμα, and derives his name ἀπὸ τῆς ὠκύτητος, as the characteristic distinction of the race. See some remarks on the “Canes Scotici” of Symmachus hereafter.

The Cynosophium alone, a Greek work “de Curâ Canum,” breaks the silence of many centuries. It is supposed to have been compiled, about the year 1270, by Demetrius of Constantinople, author of the first treatise “de Re Accipitrariâ,” and physician to the Emperor Michael Palæologus. To what is borrowed from the two Xenophons, nothing is added of novelty or interest, save in the department of canine pathology; indeed it is almost entirely confined to kennel-management and therapeutics. No notice is taken of any variety of dog by name. The reader, who may wish to consult its medical nostrums, will find the treatise attached to the “Rei Accipitrariæ Scriptores” of Rigaltius (Lutetiæ mdcxii.) and to the “Poetæ Venatici” of Johnson (Londini mdcxcix.).

The Crafte of Hontyng is supposed to be a version by Gyfford from a more ancient work by Twety or Twici—“Le art de Venerie le quel Maistre Guillaiue Twici Venour le Roy d’Angleterre fist en son temps per aprandre autres.” The greyhound is mentioned fol. 4. of blowing. Warton’s Engl. Poetry, V. ii. 221.“Whañ a mañ hath set up archerys and greyhoundes, and the beest be founde and passe out the boundys, and myne houndes aftir,” &c.

These instructions were written for Henry Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry V.

The “Morte Arthur” tells us, that “Tristrem laboured ever in hunting and hawking, so that we never read of no gentleman more that so used himself therein,” &c. and in the rich poetry of Spenser, the knight informs Sir Calidore,

The Biographia Britannica is amusingly severe in its strictures on the renowned Mrs. Barnes, and her incongruous occupations in the field and cloister. “There appears such a motley masquerade—Biograph. Brit. note, Caxton, p. 367.such an indistinctness of petticoat and breeches,—such a problem and concorporation of sexes, according to the image that arises out of the several representations of this religious sportswoman or virago, that one can scarcely consider it, without thinking Sir Tristram, the old monkish forester, and Juliana, the matron of the nuns, had united to confirm John Cleveland’s ‘Canonical Hermaphrodite.’”

Should the reader meet with any extracts from the Compendium in the subsequent annotations, they are to be received on the authority of Conrad Gesner, from whose “Historia Quadrupedum” they are selected. The same learned work has afforded the few parallel passages adduced from Albertus Magnus, Belisarius, and Tardif. For all others the translator is himself answerable, having culled them from the original sources, and generally from the most approved editions.

The date of the greyhound’s introduction into these islands is with difficulty ascertained. If the “septem Scoticorum canum oblatio” of Flavian, wherewith he graced the Quæstor’s spectacle of his brother Symmachus at Rome, be really coarse varieties of the Celtic type, as supposed by Christopher Wase, this hound must have been found here as early as the reign of Theodosius. Indeed Hector Boethius and Holinshed place him amongst us at an earlier period: nor is it improbable that he originally accompanied theSee the Appendix Class iii. Scoto-Celts from the continent of Europe at their primary irruption into Ireland and Scotland. We have evidence of his being an inmate of the Anglo-Saxon kennels in the days ofCotton. Mss. Tiber. B. v. Elfric, Duke of Mercia; and manuscriptal paintings have descended to us of a Saxon chieftain and his huntsman, attended by a brace of greyhounds, of the date of the 9th century—the earliest representation which I have seen of this hound as connected with British field-sports.

Contained in his work entitled “Countrey Contentments.” In addition to which, “The Countrey Farme,” by the same author, a compilation from the French, will be read with amusement.

Coursing has ever been held an honourable and gentlemanly amusement in Great Britain, from its earliest annals to the present time. Nor can I discover any authority for the truth of Vlitius’s opinion, as given in his note on the Veltraha of Gratius. Vlitii Venatio Novantiqua.“Ne ideò Vertragis suis sagaces posthabeat ille Xenophon: nam hodiè in Angliâ sagaces nobilissimi quique exercent; Vertrago autem leporem conficere, indignum benè nato parum abest quin habeatur.” Such never was the opinion entertained of “greyhound hunting,” in King James’s phrase:—indeed the farther we go back into the history of the leash, the higher it ranked in the scale of British field-sports. See the “Constitutiones Canuti Regis de forestâ”—and Blount’s Ancient Tenures passim, for instances of the high repute in which the courser’s hound has ever been held in Great Britain.

The reader will be amused with Simon Latham’s epilogue to the third edition of his “Faulconry,” wherein he combats (for he wrote in ticklish times, 1658) with his usual quaintness of style and illustration, the notion of the sinfulness of rural sports: inferring that they may “be lawfully and conscientiously used with moderation by a magistrate or minister, or lawyer or student, or any other seriously employed, which in any function heat their brains, waste their bodies, weaken their strength, weary their spirits; that as a means (and blessing from God) by it their decayed strength may be restored, their vital and animal spirits quickened, refreshed, and revived, their health preserved, and they better enabled (as a bow unbended for shooting) to the discharging of their weighty charges imposed upon them.”

Aristot. de Polit. L. i. c. v. plato de legibus l. vii. Xenophon. Cyropæd. L. i. c. v. l. viii. c. xii. respub. lacedæm. c. iii. cyneget. c. i. xii. xiii. Polybius Hist. L. xxxi. jul. pollux onomast. l. v. Præfat. Commodo.—Cicero de Nat. D. L. ii. de officiis l. i. horat. l. i. epist. xviii. virgil. æneid. l. vii. ix. Seneca de Provid. c. ii. plinii panegyr. traj. d.—justin. hist. epit. l. xxxvii. Symmach. Epist. L. v. Ep. 66.

It will be readily ceded that the amatory expostulation of Sulpitia to her dear Cherinthus,

and the epistle of Ausonius to the ruralist Theon,

are too jocular to place Tibullus and the poet of Bourdeaux on the side of the Catilinarian historian.

The plaintive poet of “The Task,” B. iii. has seemingly borrowed from Agrippa’s page the memorable crimination of the hunter’s pursuit:

I purposely omit all notice of the “Venatio Amphitheatralis,” or “V. in arenâ” of ancient Rome; of which Tertullian, Augustin, Chrysostom, and the Christian Cicero, Lactantius, have written with merited reprobation. J. Lipsii Saturnal. Sermon. L. i. c. 7.“Cum viderent pietatis damno, addictum devinctumque populum his ludis; passim invecti in eos, ut libidinis, sævitiæque fontes; et bene illi.” Not a word can be advanced in palliation of these brutal outrages of humanity,

wherein man was “butcher’d to make a Roman holiday”—“Homo occiditur ad hominis voluptatem.” With this monstrous variety of Venatio, so called κατ’ ἐξοχὴν, and recorded as such with horror, we have nothing to do; with its abettors under any qualified form, the modern frequenters of the cock-pit or bear-garden, the heroes of a bull-bait, and patrons of mercenary pugilists, the rivals of the “municipalis arenæ perpetui comites” of Juvenal’s days, we have no sentiments in common. We have hailed with exultation the victory already effectuated, or in course of gradual achievement, over the ferocious barbarities of the amphitheatre, and the semi-pagan cruelties of more modern spectacles—a victory that is attempering the pastimes of the English people to the religion and morality of the age; and we sincerely deplore the existence of the θεάτρον κυνηγετικὸν of Dio, under any modification, in any part of the civilized world.

Let Christianity transfuse its lenient spirit into all our sports, and instead of the amphitheatrical entertainments, and barbarian amusements of infidels, let us have such as are congenial to the humanity of Christians. Let us be the champions of rational recreation, not of brutal gratification;—the friends of man, and not unnecessarily the enemies of inferior animals;—spectators in our temperate and innocent diversions of the dog’s innate faculties and prowess for the seizure of the destined animals of the chase—K. Henry VI. Pt. ii. act ii. sc. 1.“to see how God in all his creatures works,” and witnesses of “the curious search or conquest of one beast over another, persued by a naturall instinct of enmitie;—” how

but not hostile instigators of canine ferocity to the heartless maiming and slaying an unnatural prey—a species of animal conflict never intended by creative wisdom; and wherein violence is done to natural instinct to minister to man’s unhallowed sport.

Cui dum nimium insistunt, ipsi abjectâ humanitate feræ efficiuntur, morumque prodigiosâ perversitate, tanquam Actæon mutantur in naturam belluarum.

“In using either of these games observe that moderation,” says King James to Prince Henry, “that ye slip not therewith the houres appointed for your affaires, which ye ought ever precisely to keepe; remembering that these games are but ordained for you, in enabling you for your office, for the which ye are ordained,” &c.

According to the decisions of judicial astrology in casting nativities, Julius Firmicus remarks that the following personages, “equorum nutritores, accipitrum, falconum, cæterarumque avium, quæ ad aucupia pertinent, similiter et Molossorum, Vertagrorum, et qui sunt ad venationes accomodati,” being born when the planet Venus is in Aquarius, are incapable of application to any more laudable pursuit than hunting and hawking.

The chasseurs of Agrippa’s days, laical and clerical, were equally reprehensible. From the Thebans, this literary Timonist tells us, the worst of men, Venation passed to the Trojans, not much better, and thence to Greece and Rome, brutalizing the inhabitants of the earth in its progress—De Incert. et Vanit. &c. c. lxxvii.“Tandem hæc exercitia in se reverâ servilia et mechanica eo usque evecta sunt, ut positis quibusque liberalibus studiis, hodie prima nobilitatis elementa atque progressus sint, illis ducibus ad summum gradum perveniatur: hodieque ipsa regum et principum vita, ipsa etiam (proh dolor!) abbatum, episcoporum, cæterorumque ecclesiæ præfectorum religio, tota inquam venatio est,” &c.

The disastrous casualties that have befallen divers of the worshipful but rash disciples of Chiron and his compeers are recorded in terrorem by a Sicilian amateur of falconry. Will the timid courser venture to mount his “smart hack or Zetland shelty,” after reading the following summary of these fatalities? La Fauconnerie de Messire Arthelouche de Alagona.“Meleager en perdit la vie, pour la victoire rapportée sur le sanglier de Calidoine. Le bel Adonis fut tiré par un sanglier. Actéon fut dévoré de ses propres chiens. Cephale y tua sa chère Procris, et Acaste en fut interdict, ayant occis le fils du Roy qui luy avoit esté donné en charge, comme fut Brutus pour avoir tué son père Sylvius par mesgarde. Un Empereur fut occis par la beste qu’il poursuivoit. Un Roy en courant à la chasse se cassa le col en tombant de cheval.” The legitimacy of the inference drawn by Le Conseiller et Chambellan du Roy de Sicile is doubtful—“Que qui craindra ces dangereux effectz qu’il s’adonne à la vollerie, où il trouvera sans doubte plus grand plaisir.” The superior pleasure of the latter is as equivocal as its inferior danger; and pursued to excess, I should think, must share equality of peril and of blame.

Of Mr. Barnard, who was accustomed to enliven the sedentary pleasures of his intellectual pursuits with the active and salutary recreation of coursing, and to shake off, in Horatian language, “inhumanæ senium ... Camœnæ,” in the company of his greyhounds, on the wolds of Yorkshire, the reader must pardon me, if I speak with the deepest regret. He was indeed, like Maximus the friend and correspondent of Symmachus, Symmachi Epist. Lib. ix. Ep. 28.“inter sodales Apollinis ac Dianæ, utriusque sectator,” or in the apposite words of Ercole Strozzi,

But alas! gifted as he was, far beyond the ordinary worshippers of the sylvan goddess, he hath “begun the travel of eternity,”

The periodical publications of the day have given to the world the mournful tribute of a scholar to his memory: and when the voice of affection hath sung “the deathless praise” of a departed son, that of friendship may be silent. But let it not be supposed that the learning and genius of this accomplished man were confined to the inferior and perishable subjects of the courser’s pursuit. The powers of his talented mind were directed also to the high and heavenly callings of his profession; and among other subjects, to the commemoration in verse and prose, of the saints and martyrs of the Protestant Church. In the words of the Nutricia of Politiano, he was indeed

His poetical version of the poems of the younger Flaminio, a celebrated Latinist of the sixteenth century, on which he was engaged till his fatal illness, and the publication of which he fondly anticipated, will add, I trust, to his posthumous fame.

As the originator of the Courser’s Stud Book, and the indefatigable compiler of its genealogical tables, (an attempt “multâ deducere virgâ,” to derive “by trees of pedigrees,” as Dryden says, the speed and shape of each celebrated descendant, in the greyhound kennel, from the recorded genealogies and performances of a far-famed ancestry,—Platonis Menexenus.ἀγαθοὶ δὲ ἐγένοντο διὰ τὸ φῦναι ἐξ ἀγαθῶν,) the name of Mr. Barnard must be recorded in the annals of coursing with lasting gratitude; notwithstanding the prolegomena of a vicarious editor have occasioned the substitution of a second name on the title-page of the work, after the unexpected death of the original projector:

But let us cease this querulous display of individual feeling. Many did not know him; and those who did—his relatives—his friends and correspondents—have felt too much already. And the preface to so trivial a work as a Courser’s Vade-Mecum is not a fit occasion for descanting on the high merits of a Christian scholar; nor is lamentation over the dead a suitable prelude to the entertainment of the living.

Many of the Greek and Latin classics having been edited by English Divines, the latter fell under the lash of Young in the memorable lines,

These terms are also misapplied in the Cynegeticon of the poet of Barga, and in the Album Dianæ Leporicidæ of Savary of Caen. The latter, speaking of Spain and Italy, says—

and of the Italians and their chase he writes,

Arrian invariably calls himself Xenophon; and his predecessor of the same name he designates, for distinction’s sake, τὸν πάλαι, τὸν πρεσβύτερον. In the Cynegeticus he refers to him as τῷ Γρύλλου, τῷ ἐμαυτοῦ ὁμωνύμῳ, ἐκείνῳ τῷ Ξενοφῶντι.

With the citizenship of Rome, bestowed upon him by the Emperor, when in Greece, as it is supposed, A.D. 124, he assumed the Roman name of Flavius: and subsequent to his return from the prefecture of Cappadocia, he was probably raised to the consulate.

Aulus Gellius particularly authenticates his literary connexion with Epictetus, where he alludes (Noct. Attic. L. xix. c. i.) to the latter’s διαλέξεις “ab Arriano digestas,” &c.

