Part 20

[Sidenote: Natalis Comes de Venatione. L. +i.+]

Quod superest, celeris catuli cui credita cura, Nutriat illecebris hunc, et sibi jungat amore. Sic facilè et noto domino parere jubenti Disceret, acceptisque sequi vestigia signis.

Εἰ 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!

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. v. 408.]

At si deformi lacerum dulcedine corpus Persequitur scabies, longi via pessima lethi, In primo accessu tristis medicina; sed unà Pernicies redimenda animâ, quæ prima sequaci Sparsa malo est, ne dira trahant contagia vulgi.

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:

[Sidenote: Album Dianæ Leporicidæ. L. +vi.+ p. 79.]

Altera latrantum pestis, commercia quæ per Vicina insinuans sese, diffunditur agmen In totum, tenerosque brevi depascitur artus, Deformis scabies, hoc potu ventre soluto, Victa fugit, si vena die sit aperta sequenti: Atque malum bini post intervalla diei, Toto, quod docuit Fulloxius, unguine cures.

[Sidenote: =Mayster of Game.= c. +xix.+ fol. 70.]

[Sidenote: c. +xiii.+ fol. 56.]

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: “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:

[Sidenote: Cyneget. v. 294.]

Pulvere quinetiam puras secernere fruges Cura sit, atque toros manibus percurrere equorum, Gaudeat ut plausu sonipes, lætumque relaxet Corpus, et altores rapiat per viscera succos. Id curent famuli, comitumque animosa juventus.

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.

[Sidenote: H. in Dian. v. 17. De Canibus et Venatione Libellus.]

[Sidenote: Hist. of Inventions.]

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:

[Sidenote: Cyneget. v. 172.]

Sed neque conclusos teneas, neque vincula collo Impatiens circumdederis, noceasque futuris Cursibus imprudens.

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:

[Sidenote: Cyneget. v. 184.]

Libera tunc primùm consuescant colla ligari, Concordes et ferre gradus, clausique teneri.

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

[Sidenote: Petr. Angel. Bargæi Cyneget. L. +v.+]

Ergo age duro Assuescant victu catuli, imperioque magistri Unius addiscant parere, atque unius omnes Nutus observare, et jussa facessere læti, Collaque præduris ultrò præbere capistris, Cum primùm teneros artus duraverit ætas, Et se jam sua per vestigia volverit annus. Antè autem cave imprudens concluseris usquam Aut loris vinctum, aut angusti pariete septi. Namque urent tenerum circumdata vincula collum, Impatiensque moræ sese conatibus anget: Ostiaque arrodens denteis obtundet, et ungues.

[Sidenote: Blondus de Canibus &c. Libellus.]

“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:

[Sidenote: Fracastorii Alcon.]

Ita demùm libera colla, Cum res ipsa, ususque vocat, majore feruntur Impete.

[Sidenote: p. 41.]

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

Difficile est canem vetulum assuescere loro.

Ἐσθίειν δὲ ἀνάγκη λελυμένην κύνα πᾶν τὸ ἐμπεσόν.

[Sidenote: Oppian. Halieut. +i.+ v. 250.]

πάντη δὲ πλάζονται, ὄπη γένυς, ἔνθα κελεύει γαστὴρ, καὶ λαίμαργος ἔρως ἀκόρητος ἐδωδῆς.

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

[Sidenote: =Mayster of Game.= c. +xxi.+ fol. 72.]

“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.”

[Sidenote: Countrey Content. B. +i.+ p. 52.]

These simple instructions of Duke Edmund are amplified by old Gervase: “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.

[Sidenote: Apollon. Rhod. L. +iii.+ 1372.]

——θοοὶ κύνες ἀμφιθορόντες Ἀλλήλους βρυχηδὸν ἐδήϊον.

[Sidenote: Somerville’s Chace. B. +i.+]

For oft in sport Begun, combat ensues; growling they snarl, Then on their haunches rear’d, rampant they seize Each other’s throats; with teeth and claws in gore Besmear’d, they wound, they tear, till on the ground Panting, half dead the conquer’d champion lies, &c.

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.+

[Sidenote: Blondi Libellus, &c.]

“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.”

[Sidenote: Countrey Content. B. +i.+ p. 51.]

[Sidenote: p. 52.]

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, “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.”—“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.

[Sidenote: Tardivus de Venatione.]

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.

[Sidenote: Hierozoicon L. +ii.+ c. +iv.+]

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 “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.

[Sidenote: Columel. de R. R. +vi.+ 4. 2.]

[Sidenote: Historia Quadruped. &c.]

“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.+

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. +i.+ 112.]

ποτὲ δ’ ἑσπερίου, ποτὲ αὖτε καὶ ὄρφνῃ θῆρας ὑπ’ ἀκτίνεσσι σεληναίης ἐδάμασσαν.

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:

[Sidenote: Cyneget. v. 321.]