These instructions are written, as military orders, in the imperative mood. Ὁ δὲ ἡγεμὼν τῆς πάσης στρατιᾶς Ξενοφῶν, τὸ πολὺ μὲν πρὸ τῶν σημείων τῶν πεζικῶν ἡγείσθω, ἐπιφοιτάτω δὲ τάσῃ τῇ τάξει, κ. τ. λ. Such were some of the duties which he enjoined on himself as commander-in-chief.

The practical courser will not deny to Hormé the merit, which on his lord’s voucher, he is entitled to; few greyhounds, even in their prime, in modern days, could vie with their redoubted prototype and master four hares per diem.

In addition to the authors already cited, or referred to, he is also mentioned by Arnobius, towards the close of his second book.

It is a truth worth recording, that, from Photius to Saint-Croix and Chaussard, the last translator of Alexander’s Anabasis, no writer has impugned his veracity and honesty as an historian, nor his literary style as a scholar.

The vanity which La Mothe Le Vayer discovers, so glaring in his history, and more particularly in what he says of himself in the 12th chapter of the first book of the Anabasis of Alexander, before quoted, and from which Gronovius and Raphelius satisfactorily exculpate him, I confess I do not see. The pride of the historian is not beyond the dignity of his subject.

Chiron, the son of Saturn and the nymph Philyra, is fabled to have received his knowledge of hunting from Apollo and Diana; and to have instructed the numerous disciples, recorded by Xenophon in the first chapter of his Cynegeticus, in the science and practice of the chase.

For the connexion of the Chase with Military Tactics, see Xenophon de Venatione c. xii., the latter part of c. xiii. cyropædia l. i. c. v. διὰ τοῦτο δημοσίᾳ τοῦ θηρᾷν ἐπιμέλονται· ὅτι ἀληθεστάτη δοκεῖ αὕτη ἡ μελέτη τῶν πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον εἶναι. L. viii. c. xii. De Republicâ Lacedæmon. c. iv.

See Xenophon de Venat. c. ii. whence the Greek poet of the chase has derived the manners, dress, and weapons of his hunter: Oppian. Cyneget. i. 81. The curious reader will be amused with the illustration of Xenophon’s second chapter; of Gratius’s Cynegeticon, v. 332. and Oppian loc. cit. (all treating on the subject of the hunter’s character, &c.) in Edmund de Langley’s Mayster of Game: wherein (c. xix. p. 70.) he tutors the hunter from the age of seven or eight (“for oo craft requireth al a mannys lif or he be parfite therof, &c.”) in all the arcana of kennel management; and particularly enjoins that he be “wel avised of his speche, and of his termys, and ever glad to lerne, and that he be no booster ne jangelere,” &c.; and so Xenophon, Xenophon de Venat. c. ii.ἐπιθυμοῦντα τοῦ ἔργου καὶ τὴν φωνὴν Ἕλληνα, τὴν δὲ ἡλικίαν κ. τ. λ.

Three varieties of nets were employed by Grecian sportsmen, ἀρκύες, δικτύα, and ἐνοδία, corresponding to the Roman casses, retia, and plagæ. See Xenophon de V. c. ii. The first were conical, tunnel-shaped, purse-nets; Jul. Pollucis Onomast. L. v. c. iv. 26. 27.κεκρυφάλῳ δὲ ἐοίκασι κατὰ τὸ σχῆμα, εἰς ὀξὺ καταλήγουσαι: the second, nets or hayes for open places, for encircling coverts, &c. τὰ ἐν τοῖς ὁμαλοῖς, καὶ ἰσοπέδοις ἱστάμενα: the third, road-nets, for being placed across roads, and tracks frequented by animals of chase, τὰ ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς of Julius Pollux.

Xenophon treats of entrapping deer, &c. de Venat. c. ix.; of hares, &c. c. v. and vi.; of dogs, &c. c. iii. iv. and vii.; of stag-hunting, &c. c. ix.; of the boar-chase, c. x.; of the bear and lion chases, &c. c. xi.; and many of the same subjects are beautifully described in the Cynegetics of the poet of Anazarbus, and delineated in Montfaucon, Tom. iii., and in the rare plates of Joannes Stradanus and P. Galle, under the title of “Venationes Ferarum.”

Τοῦ γένους τῶν κυνῶν τοῦ Κελτικοῦ—the greyhounds of modern days. Coursing having been first practised by the inhabitants of Gallia Celtica, the greyhound was called Minshæi Emendatio in voce Grei-hound.κυὼν Κελτικὸς, canis Gallicus, (quibus Galli maximè utuntur, and not Grei-hound, q. Grecian hound, quòd primùm fuerit in usu inter Græcos). A splendid representation of this most elegant of the canine race is engraven by Pere Montfaucon, Tom. iii. pl. 56. f. 5. from the Arch of Constantine, from whose work it has been again copied on stone to illustrate this treatise. For an account of the Scythian and African horses, see notes on chap. xxiii. and xxiv.

See Biographical Notice of Arrian in the prefatory matter.

Xenophon de Re Equestri, c. i. gives his reason for uniting his own opinions to those of Simon, and filling up the omissions of his predecessor’s work: “because his friends would esteem his own opinions more deserving of confidence from agreeing with those of so able an equestrian;” περὶ Ἱππικῆς, c. i.and moreover he undertakes to supply from his own resources, whatever the dedicator of the brazen horse of the Eleusinium at Athens had omitted to notice.

The two reasons in proof of the elder Xenophon’s ignorance of the Celtic breed of swift-footed hounds are quite satisfactory: the one derived from the limited geographical knowledge of the Greeks, the other from the comparative speed of the hare and hound, as described in his manual; which statement is just the converse of what it would have been, had he been acquainted with the genuine greyhound.

Ἄγνωστα γὰρ ἦν τὰ ἔθνη τῆς Εὐρώπης. The Greeks, in the elder Xenophon’s days, appear to have known very little of the western countries of Europe, and scarce any thing even of Italy itself. It is true that there were, at that time, many Grecian colonies westward, and through them a knowledge of the productions of the more north-western interior might have reached the mother-country. But there was no particular inducement for the Greek merchants to penetrate far inland: and the Celts had not as yet crossed the Alps, nor even arrived at any part of the coast of the Mediterranean—any well-known country. The very distance at which the father of history places the Celts, viz. as Geography of Herodotus.“the most remote people in Europe, after the Cynetes,” is an indication of this fact. It is the opinion of Niebuhr that the navigators of Greece rarely visited the unexplored coasts of the occidental seas. Indeed, the interior of Gaul was unknown even to the Romans before the time of Julius Cæsar. Although they were masters of Romana Provincia, a tract on the sea-coast contiguous to Italy, they knew nothing of the multitudinous tribes spread over the country between the Rhine and the Ocean; which latter were not thoroughly known, nor their manners and natural productions ascertained, till the visit of Augustus Cæsar; when probably the Romans first became acquainted with the native hound of the interior.

It is impossible to speak with any degree of certainty of the origin and distribution of the ancient Celtæ, or ătæ, or Galli, as they were variously called by the Greeks and Romans. Whether derived from Ashkenez, the grandson of Noah; or from Celtus, Gallus, and Illyricus, sons of Polyphemus; or from Celtes, a king of Gaul,—matters not. Leaving these knotty points of genealogy to others, let it suffice that the Celts, at an early period, occupied a large portion of Western Europe. Herodotus mentions them in Melpomene s. 49. οἳ ἔσχατοι πρὸς ἡλίου δυσμέων μετὰ Κύνητας οἰκέουσι τῶν ἐν τῇ Εὐρώπῃ: and our author states that Celtic legates came to Alexander from the shores of the Ionian sea, Expedit. Alexandri, L. i. c. iv.παρὰ Κελτῶν τῶν ἐπὶ τῷ Ἰονίῳ κόλπῳ ᾠκισμένων ἧκον. Extensive as the name must have been at that time, it was subsequently confined to fewer tribes; and, in the days of Julius Cæsar, was appropriated to the inhabitants of Gallia Celtica, a territory between the Loire and Seine, which at a later period borrowed a new denomination from the celebrated colony of Lugdunum, or Lyons. Cæsar. de Bell. Gall. L. i. c. i.“Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres: quarum unam incolunt Belgæ; aliam Aquitani; tertiam, qui ipsorum linguâ Celtæ, nostrâ Galli appellantur.” But I think it probable that Arrian did not intend to use the term Celtic in its limited sense, as having reference exclusively to the district of Gaul so denominated by Cæsar, but as comprehending also the more southern parts of the country. So also Silius Italicus, L. iii.

And Oppian, in the conclusion of his third Halieutic:

Indeed Strabo, L. i., Plutarch, in Cæsare, in Crasso; Appian, Bell. Civil. 2., and others, call the Gauls in general by the name of Celtæ; and the ancient Greek geographers knew of only two nations in Europe besides themselves, the Celtæ and the Scythæ, the former in the West, the latter in the North.

The specific name of Graius, or Græcus, by which Linnæus, Ray, and others, have designated the greyhound, is unfortunate, as it has led to the erroneous opinion that he was known to ancient Greece; whereas it is satisfactorily proved by the younger Xenophon, that his Athenian namesake was not only not acquainted with the Celtic breed of dogs, but that no dogs of similar qualities were known to his predecessor, when he wrote his celebrated treatise on Hunting. Skinner doubts the truth of Minshew’s assertion, already cited, Skinner, Etymologicon.of the Greeks having first employed the greyhound in the chase; “quod facilè crediderim,” says the former etymologist, “si authorem laudâsset.” I know of no authority for such an assertion, and discredit the fact. Indeed, the belief of the existence of the courser’s hound in ancient Greece may be traced to the misconceptions of the gentlemen “è Societate Jesu,” and others, who have favoured us with their expositions of antiquity; and who have understood every keen-nosed, latrant Spartan to be a genuine greyhound. Scholars, ignorant of natural history, and naturalists ignorant of classical learning, have alike given currency to the opinion, in opposition to the contrary statement of the text. Against which the assumption of Savary of Caen,

and the quaint tale of Holinshed can have no weight. For with all due regard to the laborious Raphael, and his coadjutors in historical research, I think it far more consistent with probability that his “peerlesse hounde” was a Celtic greyhound, (to whom “pleasantnesse of mouth” is incorrectly granted by historic licence,) the associate of a Celtic Scot, proximately from Ireland, remotely from Celtic Gaul, than as “fetched so far as out of Græcia from a citie called Molosse, whence the breed of him first came.”

Contrary to what you would suppose would be the result of a contest of speed between them, on comparing the respective shapes of the two animals. The hare being made for speed, and not so the dog, the former, if caught by the latter, is caught παρὰ φύσιν σώματος: thence the inference of Arrian that Xenophon was unacquainted with greyhounds, who are made for speed, is a fair deduction. The words of the latter are: De Venatione, c. v.κατὰ πόδας δὲ οὐ πολλάκις ὑπὸ τῶν κυνῶν διὰ τὸ τάχος κρατεῖται· ὅσοι δὲ ἁλίσκονται, παρὰ φύσιν τοῦ σώματος, τύχῃ δὲ χρώμενοι· οὐδὲν γὰρ τῶν ὄντων ἰσομέγεθες τούτῳ ὅμοιόν ἐστι πρὸς δρόμον· σύγκειται γὰρ ἐκ τοιούτων, κ. τ. λ.

See Xenophon de Venat. c. vi.

Εἰ παραδράμοι τὰς ἄρκυς—if she pass by the tunnel or purse-nets without entering their mouths. The ἄρκυες or casses were placed, here and there, in the line of the main hayes, δίκτυα or retia; and as the hare passed along exploring a place of escape, terrified by the formido above, and the meshes below, (continuous except where the purse-nets with the running noose, βρόχος or laqueus, were introduced,) she attempted to pass at the supposed opening, and became by her struggles entangled in the purse, which immediately closed at its slip-knot entrance. Arrian, perhaps, uses the term ἄρκυς generically for every variety of net, and not specifically for the tunnel. See the Venationes Ferarum of Johannes Stradensis and Philippus Galle, tab. xviii. “Sic leporem in laqueos agitant,” &c.

In the 21st chapter Arrian remarks that greyhounds answer every purpose, and supersede the use of nets altogether: he there writes τὰς ἀγαθὰς as synonymous to τὰς ὠκείας; and the latter epithet being more distinctive of the hounds intended to be designated, I have so translated the former epithet in the present instance. Any dog may be good of his kind, but a greyhound alone fleet.

Diana having been particularly worshipped in Crete, on the authority of Ovid’s

we expect to find the inhabitants addicted to hunting; and such was their character according to Ælian: De Naturâ Animal. L. iii. c. ii.Κύων Κρῆσσα κούφη, καὶ ἁλτικὴ, καὶ ὀρειβασίαις σύντροφος· καὶ μέντοι καὶ αὐτοὶ Κρῆτες τοιούτους αὑτοὺς παραδεικνῦσιν, καὶ ἄδει ἡ φήμη. But it is worthy of notice that although Arrian attributes to Xenophon a description of the hunting practices alone of the Cretans and Carians, there is no mention, in the Cynegeticus of the latter, of these ardent sportsmen or their hounds, save that in his chapter on boar-hunting he orders Indians, Cretans, Locrians, and Spartans to be taken to the field, as a fit pack to contend with such ferocious game, Xenophon. de Venat. c. x.μὴ τὰς ἐπιτυχούσας (picked dogs) ἵνα ἕτοιμοι ὦσι πολεμεῖν τῷ θηρίῳ.

Arrian’s meaning therefore must be that Xenophon’s description, such as it is, (in hare-hunting confined to the Castorian and Foxite hounds,) is applicable to the Carian and Cretan sporting alone, and can have no reference whatever to the peculiar practices of the Celtic coursers. However, I do not believe the difference between the Ejusdem c. iii.Spartan and Cretan or Carian hounds to have been very marked, and Xenophon, possibly, may have included the two latter with the former in his general classification of καστόριαι and ἀλωπεκίδες.

Τὸ Καρικὸν καὶ Κρητικόν. The Cretan and Carian hounds were amongst the most celebrated of antiquity—powerful, quick-scented, and nimble. For a full account of them see the Appendix.

The Celtic beagle, or Segusian hound, is well known to modern sportsmen, answering exactly to the description here given of him. See the Appendix.

Αὐταὶ ἰχνεύουσαι σὺν κλαγγῇ καὶ ὑλαγμῷ. So Oppian,

Τῷ δρομαίῳ οὐ μεῖον ἢ τῷ εὐναίῳ. Holsten has here misapprehended his author in the version of the 1st edition. Xenophon, with his usual accuracy, explains the difference of the two scents: De Venat. c. v. 7.τὰ μὲν εὐναῖα ὁ λαγὼς πορεύεται ἐφιστάμενος, τὰ δὲ δρομαῖα τάχυ. The former is of course a stronger scent than the latter; for the hare goes slowly to her form, often stopping, and saturating the ground with her trail; but her pace, when pursued, is quickened, and leaves less impregnation. Wase thinks the Wase’s Preface to his Translation of Gratius.“accessusque abitusque ferarum” of Gratius (Cyneg. v. 242.) has the same meaning as these terms of Xenophon. Blane’s translation is here, as in almost every passage of the least difficulty, erroneous.

Ἑγουσίαι. The Segusiani were inhabitants of Gallia Celtica on the western side of the Rhone. “Hi sunt extra provinciam trans Rhodanum primi.” By Cicero they are called Sebusiani (pro P. Quintio). See C. Venatici Class II. in the Appendix.

Xenophon’s observations on the mode of hunting of the dogs he has described, (viz. the Castorian and Foxite hounds of Sparta,) have anticipated all that can be said about these Segusian beagles. See Xenoph. de Venat. c. iii. c. iv. and c. vi. The latter hounds are not mentioned in the Cynegeticus of the elder Xenophon.

Οὐέρτραγοι—Vertragi, Veltrachæ. See the etymology of this Celtic term explained in the Appendix, C. Venatici Class III. Our author is mistaken in deriving the term ἀπὸ τῆς ὠκύτητος. Its roots are velt campus, and racha canis.

Διάπονοι. So named, according to Pollux, because they not only kept up the contest through the day, but slept near their antagonists, and went to work again in the morning. “Perdita nec seræ meminit decedere nocti.” Varius.

The ἰταμαὶ are probably the πάριπποι of Pollux.

Τὴν δὲ ἰδέαν, καλόν τι χρῆμά εἰσι, &c. How characteristic of the ἀνὴρ θηρευτικὸς of the text is this burst of admiration of the Vertragus, the fleetest and most beautiful of hounds! The Countrey Farme. c. xxii.“Of all dogs whatsoever the most noble and princely, strong, nimble, swift, and valient.”

Blane omits this and ten succeeding chapters.

Λέξω δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς, &c. “I too,” says Arrian, “will relate the indications,” &c.; for Xenophon had also written on the external character of dogs, and it was Arrian’s intention not to recapitulate what his predecessor had already discussed, but to fill up the lacunæ of his treatise. The variety of hound, however, described by the elder Xenophon being different, and the indications of excellence equally so, it was necessary for the younger Athenian also to enter on the subject of external character.

Μακραὶ ἔστωσαν ἀπὸ κεφαλῆς ἐπ’ οὐράν. So Xenophon of the Spartans, χρὴ εἶναι μεγάλας, &c. Length of body is insisted on by the ancients as an essential characteristic of γενναιότης in the horse, cow, and dog. Gratius notes the “longum latus” of the latter, and Oppian his μηκεδανὸν κρατερὸν δέμας, as necessary to perfection of form. Such a structure is generally indicative of speed: and as an example the writer may specify a high-bred greyhound in his own possession, 5 feet 2 inches long:

Vlitius, the learned editor of the Poetæ Venatici, mentions that greyhounds were called in his day, κατ’ ἐξοχὴν, “the long dogs,” as by modern coursers.

Καὶ μὴν καὶ αἱ μείζονες—εὐφυέστεραι τῶν σμικρῶν.

Our most distinguished modern greyhounds, as Millar, “facilis cui plurima palma,” Snowball, and others, have been large dogs, lengthy, muscular, and low on the legs:

If we qualify the size by the conditions laid down by Aristotle in the ἀρεταὶ σώματος, we shall probably hit the mark as to Rhetoric. L. i. c. v.μέγεθος, whose ἀρετὴ is defined τὸ ὑπερέχειν κατὰ τὸ μῆκος, καὶ βάθος, καὶ πλάτος, τῶν πολλῶν, τοσούτῳ μείζονι, ὥστε μὴ βραδυτέρας ποιεῖν τὰς κινήσεις διὰ τὴν ὑπερβολήν.

Pollux has well observed ἀρεταὶ δὲ κυνῶν, ἀπὸ μὲν σώματος, μεγάλαι, μηδὲ ἀσυμμετροὶ, μηδὲ ἀνάρμοστοι.

The Vertragi, like Xenophon’s Spartan Foxites, should not be high on the legs, nor loose-made—αἱ ὑψηλαὶ μὲν καὶ ἀσύμμετροι, ἀσύντακτα ἔχουσαι τὰ σώματα, βαρέως διαφοιτῶσιν—they labour in their course.

“The good greyhounde,” says Edmund de Langley, “shuld be of middel asise, neither to moche neither to litel, and then is he good for alle beestis,” &c.

The head of the greyhound is a remarkable feature in his external character:

Xenophon reprobates hook-nosed hounds, αἱ δὲ γρυπαὶ ἄστομοι, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὐ κατέχουσι τὸν λαγῶ. Pollux would have the heads light and airy, κοῦφαι καὶ εὔφοροι: and when speaking on human anatomy, explains the terms γρυπαὶ and σιμαὶ, ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ σιμοῦ, φαίης ἂν ὡς ἔστιν ἡ ῥὶς ἐκ μέσων κοίλη· ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τοῦ γρυποῦ ῥὶς καμπύλη. Many of the features of Pollux’s portrait of the C. Venaticus are appropriate to the Celtic hound. See Onomast. L. v. c. 37.

The more modern Cynegetica agree, in all important points, with the structure approved by Arrian: Mayster of Game, c. xv. fol. 66.“A greihounde shuld have a longe hede and somdele greet ymakyd in the manere of a luce, a good large mouthe and good sesours the on agein the other, so that the nether jawes passe not hem above, ne that thei above passe not hem by nether.”

“Capite et collo oblongis,” says Belisarius: “longo et plano capite,” Albertus. “He should have a fine, long, lean head, with a sharp nose rush-grown, from the eyes downwards.”

Ἰνώδη—sinewy. Xenophon says, ἰνώδη τὰ κάτωθεν τῶν μετώπων: but his namesake is indifferent on this point.

Oppian describes the eyes of lions as

and again,

of the leopard or panther,

of the lynx,

Xenophon de Venat. c. iii. condemns blink-eyed and grey-eyed hounds as bad and unsightly, αἰσχραὶ ὁρᾶσθαι: but Oppian particularly specifies blue eyes as preferable to all others; and I have known many azure-eyed dogs of great merit. The darker the eye, however, the better. Mayster of Game, c. xv. fol. 66.“Her eynne shuld be,” according to De Langley, “reed or blak as of a sphauke:”—“full and clear, with long eye-lids,” according to Markham. The reader of Anacreon will understand the sort of eye admired in the greyhound, from the

of the 29th Ode; and at the same time, perhaps, smile at the quotation.

The early part of this chapter, devoted to the portraiture of the author’s beloved Hormé, interrupts his general description of the greyhound’s shape, which he again resumes after gratifying his personal feelings in an affectionate interlude of canine biography; ostensibly introduced to prove that a blue-eyed hound (κύνα χαροπὴν, οἵαν χαροπωτάτην) may possess all the essential excellencies of his race.

I have taken the liberty of changing the sex of this favourite dog, according to the example of Holsten; because I think it probable that Arrian may have used the feminine gender here, and generally through the treatise, not from the animal spoken of having been really of that sex, but from its being usual with Stephani Schediasm. L. iv.Xenophon and other classic authors to employ the feminine gender when speaking of the dogs of the chase. Indeed, it has been remarked by Eustath. ad Il. H. p. 692.Eustathius and others, that such was the custom of the ancient Greek writers, whenever they spoke of any kind of animals collectively. But Arrian does not apply the feminine gender to dogs gregatim only, but also individually: and the same prevalence of this gender is also observable in the Latin poets. It must be confessed, however, that the name Hormé (Angl. Rush) is more applicable to a bitch than a dog.

It is generally believed that greyhounds have very weak attachments; and the fickle companions of Charles de Blois and of Richard II. favour such an opinion. But against these well-known examples of canine infidelity, we may place others of extraordinary attachment to their lords; at the head of which let Hormé stand, πρᾳοτάτη καὶ φιλανθρωποτάτη, the beloved and affectionate hound of the founder of the leash:

To the tales of inviolable attachment recorded by the royal pen of Edmund Duke of York, of Mayster of Game, c. xii. fol. 47-49.“the greihounde boothe good and faire of Kyng Apollo of Lyonnys,” and the “wel good and faire greihounde that was Aubries of Mondidert,” the reader is referred for farther examples; nor should he forget the martyr Charles’s dying eulogy of the Celtic hound.

Vide J. C. Scaliger de Subtil. ad Card. Exerc. ccii. the last of the Historiæ Duæ Nobilissimæ;, sect. 6.

“Amans dominorum adulatio.”

says the kind-hearted poet of Venusium: and again,

The following lines from a canine epitaph, “De Mopso fidissimo cane,” are not inapposite:

Ἐπανίοντος πρόεισι, θαμινὰ ἐπιστρεφομένη, κ. τ. λ.

So Calpurnius of the pet stag:

The ancients cleansed their hands with the soft crumb of bread after meals, and threw it to their dogs. These pieces of bread were called ἀπομαγδαλίαι: the μειλίγματα of the Homeric simile:

Hence probably Juvenal’s “sordes farris mordere canini.”

Πολύφθογγος.

Did Hormé’s “verba canina” (Ovid, in Ibin) extend to the imitation of spoken language, as in the memorable case of M. Leibnitz’s dog, recorded by him (“témoin oculaire”) in the Hist. de l’Acad. Royale des Sciences, ann. 1715? or are we to understand that this most musical of hounds, Anyta Epidauria.φιλοφθόγγων ὠκυτάτη σκυλάκων, only “gave tongue,” like his congeners, with various intonations of bark?

making up by intelligence, and significancy of action, for deficiency of speech:

Ὑποπτήξασα λιπαρεῖ—

“Plus sensible au souvenir des bienfaits qu’à celui des outrages, il ne se rebute pas par les mauvais traitemens, il les subit, les oublie, ou ne s’en souvient que pour s’attacher davantage; loin de s’irriter ou de fuir, il lèche cette main, instrument de douleur, qui vient de le frapper; il ne lui oppose que la plainte, et la désarme enfin par la patience et la soumission.”

Σοφωτάτη. Plato also has κύων σοφωτάτος.

Ἱεροτάτη—“holiest;” Encycl. Metropol., article “Hunting.” It is scarcely possible to express this epithet in English. Zeune’s Index Græcitatis gives “præstantissima.” I do not like Mr. Smedley’s translation, E. M.; and yet I cannot suggest a better in its place than that of the version. A coursing friend substitutes “perfectly divine.”

He now returns from his beautiful episode on Hormé to the physical indications of excellence in greyhounds generally. The conque of the ear is semi-pendulous, and yet the greyhound has the power of elevating it with as much ease as the less reclaimed varieties of dog. This particular structure gives the appearance, noticed in the text, of the ear being broken; and also adds to its seeming magnitude.

The modern courser prefers the small ears of the Oppianic hound,

and excludes the pricked ear, the “rectæ aures” of Fracastor. Albertus recommends Chap. xv. fol. 66.“aures acutæ retrorsùm directæ, et parvæ:” the Mayster of Game, “the eerys smal and hie in the maner of a serpent:” Gervase Markham, “a sharp ear, short, and close-falling:” but the most correct notion of the ears of a perfect greyhound is imparted in the line

of the Carthaginian poet.

On the necessity of a long neck all the Cynegetica, ancient and modern, are agreed; but there is a difference of opinion on the formation of the chest. Mayster of Game. c. xv. fol. 66.“The neke,” according to De Langley, should be “grete and longe, bowed as a swannes nek.” “Pectore acuto,” says Belisar. Aquiv. Aragoneus de Venatione.Belisarius, “costis inferiùs longis, et ad ima paululùm trahentibus: præcordiis lateribusque ita amplis, ut sine difficultate canes spiritum trahant. Nam quò facilior respiratio fuerit, tantò expeditiores ad cursum erunt.” Albertus agrees with him in all points of importance. Juliana’s portrait is Booke of Hawkyng, &c.“neckyd lyke a drake:” Markham’s, “a long neck, a little bending, with a loose hanging wezand; a broad breast, straight fore-legs, and side-hollow ribs.”

Topsel translates from Albertus an invention “to make a greyhound have a long neck,” far too ridiculous to be extracted. Indeed, this worthy Bishop of Ratisbon fully merits the character given of him by Sir Thos. Brown, “that he hath delivered most conceits, with strict enquiry into few:” and the Rector of St. Botolph’s, Aldersgate, is a close copyist of all his absurdities.

The following lines complete the accurate portrait of the Cilician poet:

Nemesian is brief, but highly illustrative:

Fracastorius’s canine portrait, “Sint armi lati, sint æquè pectora lata,” &c. are of doubtful application.

Pollux adds to the perfection of the fore-legs by saying they should be μὴ προὔχοντα κατὰ τοὺς ἀγκῶνας—“not out at the elbows:” and Xenophon would have the Spartan dog straight both in the leg and at the elbow.

“Ilia sint angusta et compressa: venter exilis, nam crassus currentem gravat. Crura alta, brachia non æquè, ne leporis capturam impediant. Anteriores pedes, ut in fele, rotundi potius quàm longi.”

The terms λαγόνες and κενεῶνες are often confounded as synonymous. Arrian and the elder Xenophon use the term λαγόνες to designate (speaking anatomically) that part of the lumbar region, behind the last or short ribs, where the kidneys are situate, the upper and anterior part of the flanks: κενεῶνες, the lower and posterior part of the flanks.

Aristotle observes that the best Canes Venatici are well tucked-up in the flanks ἴδοι δ’ ἄν τις καὶ τῶν κυνῶν τοὺς φιλοθηροτάτους εὐζώνους ὄντας. Such was the Ovidian Ladon,

The Mayster of Game is here peculiarly illustrative of the text, fashioning the greyhound to perfection: Chap. xv. fol. 66.“her shuldres as a roobuk. The for legges streght and greet ynow and nought to hie legges, the feet straught and rounde as a catte and greet clees,—the boone and the joyntes of the chyne greet and hard as the chyne of an hert. Eke be reson his chynne shuld be a litel hie, for it is better than it were flatt, &c. &c.—the thyes grete and squarred as an hare, the houghes streight and not crompyng as of an oxe, a cattes tayle makyng a ryng at eende and not to hie, the to boonys of the chyne behynd brode of a large pame or more. Also ther byne many greihoundes with longe tailles ryght swift,” &c.

finishes the doggerel of the Sopewell portrait.