Hiemis sub tempus aquosæ Incipe veloces catulos immittere pratis, Incipe cornipedes latos agitare per agros.

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

[Sidenote: Book of St. Albans.]

At myghelmas begynneth huntynge of the haare: And lastyth tyll mydsomer there wyll no man it spare.

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

[Sidenote: De Venat. L. +i.+]

Nam neque tunc horrent torpentia frigora brumæ, Nec nimio uruntur florentia prata calore.

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.

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. +i.+ 133.]

ἐν δὲ θέρει, χρειὼ φυγέειν φλογόεσσαν ἐνιπὴν ἄζαν τ’ ἠελίου.

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—

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. +i.+ 86.]

τῷ μὴ πιαλέοι θήρης ἐπὶ μῶλον ἴοιεν μηδέ τε λεπταλέοι.

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.

[Sidenote: Petr. Lotich. Secund. Ecl. +ii.+ Viburnus Venator.]

+Lyc.+ Ad fluvium duc, Daphni, canes, (vocat æstus in umbram,) Nec catulos virides sine lascivire per herbas. Eja agedum, requiesce Lacon, requiesce Lycarba, Fervidus Hesperias dum sol declinet in undas.

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.

[Sidenote: Savary Album Dianæ, &c. L. +iii.+ p. 33.]

Cum fluidos gelidâ sisti torpedine rivos Videris, extantesque pedi non cedere glebas, Ne campis immitte canes: nam nulla laborum Præmia; et avulsos vanis conatibus ungues Sæpè diù, melior pars turmæ clauda, dolebit.

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:

[Sidenote: De Venat. L. +i.+]

Ast ubi jam Boreas invadit frigidus arva, Et glacialis hyems currentia flumina sistit, Arcendæ à plantis concretæ frigore crustæ, Atque armandus erit pes, ne mala frigora lædant, Et tellus concreta gelu, spinæque rigentes.

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

[Sidenote: Fracastorii Alcon.]

Quid? taceam nimio cum decidit ungula cursu? Frangere namque juvat pallentis grana cumini Dentibus, admotâque pedem lenire salivâ: Incipientque novi subcrescere protinùs ungues.”

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,

[Sidenote: Martini Lexicon Philologicum.]

οὐδ’ αὐτοῖς δειλοῖς λασιοκνημοῖσι λαγωοῖς.

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.

[Sidenote: Vide Stephani Schediasm. L. +v.+ c. +xvi.+]

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.”

[Sidenote: The Booke of Venerie, &c. p. 249.]

[Sidenote: Iliad. L. +xx.+ v. 360.]

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,

[Sidenote: Act +ii.+ sc. 8.]

But you must give her law: and you shall see her Make twenty leaps and doubles, &c.

[Sidenote: Aristot. de Rhetoricâ L. +i.+ c. +v.+]

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.

[Sidenote: Onomast. L. +v.+ c. +x.+ 61.]

[Sidenote: Hist. Animal. L. +xiii.+ c. 14.]

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 διαῤῥίμμα, the τὸ πηδήμα τοῦ σώματος &c. of Pollux. Σκιρτᾷ γοῦν, says Ælian of the hare’s start, 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:

[Sidenote: Metamorph. L. +vii.+ vs. 772.]

jamdudum vincula pugnat Exuere ipse sibi, colloque morantia tendit. Vix bene missus erat; nec jam poteramus, ubi esset, Scire; pedum calidus vestigia pulvis habebat: Ipse oculis ereptus erat. Non ocyor illo Hasta, nec excussæ contorto verbere glandes, Nec Gortyniaco calamus levis exit ab arcu.

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:

[Sidenote: Polyolbion. Song +xxiii.+]

In the proper terms the Muse doth thus report— The man whose vacant mind prepares him to the sport, The finder sendeth out, to seek out nimble Wat, Which crosseth in the field, each furlong, every flat, Till he this pretty beast upon the form hath found; Then viewing for the course, which is the fairest ground, The greyhounds forth are brought, for coursing then in case, And choicely in the slip, one leading forth a brace; The finder puts her up, and gives her courser’s law. And whilst the eager dogs upon the start do draw, She riseth from her seat, as though on earth she flew, Forced by some yelping cute to give the greyhounds view, Which are at length let slip, when gunning out they go, As in respect of them the swiftest wind were slow; When each man runs his horse, with fixed eyes, and notes Which dog first turns the hare, which first the other coats: They wrench her once or twice, ere she a turn will take, What’s offer’d by the first, the other good doth make; And turn for turn again with equal speed they ply, Bestirring their swift feet with strange agility: A harden’d ridge or way, when if the hare do win, Then as shot from a bow she from the dogs doth spin, That strive to put her off, but when he cannot reach her, This giving him a coat, about again doth fetch her To him that comes behind, which seems the hare to bear; But with a nimble turn she casts them both arrear: Till oft for want of breath to fall to ground they make her, The greyhounds both so spent that they want breath to take her.