Εὐπαγἢ—well-filleted? Fillet, “musculosior pars femoris sic dicta, quia eò loci magni et validi tendines et nervi insignes, qui propter longitudinem, filorum speciem exhibent, occurrunt.”

So Markham: “a straight square and flat back, short and strong fillets; a broad space between the hips; a strong stern or tail, and a round foot, and good large clefts.” Elsewhere, he says: “a long, broad, and square beame back, with high round fillets”—“hee must be deepe swine sided, with hollow bended ribs, and a full brest; he must have rush growne limbes before, and sickell houghs behind; a fine, round, full cat’s foot, with strong cleyes and tough soles, and an even growne long rat’s tail, round turning at the lower end from the leash ward; and hee must bee full set on betweene the buttockes,” &c.

The Cynosophium has the same remarks on the relative length of the fore and hind legs; see sect. iv. p. 262.

And Ælian, De Naturâ Animalium, states the advantage and disadvantage of this shape to the hare: Lib. xiii. c. 14.τὰ δὲ ἀνάντη μὲν καὶ ὑψηλὰ οἱ λαγῲ ἀναθέουσι ῥᾷστα· τὰ γάρ τοι κατόπιν κῶλα μακρότερα ἔχουσι τῶν ἔμπροσθεν, καὶ καταθέουσιν οὐκ ὁμοίως, λυπεῖ γὰρ αὐτοὺς τῶν ποδῶν τὸ ἐναντίον:—a circumstance well known to every courser, and not forgotten in the “Questions” of Dame Juliana’s poetical manual,

Bad-footed hounds, however high-couraged, are unable to bear work, according to Xenophon, on account of the pain they endure in running, διὰ τὸ ἄλγος τῶν ποδῶν. No cynegeticon omits the essential feature of a well-formed foot; which, in Wase’s words, should be “round, high-knuckled, and well-clawed, with a dry hard soal.”

Fracastorius,

Tardif explains the cat-like foot, “pedes parvi, digitis duris, et aptè conjunctis, ne quid terræ aut luti in vià admittant:” and Savary of Caen,

Compare Xenophon de Venat. c. iv. Arrian very rationally combats the notion of a greyhound’s excellence being at all dependent on so variable a distinction as colour. Oppian, more credulous on this point, reprobates white and black dogs, as impatient of heat and cold, and gives a preference to such as are red, russet, or fawn:

The Cynosophium recommends such as are παραπλήσιοι λέουσι, πάρδοις, λύκοις: and adds to its Materia Medica (p. 275.) amongst other ridiculous nostrums, a formula by which the colour of the hair may be changed from white to black—credat Judæus!

In accordance with the general prejudice which bestowed superior virtue on parti-coloured, (for such was Xenophon’s opinion,) Pan confers on the Goddess of the Chase pie-bald and mottled hounds:

Pollux would mix a little variety of colour, ἑκάστῳ παραμεμίχθω τι καὶ ἑτέρας χρόας.

The modern Cynegetica are as fickle and capricious as to colour as their ancient models:

according to the canine canons of Natalis Comes:—whereas Savary gives the preference to a white hound, Album Dianæ, &c.“nunc est in pretio et reliquos supereminet albus;” and is supported by Fouilloux and his copyist Turbervile, who praise those of one homogeneous colour—white, fallow, dun, and black; the latter being the valued breed of St. Hubert, (les chiens courans,) La Vénerie de Fouilloux. p. 4.“qui estoit veneur avec S. Eustache, dont est à conjecturer, que les bons veneurs les ensuysront en Paradis avec la grace de Dieu.”

“Of alle manere of greihoundes there byn,” says De Langley, “both good and evel. Natheless the best hewe is rede falow with a blak moselle.”

After citing so many, and such conflicting opinions, I leave the reader to draw his own conclusion on this most unimportant point; bidding him remember that Markham supports our author, that The Countrey Farme. c. xxii.“colours have (as touching any particular goodnesse) no preheminence one above the other, but are all equal—many good and famous dogs having been of all the several colours; onely the white is esteemed the most beautifull and best for the eie, the black and fallow hardest to endure labour, and the dunne and brended best for the poachers and nightmen, who delight to have all their pleasures performed in darknesse.” Backed by the compiler of “The Countrey Farme,” let him give to Arrian the weight he is entitled to, as a practical courser. My own conviction accords with that of Tardif, “ex colore nihil certi ferè pronunciatur: sæpius enim turpi colore canes, pulchrioribus præstant:” and with the poet of Caen,

I object to no dog merely on account of his colour, though he may rival in variety of tint the renowned Triamour’s marvellous Peticrewe.

εἴτε οὖν τοῦ δασέος γένους, εἴτε τοῦ ψιλοῦ τύχοιεν οἱ κύνες. These two varieties still exist; but the rough, or wire-haired variety of greyhound is banished from the kennel of modern coursers; for though this δασὺ γένος may show some fire and speed in a short course in an enclosed country, it is always beaten by the ψιλὸν γένος over a champaign country, where the duration of the contest defies ignoble competition.

Buffon derives the wiry hair from commixture with the spaniel, “le poil long de certains lévriers vient du mélange des espagneuls:” but if such be its origin, the text proves it to have been of remote antiquity.

“Est strigosum genus,” says Caius, “in quo alii majores sunt, alii minores; alii pilo sessili, alii hirto.” And Ulysses Aldrovandus has left us rude sketches of the two varieties under the titles of “C. leporarius hirsutus albus,” and “C. leporarius alter ferruginei coloris.” See also “The Countrey Farme,” c. xxii. Schneider quotes Synesius Laud. Calvit. p. 67. ἐκεῖναι σοφώταται τῶν κυνῶν, κ. τ. λ.: see the passage in his note on the Greek text. It does not appear to what variety of dog the author alludes.

So also the Cynosophium of Demetrius of Constantinople, καλὸν εἰ τῷ μεγέθει τοῦ σώματος ἡ θήλη προσήκειται ἄῤῥενι. But I do not remember to have seen these remarks of Arrian on the dog partaking of the bitch’s form, and the bitch of the dog’s, in any of the more ancient Cynegetica of Greece and Rome. The Byzantine physician doubtless derived the hint from our author.

Aristotle admits the possibility of distinguishing by outward manifestations the innate qualities and tempers of animals; such discrimination is the result of particular experience: Aristotelis Physiognom.τῶν ἄλλων ζώων οἱ περὶ ἕκαστον ἐπιστήμονες ἐκ τῆς ἰδίας διαθέσεως δύνανται θεωρεῖν, ἱππικοί τε ἵππους, καὶ κυνηγέται κύνας.

τῷ δὲ ἀνατρέφοντι προσφιλεῖς. Oppian would have hounds friendly to all men alike:

κράτισται δὲ αἱ φιλανθρωπόταται—the best greyhounds are the most kindly-affectioned. Martial’s Lydia was gentle at home, but savage in the wood,

and De Langley’s greyhound, “curtaise and nought to felle, wel folowyng his maister and doyng whatever he hym commaundeth. He shuld be good and kyndly and clene, glad and joyful and playeing wel willyng, and goodly to alle maner folkes, save to wilde beestis, upon whom he shuld be felle spitous and egre.”

Ὑπὸ ψόφου ἐκπλήττονται.

All these particulars are, for the most part, matters of education and discipline; but are partially dependent on innate disposition. Education, however, is very important, operating on a good subject. Xenophon. Memorabil. L. iv. c. i.Τῶν κυνῶν, says Socrates, τῶν εὐφυεστάτων, φιλοπόνων τε οὐσῶν, καὶ ἐπιθετικῶν τοῖς θηρίοις, τὰς μὲν καλῶς ἀχθείσας, ἀρίστας γίγνεσθαι πρὸς τὰς θήρας, καὶ χρησιμωτάτας· ἀναγώγους δὲ γιγνομένας, ματαίους τε καὶ μανίωδεις καὶ δυσπειθεστάτας.

The canes Gallici should resemble the Gallic mules of Claudian’s epigram,

Ὑποκατακλίνονται, μὴ ὑπὸ δέους, ἀλλὰ φιλοφρονούμεναι, &c.

The greyhound’s posture is peculiarly graceful, when fondly crouching before his master or keeper; and may be well likened to the ταπεινότης (Arr. Exped. Alex. L. iv. c. xi.) of the Persian, performing his salaam to the King of kings.

Οἱ προσκυνοῦντες. From what Callisthenes says to Alexander (Arrian. Exped. Alexand. L. iv. c. xi.) it appears that Cyrus, the founder of the Persian empire, was the first person to whom adoration was paid on earth by his fellow-men; and it was continued and enjoined to his successors, as a political homage. The ordinary compliments of the modern Greeks are called προσκυνήματα. See Arrian’s account of the προσκυνήσις, loco citato; and Xenophon, Cyropædia, L. viii. for the first occasion of it, πρόσθεν δὲ Περσῶν οὐδεὶς Κῦρον προσεκύνει.

The king of Persia was called μέγας βασιλεὺς, according to Suidas, διὰ τὸ πλείονι δυνάμει χρῆσθαι τῇ Περσικῇ· τοῖς δὲ ἄλλοις προσετίθεσαν καὶ τῶν ἀρχομένων ὀνόματα, οἷον Λακεδαιμονίων, Μακεδόνων. The title still exists in “Le Grand Seigneur.”

Οὐδὲ τὸ ἵστασθαι δὲ ἐν πεδίῳ λυθεῖσαν ἀγαθόν. Constant confinement with chain and collar, made the youthful Celtic hound start from couples with fire, when taken into the field for sport or exercise; not so, however, the aged, whose privileged rest is beautifully touched by our classic poet of the chase, and readily yielded by Arrian as no blemish to his character:

Ἐπισκύνιον—supercilii ruga, frontis ruga: very prominent in our highland breed:

Ἄκρον. So the Paris and Amsterdam editions, quasi ἐπ’ ἄκρων ὀνύχων. Schneider reads ἁβρὸν, a delicate tread, a light tread; but the signification is nearly the same. Linnæus’s definition corresponds with Arrian’s as to the dog’s gait: Systema Naturæ. Canis.“obliquè currit, incedit supra digitos,” μεταβάλλουσι τὰς πλευρὰς, “tranversis incedunt lateribus.”

Λαμπρύνωσιν. “De equo altiùs progrediente,” Zeune. See Xen. de Re Equestri, c. x.

Xenophon uses the term γαυριᾶσθαι, perhaps, with the same meaning. I take λαμπρύνω (magnificè me ostento) to signify the artificial posture in which the horse is placed by a skilful rider, with the aid of rein, whip, spur, &c. as described by Xenophon in the chapter referred to. To this graceful attitude of the well-disciplined war-horse, we may suppose our author to liken that of the Celtic hound in the strictest propriety:

The watchful eye of the Veltrarius is required at the time of feeding: indeed it is best for each hound to have his separate allotment of food; so difficult is it to check the voracious, and encourage the delicate, when placed at the same trough. Ælian. de Naturâ Animal. L. vii. c. 19.Τροφῆς δὲ τὴν κοινωνίαν ἥκιστα ἐνδέχονται κύνες πολλάκις γοῦν καὶ ὑπὲρ ὀστέου ἀλλήλους σπαράττουσιν ὡσπεροῦν ὁ Μενέλεως καὶ ὁ Πάρις ὑπὲρ τῆς Ἑλένης.

Τὸ κόσμιον γενναιότερον τοῦ ἀκόσμου. I never knew a very gross-feeding dog to possess any excellence.

Ἄρτῳ. Demetrius devotes a few sections to the subject of feeding, recommending Cynosophium. p. 270.“milk to be gradually added to bread (the dog’s usual diet) when it is wished to raise him in flesh, until it becomes his only nutriment, morning and evening. From this he is to be again weaned, by the gradual abstraction of the milk, when we desire to reduce him. In the former case, he is not to have his liberty; in the latter, he is to be daily exercised. A second kind of nutritious food consists of oatmeal gruel with fat; and a third, of bean flour, oil, and fat bacon.” Wheaten bread or biscuit, with gruel made from the farina of oats, is the best nutriment for all hounds.

“When you have a perfect and well-shapt greyhound, your next rule is to apply yourselfe to the dyetting and ordering of him, for the pleasure to which you keepe him, that bringing him to the uttermost height or strength of winde, you may know the uttermost goodnesse that is within him, which disorderly and foule keeping will conceale, and you lose a jewell, for want of knowledge of the value. Dyetting then of greyhounds consisteth in four especiall things, viz. foode, exercise, ayring, and kennelling; the first nourishing the body, the second the limbes, the third the winde, and the last the spirits.”

Ἄμεινον δὲ εἰ καὶ ξηρᾷ τῇ τροφῇ χαίροιεν. Hounds readily support themselves with dry oat or wheat meal. Maza is variously interpreted—flour mixed with oil and water, and flour beat up with milk:

Καμούσῃ δὲ ἐμβάλλειν ἢ ὕδωρ, &c. Arrian says nothing on the treatment of canine disease beyond this hint on diet.

The Cynosophium substitutes the lungs for the liver of a bullock, as nutriment for puppies, when deprived of milk—εἰ γάλα μὴ ἔχεις. See Cynosoph. p. 271.

On the feeding of puppies Nemesian observes, that it should be regulated by the season of the year, atmospheric temperature, &c.

but during the intense heat of summer the puppies are to be kept on lighter food, and then again on meal and whey,

Ἀγαθὸν δὲ καὶ ἡ ἀσιτία καμνούσῃ. Arrian probably wrote τῇ ἀσιτίᾳ καμνούσῃ: “prodest etiam lac quando cibi fastidio laborat canis.” The remedy suggested by Demetrius of Constantinople for anorexis, “bad feeding,” I should consider more likely to increase, than cure the disease; Cynosoph. p. 267.ἐὰν ἀνορεκτῇ κύων, κόπριαν ἀνθρωπίαν δίδου φαγεῖν, κ. τ. λ.

A short section of the Cynosophium is given to kennel management—κύνας μετὰ ἀνθρώπων κοιμᾶσθαι καλόν· πραεῖς γὰρ ἐκ τούτου γίνονται, καὶ φιλάνθρωποι, καὶ εὐκόλως καλοῦνται—a practical allurement of canine affection heretofore more common than at present. Modern refinement would ill bear the intimate association recommended by Arrian and Demetrius, and practised by James V. of Scotland, with his favourite Bagsche, who was wont

Indeed, we rarely see the high-bred and elegant Celtic hound within the vestibule of a modern dwelling; though heretofore, in the hall of banquet,

Whether the Duke of York’s “childe” lay with the hounds, I know not; but it seems that he did, though not with the intention specified by our author: “alway bi nyght and bi day I wil that some childe lye or be in the kenel with the houndes for to kepe hem from fyghteng,” &c.

I no where find the close cutaneous contact of man and dog, enjoined in the text, recommended in the ancient Cynegetica; but Xenophon advises an intimate acquaintance between the parties in the kennel at the hours of feeding, &c.: if the hounds be fed by the huntsman, they become attached to his person, τὸν διδόντα στέργουσιν, &c. (c. vi.): and so if the Veltrarii Encyc. Méthod. Les chasses. p. 434.(“les valets de lévriers, qui exercent les lévriers, et qui les lâchent à la courre”) superintend the feeding their charge, the attachment thereby produced will render actual cohabitation unnecessary.

ἰ γὰρ ἀγρυπνήσειεν, ἐξάγειν ἐπὶ θήραν οὐκ ἀσφαλές. We find in the Hieracosophium, undisturbed sleep is deemed necessary for the hawk the night preceding a flight, ἀταράχου ὕπνου μετεχέτω.

Ἐπιστάξειε—the common reading being probably corrupt, I have received the emendation of Zeune in his Index Græcitatis, ἐπιστενάξειε.

Οὐδ’ εἴ τι ἀπεμέσειε τῶν σιτίων. Such rejection of food by vomiting is an indication of indigestion; and the latter, of course, of unfitness for the chase.

Xenophon forbids hounds to be taken out hunting unless they feed heartily; for bad feeding is an indication of bad health. De Venat. c. vi. 2.

Ψώρας ἐμπίπλασθαι. Mange is a chronic inflammation of the skin, constitutional in some dogs, in others infectious, and in a few cases I have known it hereditary.

Ancient sportsmen had great dread of mange in their kennels. Gratius, the only one who has entered much into canine pathology amongst the cynegetical writers, recommends that the first dog affected with mange should be destroyed, to prevent others from catching so loathsome a disease—a radical cure!

If, however, the disease be of a mild type and slow in its progress, it is curable, he says, with an ointment which he prescribes, but which I do not introduce here, as the cutaneous detergents of the scientific Delabere Blaine will be found by the reader far more efficacious. Venesection and purgation, as recommended by Savary, are most important auxiliaries to inunction:

De Langley’s instructions to the kennel-man are excellent: “I wyll hym lerne that onys in the day he voyde the kenel and make it al clene, and remeve her strawe, and putt agayn ffressh new straw, a greet dele and ryght thikke; and ther as he leith it the houndes shall lye, and the place there as thei shuld lye shuld be made of tree a foot hie fro the erthe, and than the strawe should be leide upon, bi cause that the moystnesse of the erthe shuld not make hem morfound, ne engender other siknesse bi the which thei myght be the wors for huntyng,” &c. And before, he says: c. xiii. fol. 56.“The skabbe cometh to hem whan thei abiden in her kenel to longe and gon not on huntyng, or ellis her litter and couche is unclene kept, or ellis the strawe is not remevid and hur water not fressh; and shortly the hound is unclene, I hold, and evel kept or long waterles, havyn comonly this mamewe.”

The courser will not fail to observe Arrian’s intimate knowledge and experience of his subject. The minute instructions communicated in this chapter on rubbing and dressing the Celtic hound, “in cute curandâ,” prove the great care paid by ancient coursers to the condition of the skin in running animals; without which, indeed, no greyhound can compete with an upland champaign hare.

The effect of friction with the hand, or hair-cloth, or flesh-brush, is farther illustrated by Nemesian, on grooming the horse:

Τὴν τρίχα μαλθακὴν ἐργάζεται, &c. This is partially effected in modern days by body-clothes. The clothing of greyhounds, as at present practised by coursers, is of more remote antiquity than the days of Michael Angelo Biondi; having its probable origin in the στελμονίαι of Xenophon, who describes, in the 6th chapter of his Cynegeticus, all the accoutrements of his hunting pack. These consisted of collars, δέραια, soft and broad, so as not to rub off the dog’s hair; leading-thongs or straps, ἱμάντες, independent of the collar, with a handle attached to them; and sur-cingles or body-clothes, στελμονίαι, with straps sufficiently broad not to gall the bellies of the animals. Such was the Athenian’s κυνῶν κόσμος: and it is probable that the latter, though used for the protection of the hound from injury during the chase, and not merely, as at present, against cold, may have been the type of the modern application.

The θοαὶ κύνες were certainly clothed in parti-coloured habiliments in the age of Blondus, and their feet were also protected with shoes: “Canibus venaticis dorsum integunt pannis diversorum colorum, adversus frigoris injuriam, præcipuè leporariis; et pedibus adhibent calceamenta, quò faciliùs illæsi cursum exerceant.” Beckman states that the dogs of Kamschatka are furnished with shoes, so ingeniously made, that their claws project through small apertures—a plausible contrivance for heavy dogs of draught; but how a greyhound is to exhibit his speed on the coursing plain with such incumbrances, I know not.

Arrian recommends confinement for full-grown dogs; but we must not suppose that the same treatment is suited to puppies. They, on the contrary, should have their entire liberty, as Nemesian remarks:

This freedom from restraint is to be continued until they are eight months old, when they should be put into couples, and habituated to confinement:

The whole of this department of kennel discipline is elegantly explained by the classic poet of Barga:

“Dùm non venatur, loris in stabulo vinciendus est; et siccis potiùs eduliis alendus quàm pinguibus jusculentis: hæc enim graviorem reddunt. Educendus tamen nonnunquam est è stabulo vinctus, in vicos tantùm, ut excrementis se exoneret promptiùs; mox iterum coercendus usque ad tempus venationis.”

“Now for the kennelling of greyhounds,” says Gervase Markham, “it is a right necessary action and must be performed with all diligence; for it breeds in the dog lust, spirit, and nimbleness, prevents divers mischances, and keeps the powers from spending till time of necessity: and therefore you shall by no means suffer your dog to be out of the kennel, but in the hours of feeding, walking, coursing, or when you have other necessary business to do about him.” But Arrian means more than mere confinement within the walls of a kennel by the term δεδέσθαι.

The greyhounds are to be actually fastened with a collar and strap or chain; and such, I am informed, is the customary restraint of the boar-hound of continental Europe. The dogs are chained along the walls of their kennel equidistant from each other, a row on each side of the sleeping-room.

A celebrated modern courser adheres very strictly to the system of restraint alternated with exercise, as recommended in this chapter, and appears to have found it conducive to his success at public meetings. Vide Sport. Mag. Vol. 71. p. 256.—Hounds accustomed to such privation of liberty, are said to start from the slips with great fire and speed:

According to the old proverb, cited by Rittershusius in his Commentary on Oppian,

Ἐσθίειν δὲ ἀνάγκη λελυμένην κύνα πᾶν τὸ ἐμπεσόν.

Compare Xenophon de Venatione c. iv. 9. on exercising hounds.

“The child shuld lede the houndes to scombre twies in the day, in the mornyng and in the evenyng, so that the sonne be up, specially in wynter. Than shuld he lat hem renne and play longe in a faire medew in the sonne, and than kembe every hounde after other, and wipe hem with a grette wispe of straw; and thus shal he do every mornyng.”

These simple instructions of Duke Edmund are amplified by old Gervase: Countrey Content. B. i. p. 52.“Touching ayring or walking of greyhounds, which is a great nourisher and increaser of winde, it must be dewly done every morning before sun-rise, and every evening before or after sunne-set in this manner; as soone as you have opened your kennel and rub’d your dogge over with a cleane haire cloath, you shall let him play a little about you before the kennel dore, then take him up into your leashe, and walke him forth into the fields, where for the most parte are no sheepe or other smal cattell, which they may out of wantonness indaunger, and there let him loose, and give him leave to play and scope about you, so that he may skummer and emptie his body; which when he hath done sufficiently, you shall then take him up in your leash againe, and so walk him home and kennell him; this you shall doe after the same manner in the evening; and also if your dogge bee stronge and lustie, at night after supper, and then bringing him home, bring him to the fire, and there let him stretch and beake themselves, and with your hand grope and cleanse them from ticks and other filth, which done leade them to the kennell, and shut them up for all night.”

Ἐμπίπτουσαι γὰρ ἀλλήλαις ἔστιν ὅτε μεγάλα κακὰ ἐργάζονται.

Blancard’s reading of φίλαι is adopted instead of that of the first edition of Paris, ἄφιλαι.

Arrian has already spoken on the subject of feeding, as an indication of good blood, in c. viii.

“Adulti siccis vescantur edulibus: pane videlicet et ossibus, et hoc fiat digestis horis, ut concoctio peragatur, et potiùs famescant paululùm, quàm non exactis horis pascantur.”

It is occasionally necessary to administer food twice a day to delicate hounds: but the more usual practice accords with the text. Gervase Markham, however, recommends the courser to feed twice a day on his prescribed diet-bread, Countrey Content. B. i. p. 51.“to wit, halfe an houre after sunne-rise, and halfe an houre before sun-set, when he comes from walking or ayring his dogge, and it will bring him to exceeding great strength of body and purenesse of winde.”—p. 52.“Upon his coursing days you must by no means give him any meat more than a white bread toast and butter, or a toast and oil,” &c.

Tardif, a French writer cited by Conrad Gesner, agrees with Arrian on the utility of a second meal in summer: “Canis æstate frequentiùs quàm hyeme cibandus est, ut æstivis diebus longis et calidis durare possit. Infringatur ei panis in aquam. Si tamen sæpiùs quàm par est cibetur, ventriculus ei subvertitur, lac aut panis lacte madidus optimè alunt.”

Θέρους δὲ ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἄρτου ὀλίγον δοῦναι ἐμφαγεῖν—as a morning meal, a breakfast.

Στέαρ ταριχευόμενον—salted suet or fat. Στέαρ appears from Pollux, L. ii. c. v. 3. to be the same as πιμελὴ, white adipose substance adherent to the membranes of the abdomen and viscera of men and animals: but if Hesychius be correct in his explanation of ἀπομαγδαλία as στέαρ ἐν ᾧ τὰς χεῖρας ἀπεμάττοντο ἐν τοῖς δείπνοις· βαλόντες δὲ τοῖς κυσὶν ἀναλύοντες ἀπὸ τῶν δείπνων, it must have possessed saponaceous qualities of detergency; for if it were pure fat, with Bochart we might well ask Hierozoicon L. ii. c. iv.“unde abstergantur, qui inde absterguntur?” For the distinctive difference between πιμελὴ and στέαρ, see Aristot. Hist. Animal. L. iii. c. xvii. The properties of each are evidently distinct.

“Sæpè etiam languor et nausea discutitur, si integrum gallinaceum ovum jejunis faucibus inferas,” &c. So also Tardif, as cited by Gesner, “si canis inter venandum nimiâ siti laboret, duo aut tria ova confracta in gulam ei immittes: sic enim sitim extingues, et à periculo hecticæ vel marasmi canem liberabis.”

Ancient sportsmen were accustomed to follow their field sports through the whole year; and often prolonged the chase till midnight. Hor. L. i. od. i.

But the more humane of modern days have abridged this perpetuity of warfare with the animals of the field and forest by legislative enactment.

Nemesian alone, of all the cynegetical writers of Greece and Rome, enjoins us to commence coursing at the period usually adopted:

Dame Juliana, seemingly careless of the “her-hounde’s” impatience of heat, held on till Midsummer;

Natalis Comes allows us to sport during the whole spring, preferring that season for the reasons stated in the text—

but the prudent and humane courser will not slip his greyhound later than the month of February.

Θέρους δὲ ὀλιγάκις. It is not customary with British sportsmen to course in summer.

The Paris and Amsterdam editions read διαπνίγονται, for which Schneider substitutes διαλείποντα (χρόνον)—an emendation which I have adopted in the translation.

Ἀπεπνίγησαν ὑπὸ τοῦ ἄσθματος. Such accidents usually happen from running greyhounds when out of wind, and condition. The state of the muscular and respiratory systems are always in fault—

But the safest plan is to leave the greyhounds in a cool and shady kennel during the intense heat of a midsummer day—if exercised at all, the earlier they have their airing, the better.

Ἀποκναίονται, (radendo vulnerare ἀποκναίειν,)—a preferable reading to the conjectural one of Schneider, ἀποκαίονται—founded on Xenoph. de Venat. c. viii. 2. a passage scarce applicable to the Celtic hound. No wise Veltrarius would think of coursing his greyhounds during severe frost.

Against this havock from frost, Natalis Comes suggests a guard in the use of shoes, so formed according to Ruscellius (Schol. in Nat. Com. L. i.) as to let the nails pass through the calceamenta coriacea:

But should this guard be insufficient, or inapplicable, and the loss of a nail ensue, the poetical physician of Verona supplies a simple restorative:

The Cynosophium of Demetrius gives its earlier sanction to the efficacy of this remedy; and yet it is probable that any of the gum-resins dissolved in spirit of wine will be found more curative.

Δασεῖς ἔχει τοὺς πόδας καὶ μαλθακούς. So Oppian,

Lepus δασύπους vocatur, quòd hirsutos habeat pedes.

In the first and second editions of the Cynegeticus, a chapter is here introduced On the Manner and Time of Coursing among the Celts; but which is more correctly placed by Schneider after the nineteenth chapter. Following his example, I have omitted it here, and shall introduce it into that part of the treatise to which it naturally belongs.

Ὅστις κύνας ἀγαθὰς ἔχει—whoever has good hounds: greyhounds; elsewhere called κύνας ὠκείας.

The laws of the leash in England, subscribed by Thomas Duke of Norfolk, in the reign of Elizabeth, speak to these points:

“That not above one brace of greyhounds do course a hare at one instant.

“That the fewterer shall give the hare twelve score law, ere he loose the greyhounds, except it be in danger of losing sight.”

Turberville, however, gives a little more licence as to number of dogs: “If the greyhounds be but yong or slowe, you may course with a lease at one hare, but that is seldome seene, and a brase of dogges is ynow for such a poore beast.” No fair courser would slip more than a brace of tried and swift dogs (δύω κύνε, εἰδότε θήρης) after a hare.

As to the distance at which the hounds are to be slipped to the hare, which in the ancient English Cynegetica is called law, “it should be,” says Turberville, “xii score yardes or more, according to the ground and country where she sitteth.” So Ben Jonson, in the Sad Shepherd,

Δρομικὸς—a racer. Ὁ δυνάμενος τὰ σκέλη ῥιπτεῖν πως, καὶ κινεῖν ταχὺ, καὶ πόῤῥω, δρομικός: a definition equally applicable to man and beast. See the final note to this chapter.

Διαῤῥίψαντες τὰ μέλη—having tossed about their limbs; capered about. Arrian means to express the anxiety and joy of the greyhound when the hare is just on the start. With the same signification Xenophon uses Onomast. L. v. c. x. 61.διαῤῥίμμα, the τὸ πηδήμα τοῦ σώματος &c. of Pollux. Σκιρτᾷ γοῦν, says Ælian of the hare’s start, Hist. Animal. L. xiii. c. 14.τὰ πρῶτα ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς, καὶ πηδᾷ: and Pollux calls her ἁλτικὸν καὶ πηδητικὸν τὸ ζῶον.

The rush of the greyhound from slips is splendidly described in the Ovidia Lælaps:

Many of the coursing terms employed in the present, the 19th, and 20th chapters, on the Celtic mode of following the sport, are illustrated by Michael Drayton’s prosaic muse:

For the indications of speed, and strength of course, in the hare, see L’Ecole de la Chasse, c. iv. “Lièvre vigoureux, bon à chasser,” &c. “The hare that renneth,” says De Langley, Mayster of Game. c. iii. fol. 19.“w^t. right stondyng eeres is but litel a ferd and is strong; and zit whan she holdeth that oone eere upryght stondyng and that other y leyde lowe upon her ryge, she fereth but litel the houndes. An hare that crompes hure tayle upon hure rumpe whan she sterteth out of here forme, as a conyng, it is token she is stronge and wele rennyng.”

Xenophon enters most fully into the description of the hare, her habits, haunts, &c.—De Venat. c. v.ποδωκέστατοι μὲν οὖν εἰσὶν οἱ ὄρειοι, οἱ πεδινοὶ δὲ ἧττον, βραδύτατοι δὲ οἱ ἕλειοι. And so also Ælian, with some difference as to the speed of the mountain and plain hares—De Naturâ Animal. L. xiii. c. 14.Λαγῲ δὲ ὄρειοι οὐκ οὕτως ταχεῖς ὡσπεροῦν οἱ τοῖς πεδίοις ἐνοικοῦντες, εἰ μή ποτε ἄρα κἀκεῖνοι πεδίον ἔχοιεν ὑποκείμενον, ἐν ᾧ κατίοντες διαθέουσι. See also Polluc. Onomast. L. v. c. xii. and varr. de r. r. l. iii. c. xii. Much of Xenophon’s description is versified by Oppian:

“Of hares soom goon faster and ben stronger than other, as of men and of other beestis. And also the pasture and the contre wher thei abiden helpeth moche thereto; ffor whan an hare abideth and formeth in a playn contre ther as no busshes be, suche hares ben comonly strengest and wel rennyng. And also whan thei pasture of too herbes, that oon is clepyd sorpol and that other pulegium, thei be stronge and fast rennyng.”

This superiority of the upland over the lowland hare continues, according to Paullini, after death. The flavour of its flesh on the table is as superior in the former to what it is in the latter, as the prowess of the one during life surpassed that of the other—C. F. Paullini Lagograph. Curios. S. iv.“Lumbi et clunes, seu coxæ,” says the credulous epicure of Eisenach, “gratissimum præbent alimentum et pulmentum, imprimis marium, qui femellis in cibatu meritò præferuntur, præsertim si montium fuerint incolæ planorumque locorum, serpyllo, pulegio, et similibus herbis vescentes. Qui enim in palustribus locis degunt, vilioris conditionis sunt carnis et succi deterioris.” The cause of the inferiority of the latter is furnished by Simon Paulli, Quadripartit. Botanicum.“quia illorum intercus et excrementitia humiditas, quæ carnem reddit manu contumacem, non attenuata et consumpta est, uti horum, qui fugati sunt.”

Turberville observes a hare will take to the open country, if the horsemen stand on the covert-side, “then peradventure when shee ryseth, shee will take towards the champayne;” but I have often seen a hare voluntarily start directly away from the covert, without any such obstacle existing to her nearer escape.

Οὐ μὴν ἀναλίσκει τὴν ἑαυτοῦ δύναμιν ἀταμιεύτως, τηρεῖ δὲ τοῦ διώκοντος τὴν ὁρμήν· καὶ ἐὰν μὲν ᾖ νωθὴς, οὐ πάνυ ἀνῆκε τὸ ἑαυτοῦ τάχος· ἀλλὰ καί τι καὶ ἀνέστειλεν, ὡς προεκθεῖν μὲν τοῦ κυνὸς, οὐ μὴν ἀπαγορεῦσαι ὑπὸ τοῦ συντόνου τοῦ δρόμου αὐτός. Οἶδε γὰρ ἀμείνων ὢν, καὶ ὁρᾷ εἰς τὸ μὴ ὑπερπονεῖσθαι οἱ τὸν καιρὸν ὄντα. Ἐὰν δὲ καὶ ὁ κύων ᾖ ὤκιστος, τηνικαῦτα ὁ λαγὼς φέρεται θέων ᾗ ποδῶν ἔχει, κ. τ. λ.

Οὐ γάρ τοι ἐπὶ τῷ ἁλῶναι τὸ θηρίον ἐξάγουσι τὰς κύνας, ἀλλὰ ἐς ἀγῶνα δρόμου καὶ ἅμιλλαν κ. τ. λ. With the fine feelings of a genuine courser, the author considers the pleasure of the sport as arising solely from the struggle for victory between the hare and dog;—a trial of the former’s speed, its distinctive excellence, (so elegantly alluded to by Anacreon in his complimentary ode to the ladies,

against that of the latter, whose shape marks its natural designation for such a competition. Coursing does not seem to have been otherwise practised as an emulative sport in the classic ages; nor indeed till a very modern period of its annals.

Καὶ καταφυγόντα ἐς ἀκάνθας ἔστιν ὅτε ὀλίγας οἵδε καὶ ἰδόντες ἐπτηχότα κ. τ. λ.—A noble paragraph! conceived and penned in the true spirit of an enlightened sportsman—Read it all ye who dare calumniate, with Savary and Somerville,

Zeune would read διαγωνίσαιτο, as referring to the hare, whose life is spared for having run well. Such a reading, if tenable, (which, I fear, for the reasons given by Schneider, it is not,) would add much to the beauty of the passage.

How different the sentiments of the Bithynian courser from those of the Sciluntian huntsman: like a modern thistle-whipper or pot-hunter, De Venat. c. vi.Xenophon bids us search every hiding-place for the worn-out hare, that we may catch her at force, κατὰ πόδας, or drive her into the snares! while Arrian rejoices in her safety and grieves over her accidental capture and destruction.

Ἔπαισα τὴν κεφαλήν. Blane supposes Arrian to strike the greyhound’s head as a chastisement for having killed the hare: but this interpretation is too absurd to be admitted. Many are the examples of the custom of striking the head with the hand, in indication of sudden grief and vexation. Priam is fearfully apprehensive of Hector’s death, and strikes his head with sorrow:

Psammetichus expresses his grief in the same way over the rich Egyptian monarch, reduced to mendicancy in his old age, Herodot. Thalia.ἐπλήξατο τὴν κεφαλὴν—and Plutarch tells us that Solon began παίειν τὴν κεφαλὴν καὶ τ’ ἄλλα ποιεῖν καὶ λέγειν, ἃ συμβαίνει τοῖς περιπαθοῦσι, as soon as he heard of the death of his son.

The joys of the hare-chase have been celebrated, in prose and verse, by the successors of the Athenian, in even higher strains than by himself:

“The hare is a good lityl beest and moch good sport and lyking is the huntyng of hur more than in eny othere beest that eny man knoweth, &c.” “the sechyns for the hare is a wel faire thing, and the enchasyng of the hare is a wel faire thing, and the sleyng of hym with strength is a faire thing,” &c.

The latter, it is singular, are the very sentiments of Xenophon, reprobated by Arrian; and the passage affords one of many proofs of De Langley’s acquaintance with the Grecian Cynegeticus. See Markham C. C. B. i. p. 33. and Somerville’s Chace.

See Xenophon Cyneg. v. 33. Arrian has spoken throughout his treatise with the greatest respect of his predecessor’s opinions; but ventures to differ from him in this place, as to the feelings which the poor hare, when caught, should excite—

and yet he almost immediately palliates Xenophon’s contrary sentiments, and excuses them on account of his ignorance of the Celtic greyhound.

See Herodot. L. i. sect. 85. ὁ δὲ παῖς οὗτος ὁ ἄφωνος, ὡς εἶδε ἐπίοντα τὸν Πέρσην, ὑπὸ δέους τε καὶ κακοῦ ἔῤῥηξε φωνήν· εἶπε δὲ, Ὤνθρωπε, μὴ κτεῖνε Κροῖσον. The tale of the father of history is somewhat differently told by C. J. Solini Polyhistor. c. i.Solinus:—Atys, filius regis, mutus ad id locorum, in vocem erupit vi timoris: exclamâsse enim dicitur: “Parce patri meo, Cyre, et hominem te esse, vel casibus disce nostris.”

Xenophon de Venat. c. vi. 9. ἀναβοᾷν εὖγε, εὖγε ὦ κύνες, ἕπεσθε ὦ κύνες. He gives a different cheer at different parts of the chase. Pollux explains the whistling halloo by the significant verb ἐπισίξαι—jubilationibus solitis canes cohortari et feris immittere—

So Venus in pursuit of her beloved Adonis,

Nemesian approaches nearer to the text, in his probable allusion to the same variety of sound;

But Arrian means more than is expressed in either of these passages: by ὀνομαστὶ ἐπιλέγειν we are to understand speaking to, and cheering the hounds by name; as in the following chapter—εὖγε ὦ Κιῤῥὰ, εὖγε ὦ Βόννα, καλῶς γε ὦ Ὁρμὴ—

ὁ ἀγὼν λαγωῷ καὶ κυνί—accurately and beautifully described in the Ovidian simile;

and in the fable of Cephalus and Procris, the Teumesian fox being substituted for the hare;

When reading these and other splendid fables of this poet, and his similes illustrative of terror and rapidity of flight, and eagerness of pursuit, in the parties represented, it strikes us as probable that he was a practical courser, “Apollinis et Dianæ utriusque sectator,” and derived his imagery from experience in the field. To the tales of “Cephalus and his greyhound Lælaps,” and of “Daphne in Laurum” with its cited accompaniment, we may add much of the poetical ornament of Arethusa’s plaintive and terrified flight from the lustful Alpheus,

in which the classic courser will discover many allusions to his favourite sport:

And when the affrighted nymph is rescued by the interposition of a cloud from her pursuer’s grasp, and hears the cry “Io Arethusa, Io Arethusa,” the poet compares her to a hare in a brake under similar terror,

as if the chase of this little animal had supplied him with the outline of his picture.

Ὁ μὲν ἐξελίξας τὸν δρόμον &c. So Ælian, δρόμον δὲ ἕνα καὶ ἰθὺν οὐ θεῖ, δεῦρο δὲ καὶ ἐκεῖσε παρακλίνει, καὶ ἐξελίττει τῇ καὶ τῇ, ἐκπλήττων τοὺς κύνας καὶ ἀπατῶν.

Apollonius Rhodius has well expressed the κύνες δεδαημένοι ἄγρης straining after the game with open jaws;

and Virgil in the simile of the “vividus Umber;” copying, probably, the poet of the Argonauts,

The hare under pursuit has a peculiar sensibility of sounds behind her. To this excellence she owes her preservation from the danger of her pursuers. By this faculty she often outstrips the fleetest brace of greyhounds, attentive to the noise of every stretch, and sound of every pant:

“It is a gallant sport,” says Turberville, “to see how the hare will turne and wind to save herselfe out of the dogges mouth. So that sometimes even when you thinke that your greyhound doth (as it were) gape to take her, she will turne and cast them a good way behind her: and so saveth herselfe by turning, wrenching, and winding, until she reach some covert and so save her life.” And a far greater than this translator of Fouilloux has remarked: Bacon, of Discourse, Essay xxxii.“We see in beasts, that those that are weakest in the course, are yet nimblest in the turne; as it is betwixt the greyhound and the hare.”

Scarce inferior to his poetical predecessor of Venusium, the classic Darcius slips his swift-footed Pterelas after the started hare, in a sketch which places the course before the reader’s eyes:

Mr. Gay’s “Rural Sports,” Canto 2nd, afford the only poetical description of a hare-course in the English language, with which I am acquainted, in addition to that already cited from the Polyolbion of Michael Drayton:

Οἱ φελλεῶνες. I have not met with this word elsewhere. Xenophon has τὰ φέλλια, chap. v. De Ven., to signify the same kind of stony ground. The Scholia on the Acharnenses of Aristophanes, Act ii. sc. ii. explains φελλεὺς as rocky ground, stony beneath, with a superficial covering of earth—such as we see on the slopes of hills, perhaps. Φελλὸς occurs in Hesychius: σκληρὸς τόπος καὶ δυσεργὴς, καὶ ἐξ ἐπιπολῆς πετρώδης. Possibly the English term “fell” may be derived from the Greek φελλὸς or φελλεύς.

Πόδας τοὺς πρόσθεν ἄκρως ὑγροὺς, στενοὺς, ὀρθούς· τοὺς δὲ ὄπισθεν στερεοὺς, πλατεῖς· πάντας δὲ οὐδενὸς τραχέος φροντίζοντας.

Πέφυκε γὰρ δασὺς τοὺς πόδας καὶ δὴ καὶ τῶν τραχέων ἀνέχεται. The term δασύπους is evidently derived from the woolly covering of the hare’s feet; originally an adjective expressive of this peculiarity, but subsequently used to designate the hare herself. To the same origin Junius refers the English term Franc. Junii Etymol. Anglican. à Lye. 1743.rabbet—“cuniculus:” “Quotquot unquam observarunt Anglos, in linguæ vernaculæ pronuntiatione, o sonare ut a, facilè mecum credent olim fuisse robbet, quod nunc rabbet pronuntiant et scribunt. Atque ita robbet illud fortasse corruptum fuerint ex roughfet, quod exprimit Gr. δασύπους.”

The English word hare is derived by the same Etymologist from the Anglo-Saxon hara. “A. S. hara videtur esse ab hær, pilus; quoniam, ut est apud Plinium, ‘villosissimum animalium lepus.’”

Let him be made to feel in the words of Ovid,

It is a great point to encourage a young hound, whether he kill or not.

Plutarch remarks in his treatise on the Comparative Instinct of Land and Water Animals, that the Canes Venatici, generally, tear their game and lick up the blood greedily, when they kill it themselves; but if the animal, of which they are in pursuit, expire from exhaustion, before they reach it, they merely wag their tails, and do not lacerate it; showing thereby that the contest was not for the flesh of the animal, but rather for the glory of victory.

Κιῤῥὰ—derived probably from the red colour of the dog.

Βόννα—the derivation of this canine name is unknown to me.

Ὁρμὴ—Arrian’s own much-valued hound: to the same kennel perhaps belonged Cirras and Bonnas.

ἔοικε δὲ ἔχειν τι καὶ φιλοτιμίας ἐν ἑαυτῷ φυσικῆς· μὴ γὰρ δεῖσθαι κρεῶν, ἀλλὰ νίκης ἐρᾷν.

“Trahimur omnes laudis studio,” says Cicero, “et optimus quisque maximè glorià ducitur.”

Pliny also makes the same remark, “Canes à cursu volutatio juvat, ut veterina à jugo.”

In the Paris edition of 1644, in Blancard’s of 1683, and in Zeune’s, this Chapter stands after Chap. xiv.; but, on the authority of Schneider, it is more appropriately introduced in this place. Indeed the present, and two following chapters, treat of the different modes of coursing among the Celts, and might all be united under one title.

Ὅσοι μὲν πλουτοῦσιν αὐτῶν καὶ τρυφῶσιν—the superior class of Celtic gentry, nobility, &c.

Τοὺς κατοπτεύσοντας—finders to look over, &c. The French say, “aller à la vue.”—“c’est découvrir s’il y a dans le pays des bêtes courables.”

Ἀναπαυόμενος λαγώς. No description can surpass in accuracy and elegance that of the hare in her form by the elder De Venat. c. v. 10.Xenophon: Κατακλίνεται δὲ ὑποθεὶς τὰ ὑποκώλια ὑπὸ τὰς λαγόνας, τὰ δὲ πρόσθεν σκέλη τὰ πλεῖστα συνθεὶς καὶ ἐκτείνας, ἐπ’ ἄκρους δὲ τοὺς πόδας τὴν γένυν καταθεὶς, τὰ δὲ ὦτα ἐπιπετάσας ἐπὶ τὰς ὠμοπλάτας· εἶτα δὲ ὑποστέγει τὰ ὑγρά· ἔχει δὲ καὶ τὴν τρίχα στεγανήν· πυκνὴ γὰρ καὶ μαλακή.

The example of the Celtic nobility of Arrian’s days was followed by those of a later date. Bruyerinus relates (de Re Cib. c. 24.) “Gallia omnis leporibus scatet, ideoque horum venatio peculiaris est mediocri nobilitati et primariæ non invisa.” And Baptista Guarinus notes of the Veronese territory, that it abounds with hares, and affords opportunities for long courses:

Αὐτουργοὶ κυνηγεσίων. Upon this expression Henry Stephens merely remarks, “quod loquendi genus observatione dignum est,”—offering no explanation: Zeune interprets “qui pedites venantur, studio rei capti:” Holsten, “qui ipsi per se venationis studio incumbunt:”—those who have to do with the practical part of the sport, as the slippers, leaders of the hounds, &c. the actual workmen. Such were the ἐργοπόνοι κρατεροὶ of Oppian, the bearers of the hunting gear to the covert, &c.

Ἐκπεριΐασι δὲ ἐπὶ μετώπου ταχθέντες. We here see the military tactician: after the lapse of nearly seventeen centuries, no improvement has taken place in the mode of beating for a hare. One of our best English manuals of coursing, whose author was probably as expert in the field as his predecessor of Bithynia, thus describes the plan adopted in the days of good Queen Bess: Turberville’s Booke of Hunting, &c.“To course y^e. hare you must send either hare-finders before you to find some hare sitting, or els yourself w^h. your company may range and beat over the fields until you either find a hare sitting, or start her. I have marked y^e. hare-finders in their seeking of a hare in Northamptonshyre, and they will never beat but one end of a furlong: and that shall be the end which is downe the wind or from the wind; for they hold opinion that a hare will not (by her wil) sit with her head into the wind. He that will seeke a hare must go overthwart the lands; and every land that he passeth over, let him beginne with his eye at his foot, and so looke downe the land to the furlong’s end, first on the one side and then on the other; and so shall he find y^e. hare sitting in her forme: assoone as he espyeth her he must cry Sa how. Then they which lead the greyhounds may come neare: and you may appoynt which greyhounds shall course. Then let him which found the hare, go towards her and say, Up, pusse, up! untill she rise out of her forme.”

It appears to me from this passage that the Celts coursed with each hound held in a single slip and collar, and started probably simultaneously with his appointed compeer, held in juxta-position by a second person. Some commentators, however, are of opinion, from the term συνδυαζέτω, that the dogs were held in double collars, or couples; but if so, we must still suppose, from the words σὺ καὶ σὺ ἐπιλύειν, that two persons were appointed to let the dogs loose at the same time:

Xenophon particularly enjoins, in his instructions on hare-hunting, that the Spartan hounds should be held in separate collars at the covert-side: ἑκάστην χωρὶς, (each apart)De Venat. c. vi. ὅπως ἂν εὔλυτοι ὦσι.

The ancient slip or slippe (ab elabendo Vlit. p. 94.) was formed by a leading thong or lyam, passed through the ring of the dog’s collar, the two ends being held in the hand of the slipper, or keeper. When the dog was loosed, the slipper let go one end of the thong, and drew the other with his hand from the eye of the collar, whereby the dog was liberated with the collar on his neck, the lyam remaining in the slipper’s hand. (See Xenophon, Pollux, and Conrad Gesner, on these accoutrements: the latter is copious on the subject in his Hist. Quadrup. “Canis.”) Such a representation of greyhounds coursing, with collars on their necks, we have in Montfaucon, Tom. iii. liv. iv. pl. 176. See the lithograph of Chrysis and Aura.(Chasse au Lièvre.) Nor are the incumbrances, which envelop the necks of Chrysis and Aura in this beautiful gem, got rid of in the coursing plates of “The Gentleman’s Recreations,”—so few are the improvements in the practical department of the leash, from the days of Arrian till those of Richard Blome. The modern method of slipping a brace of greyhounds, at the same instant of time, from double spring or wedge collars, is of recent introduction; having its origin, probably, at the institution of public coursing meetings.

Οἱ δὲ ἐμπεδούντων τὸ ταχθέν. Obedience to the orders of the ἄρχων or ἀγωνοθέτης, in a coursing field, is an essential point of discipline: indeed, we could not select any more important for the regulation of such an assemblage than the brief and emphatic injunction of our author in his Tactics, Arriani Tactic. 71. Ed. Blancard.“silence and attention to orders”—σίγα καὶ πρόσεχε τῷ παραγγελλομένῳ.

This method of coursing was practised in England in the days of Edmund De Langley (A. D. 1380). From the instructions which he gives relative to it, it appears that the greyhounds were placed, as amongst the Celts, on the outside of the covert. So also in the beautiful poetry of Scott:

“Nos autem vidimus,” says Blondus, “venantes in capiendis leporibus hunc modum servare insidiandi. Divisi ac sparsi venatores per inculta frequentiùs quàm per culta, arte quâdam incedunt laqueis canem leporarium detinentes: spineta et sentes, sive dumeta, saltusve potiùs celebrantes quàm nemora. Nonnunquam etiam præmittunt odorum canem qui è latebris pellat timidum leporem, post quem è laqueis mittunt canem fugacem, altis clamoribus persequentes, qui sunt exhortationes fugacium canum.”

“In montosis locis (agri Bononiensis) ob rubetorum frequentiam, canibus sagacibus ad lepores excitandos utuntur, deinde visis leporibus canes leporarios solvunt,” &c.

The classic poet of Barga, although we look in vain for a description of the hare-course throughout his varied and copious Cynegeticon, has left us the following counterpart in the machinery of the fox-chase with swift-footed hounds:

and this is again followed by other chases, wherein the wolf and stag are the greyhound’s quarry.

See also L’Ecole de la Chasse, (Rouen, 1788,) “Manière de prendre les loups avec les lévriers.”

Ὅπως ἄν τοι προχωρῇ. “Quâcunque ratione fieri potest,” Ind. Græc. Z. “When she is going off,” Blane.

Καὶ εἰσὶν αἱ κύνες αὗται, ὅ τι περ αἱ ἄρκυς Ξενοφῶντι ἐκείνῳ. From some curious Dialogues composed by Elfric, Duke of Mercia, in Latin, Mr. Turner has shown that our ancestors resembled their continental neighbours in these field sports.

“I am a hunter to one of the kings.—How do you exercise your art? I spread my nets, and set them in a fit place, and instruct my hounds to pursue the wild deer till they come to the nets unexpectedly, and so are entangled, and I slay them in the nets.—Cannot you hunt without nets? Yes, with swift hounds I follow the wild deer.—What wild deer do you chiefly take? Harts, boars, and rein-deer, and goats, and sometimes hares,” &c.

Ὑπὸ τῆς κλαγγῆς τῶν κυνῶν, &c. Κυνῶν ἐφόβησεν ὁμοκλή: for a practical exemplification of a course conducted upon the principle of uniting speed and sagacity in the same pack, see Mr. Hobhouse’s description of his sport with his host at Votizza. To “four wire-haired Lacouni” were added Journey thro’ Albania, &c. Letter xvii.“three mongrel pointers, and several curs ... with a large party of men on foot and horseback, making as much noise as possible.” It is scarce necessary to state the poor hare was killed “after a short run.”

This method of coursing (if it deserve the name) was much in use in France two centuries or more ago. “They use their greyhounds,” says Book of Hunting. p. 246.Turberville, “only to set backsets, or receytes for deare, wolfe, fox, or such-like. Whereas we here in England do make great account of such pastime as is to be seen in coursing with greyhounds at deare, hare, foxe, or such-like, even of themselves, when there are neyther hounds hunting, nor other meane to help them.”

Edmund De Langley, in his Mayster of Game, condemns the union of sagacious and fleet hounds, “spaynels and greihoundes,” in the same field; for “the spaynel wil make al the ryot and al the harme.” The latter’s mode of hunting is beautifully described by Darcius of Venusium:

Τὰ μὲν οὖν λίαν νεογνὰ οἱ φιλοκυνηγέται ἀφιᾶσι τῇ Θεῷ. But the same mercy was not extended to fawns: see Xenoph. de Venat. c. ix. 1.

Τῇ Θεῷ. Diana ἀγροτέρα, or Venatrix.

So, in the Anacreontic Λιτανεία,

By Pollux the worshipful goddess is variously called ἀγροτέρα, καὶ κυνηγέτις, καὶ φιλόθηρος, καὶ ὀρεία. For the popular belief respecting her many vocations, see Callimach. H. in Dian. How graphically is she decked out, in all her sylvan trim, by Nemesian, in the following address to her, to aid, with her many sporting associates, the essay of his Cynegetical Muse!

See Lucian’s Deorum Dialogi, Venus et Cupido, for the pursuits of Diana; and for several elegant representations of her in her sporting attire, see Montfaucon, Tom. i. perrier, tab. 64. goltzii numismata græciæ, &c. tab. vii. f. 1. Insular Medals, Tab. xvii. f. 1. morell. tab. xv. passerii tom. iii. Tab. 88. &c. A few of the most classic gems and medals have been faithfully copied in outline by Mr. Haghe from the antique, and annexed to this work; they are taken from Montfaucon, who had previously borrowed them from La Chausse and Beger.

The translation of Mr. Blane does not extend beyond this Chapter.

Xenophon De Venat. c. ix. recommends Indian dogs for deer-hunting, as they are strong, large, swift-footed, and resolute.

In the ancient field sports of Britain we find the deer, the wolf, and the fox, and even sometimes the wild cat, (of which last the Mayster of Game c. x. reports, “he hath the Devyllis spyryt,”) coursed with greyhounds: but at present these diversions are discontinued, and the hare alone deemed worthy of the honourable distinction of competing in speed with the Celtic hound:

The coursing of deer was a recreation of high repute, and was divided into two sorts; the paddock, and the forest or purlieu. See Daniel’s Rural Sports. But a better authority, Turberville, in “a short observation set downe by the Translatour, concerning coursing with greyhoundes,” attached to “The Booke of Hunting,” has given us his remarks on coursing deer, and the method of doing it in the olden time with “teasers,” (“to start the deare from the whole heard, or make a low deare strain,”) “side laies,” (“to way-lay him by the midway,”) and “back-sets, or receits,” (to meet him “full in the face—to the end they may the more amase him.”) See Turberville’s Appendix to his translation of Fouilloux, and “The Governour,” B. i. c. 17.

Μέγα τε γὰρ τὸ θηρίον, &c. “He is of all beasts,” says Gervase Markham, “the goodliest, stateliest, and most manly:” and Buffon, after describing the stag with his wonted eloquence, concludes, Hist. Naturelle. “sa grandeur, sa légèreté, sa force le distinguent assez des autres habitans des bois: et comme il est le plus noble d’entre eux, il ne sert aussi qu’aux plaisirs des plus nobles des hommes; il a, dans tous les temps, occupé le loisir des héros.”

“A red deare will beare sometimes foure or five brase of greyhounds before they can pull him downe: such wonderfull force he is of, and can so easily shake off a greyhound when he pincheth him.”

Ὁ κίνδυνος οὐ σμικρὸς, &c. “He that hath a good hare greyhound, shal do very evill to course a deare with him, for it wil both bruse him and make him lyther: and the course at the hare is much the nobler pastime.”

Oppian denies that deer butt with their horns, and thereby endanger the dogs:

but Xenophon, a practical authority, affirms it—τοῖς κέρασι παίει καὶ τοῖς ποσίν. The thrust from the tynes, or branches, of the stag’s horns, were accounted far more dangerous to a human being than those of the boar’s tusk:

Ἔνθα τὰ πεδία εὐήλατα. The Homeric scholar will remember the Nomade tribes of this champaign region, on whom Jupiter cast his eyes in looking from Mount Ida towards Thrace. The Mysians were of the number:

Seneca speaks of the “Vacuisque vagus Sarmata campis,”—Claudian, of the “gens exercita campo,”—and an earlier poet, the exiled Ovid, in one of his mournful elegies, commemorates the Scythian’s skill in horsemanship:

Strabo notices the hunting propensities of the inhabitants of the Scythian and Sarmatian plains Hist. of Rome. vol. iv. c. xxvi.(L. xvii.); and the eloquent historian of the Decline and Fall enlarges on the vigour and patience both of the men and horses in the continual exercise of the chase. From the way in which these pastoral tribes of the Scythian plains are introduced by Arrian in connexion with the Celtic coursing, we may conclude that they were Celto-Scythians.

The highest praise is bestowed by Oppian on Sicilian horses, ὠκύτατοι Σικελοί: but fleeter than these are the Armenians and Parthians; and fleetest of all, the Iberians.

Ὁ δὲ ἐς τοσοῦτον ἄρα ἀντέχει.

Ἔξεστιν ἤδη, εἰ μὲν βούλοιο, ἀκοντίσαι ἐγγύθεν ὡς πεπεδημένην.

Xenophon gives a full description of the mode of ensnaring deer in a variety of trap called ποδοστράβη, and adds: ἁλίσκονται δὲ καὶ ἄνευ ποδοστράβης διωκόμεναι, ὅταν ᾖ ἡ ὥρα θερινὴ, ἀπαγορεύουσι γὰρ σφόδρα, ὥστε ἑστῶσαι ἀκοντίζονται.

Βρόχον—a noose-rope. Such ropes were generally used by rude nations in battle as well as the chase. For a clever representation of this mode of catching deer, see the Venationes Ferarum of Stradanus and Galle, and the accompanying quatrain of Kilian Dufflæus.

Ælian mentions these horses in his second book of Animal History: ὤκιστοι μέν εἰσιν ἵππων καμάτου δὲ δή τι αἴσθονται οὐδέν· λεπτοὶ δὲ, καὶ οὐκ εὔσαρκοι, ἐπιτήδειοί γε μὴν καὶ φέρειν ὀλιγωρίαν δεσπότου εἰσίν:—and Oppian in his first Cynegetic:

Ἐλάφους ἢ δορκάδας. I take ἐλάφος to be the red deer, the cervus elaphus of naturalists; and δόρκας the roe deer, cervus capreolus, the chevreuil of France. To these the poet of Cyneg. ii. v. 293.Anazarbus adds the fallow deer, under the name of εὐρυκέρωτες.

From hence it would appear that it was no great exploit to take a red or roe deer, in Arrian’s opinion; but the latter was deemed very fleet by the last-cited poet,Cyneg. ii. v. 315. ὠκυτάτων δόρκων ἀρίδηλα γένεθλα: and his opinion is supported by the high authority of theMayster of Game. c. v. fol. 32. Mayster of Game, who affirms that “he rennyth wondir fast, and some tyme, at the partyng from his leyre, he shal out goo a brace of good greye houndes.”

The wild ass, or Koulan, is an animal of the greatest speed and beauty. He is elegantly and correctly described by Oppian:

See also the Book of Job, c. xxxix. vs. 5. et seqq. plin. hist. nat. l. viii. c. 44. Varro de R. R. L. ii. c. 6. and the veterinarian apsyrtus, geopon. l. xvi. c. 21. Martial records his beauty, “Pulcher adest onager.” Spelman is mistaken in identifying the onager and zebra, and referring to the stuffed specimen of our college for his example of the former under the type of the latter.

Μέγαν βασιλέα. This is the title given by all Greek authors to the king of Persia; and it is preserved to the successors of Mahomet in that of the Grand Seignor. Cyrus was the youngest son of Darius by Parysatis, and brother to Artaxerxes. His father, therefore, and brother, were both called, κατ’ ἐξοχὴν, “the great king.”

Xenophon. Anabas. L. i. 5. 2.

The inhabitants of this part of Arabia are denominated Σκηνίται Ἄραβες by Strabo; a vagabond people, living by depredation. “Nomades, infestioresque Chaldæorum, Scenitæ,” says Pliny, “à tabernaculis cognominati;” afterwards Saracens.

Ἐπὶ γυμνῶν τῶν ἵππων.

The allusions to the tractable and fleet Numidian horse, and his expert rider, are too numerous in the authors of antiquity for citation of more than a few. The barbs, in the language of our great dramatist,

In the army of Hannibal, the “equi hominesque paululi, discinctus et inermis eques, equi sine frænis,” are eulogized by the Roman historian: and Strabo notices the docility of the African little steeds to be such ὥς τ’ ἀπὸ ῥαβδίου οἰακίζεσθαι.

Virgil speaks of the “Numidæ infræni,” (Æneid. L. iv. 41.): Silius Italicus of the

and again, in the first book of his Punic War:

But the poets of the chase, Oppian and Nemesian, have left us in detail their shape and qualifications:

The same fact is related by Ælian, in his Natural History of Animals, L. xiv. c. 10.; and Beckman (Hist. of Inventions, Vol. iv. p. 292.) observes, on the authority of Vancouver, that the βρόχος, or noose-rope, is still employed by the Hungarians, for the subjugation of wild horses.

See these instruments of predatory hunting described in the early part of the Appendix, and accurately represented in the spirited engravings of the “Venationes Ferarum” of Stradanus and Galle. The metrical skill of A. C. Kilian Dufflæus, the poet of the annexed quatrains, is not commensurate with that of the engraver.

Ἐκ τοῦ εὐθέος διαγωνιζόμενοι. Many are the instances recorded in which the agency of the hound of chase was despised by “the light-footed sons of Chiron’s school.” The heroes and heroines of old were all-sufficient for the capture of the fleetest animals of the forest and plain. This was indeed coursing in good earnest, and is well illustrated by the simile of the text. In this way Diana furnished her chariot with deer, her πρωτάγριον, the swiftest beasts of draught—

In this way, the son of Peleus arrested the attention of her sylvan ladyship and the goddess Pallas,

Mithridates, in later days, was wont, during his rustication, “feras cursu aut fugare, aut persequi, cum quibusdam etiam viribus congredi.” And in our own annals,Description of Britaine. Booke Thirde. c. 7. “King Henrye the fift,” says Holinshed, “thought it a mere scoffery to pursue any fallow deare wyth hounds or greyhounds, but supposed hym selfe alwayes to have done a sufficient acte, when he had tired them by his own travaile on foote, and so kylled them wyth hys handes, in the upshot of that exercise and ende of hys recreation.”

Περὶ Ἀρτεμίσιον.

Plato (λόγος ἐπιτάφιος) gives the first and principal honours (ἀριστεῖα) to the victors of Marathon—τὰ δὲ δευτερεῖα, τοῖς περὶ Σαλαμῖνα καὶ ἐπ’ Ἀρτεμισίῳ ναυμαχήσασι καὶ νικήσασι. Artemisium was a northern promontory of the island of Eubœa; Psyttalia, a small, rocky, and barren isle, off the coast of Attica, and near to Salamis; Cyprus, an island of the Mediterranean Sea. The naval victories of Themistocles and Cimon are too well known to need any detail.

Having taken a summary view of the different modes of coursing amongst the Celts, and elsewhere, he now enters in detail into the treatment, initiation, &c. of young hounds.

The elder Xenophon mentions an earlier date for entering puppies—bitches at eight months, dogs at ten months old: but he does not allude to greyhounds. Pollux would introduce bitches at six months, and dogs at eight; Onomast. L. v. c. ix. The courser will follow the example of his Bithynian predecessor, whose instructions, indeed, are in exact accordance with modern practice.

He recommends a later period for entering dog-puppies; see the next Chapter. Nemesian makes no distinction between the dog and bitch on this point:

Less diffuse than the Carthaginian poet, the Veronese physician enters his “catulus venaticus” in the following lines of his Alcon, without specifying his age:

Ἁλισκομένου δὲ τοῦ λαγῷ, says the elder Xenophon, διδόναι αὐταῖς ἀναῤῥηγνύναι. Every sportsman is fully aware of the importance of blooding young hounds: κύων ἀγρευτικὸς ἅπας αὐτὸς μὲν λαβὼν θηρίον ἥδεται, καὶ κέχρηται τῇ ἄγρᾳ, ὡς ἄθλῳ, ἐὰν αὐτὸν συγχωρήσῃ ὁ δεσπότης: and a greater than Xenophon or Ælian has declared that the curée, or quarry, is to the Spartan hound the object of his chase, οὐδὲ ταῖς ὀσμαῖς τῶν λαγωῶν αἱ κύνες χαίρουσιν, ἀλλὰ τῇ βρώσει—ὅτι βορὰν ἕξουσιν. But Plutarch tells us that they will not touch the game, nor lap the blood of it, unless they kill it themselves; while, in the other case, Plutarchi Utraque animalia, &c.ἥδονται διασπῶντες, καὶ τὸ αἷμα λάπτουσι προθύμως, &c.

Julius Pollux advises that puppies be well blooded, ἵνα προσεθίζωνται τῇ κυνηγετικῇ τροφῇ.

“Ye shal gif yo^r. houndys the bowellis boyled w^h. breed, and it is callyd reward for cause that it is etyn on the erthe and not on the skyn.”

“Goodnesse of greyhoundes cometh of ryght corage and of the good nature of her fader and modir, and also men may wel helpe to make hem good in the encharmyng of hem with other good greihoundes and feede hem wel in the beest that he taketh.”

“In coursing,” says Markham, “you shall observe two things, bloud and labour; bloud, which is a hartening and animating of your dogge to delight in the pleasure, when he findes the reward of his paines taking; for if a dog course continually, and never kill, the sport will growe yrksome to him, and therefore, now and then, give him such advantage that he may kill the hare—then labour, which is contrary to killing; for in it you must give the hare all indifferent advantage, both by lawe and otherwise, whereby she may stand long before the dogge and make him shewe his uttermost strength before he be able to reach her.”

So Xenophon: ἔστι δὲ καὶ, ἄνευ τοῦ εὑρίσκειν τὸν λαγῶ, ἀγαθὸν, ἄγειν τὰς κύνας εἰς τὰ τραχέα· καὶ γὰρ εὔποδες γίγνονται, καὶ τὰ σώματα διαπονοῦσαι ἐν τόποις τοιούτοις ὠφελοῦνται.

“Whan thei be at sojourne, men shuld lede hem out every day a myle or ij upon gravel, or upon right an hard pathe, bi a revere syde, bicause that her feet may be harder.”

Περὶ τῶν εἰς ἰχνείαν ἀσκουμένων κυνῶν—Spartan hounds, Castorians and Foxites—with regard to which, XenophonDe Venat. c. vii. recommends that the hare should be out of sight before they be allowed to follow her; lest, from being too near their game, such as are high-couraged and swift of foot might be injured by too much exertion in pursuit. It is unnecessary to observe that the elder Athenian’s remarks are inapplicable to the courser’s hound, who runs entirely by the eye; and the nearer he is slipped to the hare, if he be only just entered, the better. A hare will always beat a puppy in his noviciate, unaided by an old and experienced hound.

Μαινομένῃ ἔοικεν.

He now gives in detail his instructions for entering greyhound puppies to their appointed game, in opposition to those of Xenophon’s seventh chapter; nor can the most experienced courser add to them any thing worth knowing, nor the most ignorant complain of their insufficiency.

Πονούμενος ὁ λαγὼς ὑποκάμψας ἥξει. To the same point sings the poet of Barga:

Οὐκ ἐπειδὴ τὰ κρέα ἄρα περὶ πολλοῦ ποιητέον ἀνδρὶ ἐς κάλλος κυνηγετοῦντι. And yet we find that the hare’s flesh was in high estimation with epicures of old; and a coursed hare is particularly lauded by Martial among the luxuries of a country table,

In our own country, the sportsman was as attentive to supply the hall of banquet with its due portion of the delicate little animal, as the kennel with its appointed halow.

says the dignified Prioress of Sopewell, in her metrical canons of hunting.

See also “The Venery de Twety and of Mayster John Giffarde.” Fouilloux, p. 69. Turberville, p. 174. and Gervase Markham, C. C. p. 33.

Πονηρὸν μάθημα. It certainly is wrong to allow a greyhound to gorge himself with his game, after he has been sufficiently instructed in the art of killing; but no puppy should be hastily checked, when he has caught his hare, even though, in the words of old Gervase, “he may breake her.”

Few coursers wait till the period specified before they enter their dog-puppies: but it occasionally happens that dogs entered at fifteen months old, if they are large and unset in their limbs, break down under severe work, and are rendered subsequently useless; while others, again, more neat and compact of shape, will run as well at eighteen months as at any later period.

“Men shuld late renne no houndes,” says Duke Edmund, “of what condicions that thei be of, ne nat hunte with hem in to the tyme that thei were a xii mounthis olde and passed, and also thei may hunt but ix yeer at the moost.”

Φυλάττειν δὲ καὶ ἀπὸ ὀχείας.

Columella, who admits the dog and bitch to copulate much earlier than Arrian, is still aware of the mischievous consequences of the practice; De Re Rust. L. vii. c. xii.“si teneris conceditur,” says he, “carpit et corpus et vires, animosque degenerat.”

As to the exact period at which the εὐνῆς ἔργα of Oppian (Hal. i. 532.) should commence, and their probable duration, without risk of breeding from animals too far advanced in years, there is some difference of opinion. According to Pollux,Pollux. L. v. c. vii. ὥρα ἀρίστη κυνῶν πρὸς πλήρωσίν τε καὶ γένεσιν, τῷ μὲν ἄῤῥενι τετάρτου ἔτους ἀρξαμένου, τελευταῖον τὸ ὄγδοον· ἡ δὲ θήλεια τριετὶς, μέχρι ἑξαετίδος συνδυαζέσθω.

“Mares juveniliter usque in annos decem progenerant: post id tempus ineundis fœminis non videntur habiles, quoniam seniorum pigra soboles existit. Fœminæ concipiunt usque in annos novem, nec sunt utiles post decimum,” according to Columella: while PlinyPlin. Hist. Nat. L. viii. c. 40. admits both dog and bitch at a year old—“canum generibus annui partus, justa ad pariendum annua ætas.”

Conrad Gesner cites an ancient, nameless authority, to the following effect: Hist. Quadrup. L. i. De Cane.“Mares quarto anno gignere incipiant, (operâ scilicet hominum admittentium tunc primùm robustioris generandæ sobolis gratiâ,) fœminæ tertio usque in nonum.”

If a courser follow Virgil’s rule as to milch kine, in limiting the age of his brood bitch for the purposes alluded to, he will find it perfectly applicable:

After the fourth year, no greyhound can be depended on for fair running, and therefore may be well spared, to keep up the kennel stock, when no longer useful in the field:

Ἀπὸ τρίτου μὲν ἔτους ἐφίεσθαι—“You shall observe,” says Markham, “to have your dogges and bitches of equal and indifferent ages, as about three or foure years old at the most. But in case of need, your bitch will endure a great deale longer than your dogge, and to breed with a young dogge on an old bitch, may bring forth an excellent whelpe.” Virg. Georg. iii. 96.“Frigidus in Venerem senior—.”

After describing a good-shaped bitch, Nemesian adds:

Gratius would have a general parity of character in both male and female,

And Bargæus agrees with him that the similarity should extend to the essential points of age, shape, and bodily powers: