Part 30

The Canis ductor, or lime-hound of the middle ages, the ἐμβιβαστὴς and μηνυτὴς of ancient glossaries, “qui odorisequâ nare spelæa ferarum, et diverticula deprehendit,” was strongly allied to, if not identical with, the Sleut-hound of Scotland, the blood-hound, lyme-dog, or limer (from the lyam or leash with which he was led) of authors, employed in the pursuit of animals of chase, and the discovery of murders and ambuscades. See the Glossaries of Spelman and Ducange, in voce.

[Sidenote: Etymolog. Ling. Anglic.]

[Sidenote: De Canibus Britannicis Libellus.]

[Sidenote: Venationis Cervinæ Leges L. +ii.+]

Skinner defines the Limmer “Hybris, i. e. canis vilior ex cane sagace venatico cum Molosso copulato prognatus,”—and such probably was the parent stock of this much-famed dog. The Lorarius of Caius must have been a more nimble animal than the Sleut-hound—“propter velocitatem et gravius feram urget, et citiùs capit.” The Lymer is fully treated of in De Langley’s curious manuscript intitled =Mayster of Game=, c. +xx.+ et seqq. Much also will be found relative to him in the Book of St. Alban’s, Fouilloux, Turberville, and Blome: and he is particularly described by the Latin poet of Caen, under the title of “Canis armillaris.”

The following portrait by the poet of Barga is worthy of exhibition:

[Sidenote: P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. L. +v.+]

Ille quidem multâ virtute insignis, et usu Venandi, saltum si quando ingressus apertum est, Evinctus loro dominum trahit. Atque ubi signa Invenit, aut auras acer persentit odoras, Pergit iter, rostrum et pressâ vix tollit ab herbâ, Huc illuc volvens oculos, et singula solers Scrutatur: donec subter virgulta latentem Conspexit leporem, et constrata cubilia fronde. Tum vero gressum caudâ blanditus, et ore Accelerat, montemque omnem latratibus implet.

He is the “Prævius it loro catulus devinctus” of Vanière’s Prædium Rusticum, L. +xvi.+ Great, however, as was his celebrity in the sporting field of the classic and middle ages, and even till a century and a half ago,—

[Sidenote: G. Douglas’s Palace of Honour.]

syrchand to and fra, To hunt the harte, the bare, the da, the ra,—

the Limier, in a state of pure blood, is considered almost extinct.

[Sidenote: Minshæi Emend. in voce.]

Hound is sometimes applied to all dogs, as if Minshew’s and Junius’s derivation of the term were correct—à κυνίδιον dim. à κύων: but in England the term most commonly signifies a hunting-dog, to which sense the A. S. huntian, hent-an, to pursue, to search after, affords a more probable root.

[Sidenote: Hist. Nat. L. +i.+ 255. Gloss. Arch. p. 114.]

[Sidenote: Ejusd. p. 7. Wase’s illustrations.]

The etymology of the term Petronius is not of easy solution. By critics it has been fancifully derived from the firmness, strength, and hardness of the feet of this variety of dog; in consequence of which he was enabled to run over rough and rocky ground without injury—κύων εὔπους. Gesner mentions a tributary stream of the Tiber called Petronia, “quòd per petras fluat.” Spelman, in his Glossary, gives Petrunculus as a synonym of Petronius, citing the above passage of Gratius; and under Acceptor, explains Petrunculus in a marginal note by “a brachet.” The Spanish use Perro, says Wase, as their common appellation of a dog.

[Sidenote: Arrian. de Ven. c. +iii.+ in not.]

Schneider substitutes Ἑγουσίαι for Ἐγουσίαι, (spiritu mutato)—the Latin term being Segusii, as ἓξ, sex. Σεγουσίαι, Blancard.

[Sidenote: The Countrey Farme, by G. Markham. c. +xxii.+]

“Greyhounds are onely for the coursing of all sorts of wilde beasts by main swiftnesse of foot; they doe not any thing more than their eies govern them unto, being led by a natural instinct or hatred which they beare to all sorts of wilde beasts.”—“Hounds are those which by vertue of their scents, smells, or noses, do find out all manner of wilde beasts,” &c.—See the distinctions of the two races admirably drawn by G. Markham, p. 673. of Surflet’s version of La Maison Rustique.

It is my opinion that these veloces were greyhounds,—which having been exported from Gaul, their native soil, into Britain, were thence again sent to Italy;—and therefore I have nothing to say about them here. The passage is not of easy application—some commentators interpreting it as having reference to one variety of hound, and some to another:—

[Sidenote: Ovid. Metam. L. +iii.+ vs. 255.]

pars invenit utraque causas.

See some further remarks under the Vertragus of Class III.

Of what country were the Canes Petronii indigenous?—Vlitius claims them, without proof, for Belgium—denies all knowledge of them to Italy, beyond mere report—unceremoniously disallows the pretensions of Gaul—and, for reasons equally inadequate, those of Britain. But the latter, in my opinion, has as well-founded a claim to the breed as Belgium.

[Sidenote: Synopsis Methodica Animalium Quadrupedum.]

Under the Canis venaticus sagax, ferarum indagator et sectator, the primary definition of Ray, we may place the modern sub-varieties; the Sanguinarius seu furum deprehensor of Ray, the Leverarius of Caius, and Venaticus minor of Ray.

The Sanguinarius, or blood-hound, is the Canis Scoticus, ane Sleuth-hound, of Gesner’s Appendix; briefly therein described from Hector Boethius; and answering to the Inductor of the Classical ages more nearly than to any other ancient type. He is beautifully described by Somerville, and faithfully by Caius, and Holinshed; nor is Tickell’s sketch, in his fragment on hunting, unworthy of perusal.

The second sub-variety of the British hound of chase, the Leverarius, harrier or fox-hound, (“sunt ex his,” says Caius, “qui duos, ut vulpem atque leporem, variatis vicibus sequi student,”) is the Canis Scoticus sagax, vulgò dictus ane Rache of Gesner’s Appendix; “the racche the whiche that men clepen the Rennyng hounde” of the =Mayster of Game=, c. +xiiii.+ fo. 62.

Of the third sub-variety I shall presently speak under the Agassæus.

[Sidenote: Countrey Contentments, Booke +i.+ c. +i.+ Glossar, in voce.]

For further particulars the reader is referred to Gervase Markham’s clear, accurate, and entertaining portraits of “the slow,” “the middle-sized,” and “nimble hounds,” copied by this laborious compiler from the earlier work of Duke Edmund of York, above cited. He may also consult Ducange’s Canis latrabilis.

[Sidenote: Etymolog. Ling. Anglic.]

I am happy to refer to the Historian of Manchester, in corroboration of this opinion. Skinner derives the name of the Talbot from the position of his tail—“Canis caudâ reflexâ præditus, credo ab A. S. Tægl, nobis Tail, cauda, et Butan extrà, ultrà, foràs!”

[Sidenote: Xenophon De Venat. c. +vi.+]

Ancient sportsmen were equally aware with their modern descendants of the necessity of keeping hounds, when once entered, steady to their particular game. Plutarch (περὶ πολυπραγμοσύνης) alludes to the attention they paid to this point of field discipline: οἱ κυνηγοὶ τοὺς σκύλακας οὐκ ἐῶσιν ἐκτρέπεσθαι καὶ διώκειν πᾶσαν ὀδμὴν, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ῥυτῆρσιν ἕλκουσι καὶ ἀνακρούουσι, καθαρὸν αὐτῶν καὶ ἄκρατον φυλάττοντες τὸ αἰσθήριον ἐπὶ τὸ οἰκεῖον ἔργον. Xenophon, passionately enamoured of the hare-chase, would not allow his harriers to turn aside, and run riot, after foxes—διαφθορὰ γὰρ μεγίστη, καὶ ἐν τῷ δεόντι οὔ ποτε πάρεισιν—it is fatal to their steadiness.

[Sidenote: Hierozoicon L. +iii.+ c. +xiii.+]

[Sidenote: Ovid. Met. L. +vii.+ 763.]

The difficulty of capturing the fox is indicated, according to Bochart, by mythologists, in the fable of the Teumesian fox, the “altera pestis” of Bœotian Thebes, which, in the song of Sir Arthur Golding,

[Sidenote: Golding’s Ovid’s Metam. Booke seventh.]

—wrought the bane of many a wight. The countrie folke did feed Him with their cattle and themselves, untill (as was agreed) That all the youthfull gentlemen that dwelled thereabout Assembling, pitcht their corded toyles the champion fields throughout, But net, ne toyle was none so hie that could his wightnesse stop, He mounted over at his ease the highest of the top. Then every man let slip their grewnds, but he them all oustript And even as nimbly as a bird in daliance from them whipt, &c.

[Sidenote: =Mayster of Game.= c. +viii.+ fo. 43.]

“Men taken hem withe houndes,” says De Langley, “withe greihoundes, withe haies and withe pursnettis, but he kitteth hem withe his teethe as the mascles of the wolf dooth but nat so sone.”

Lonicer’s ratio vulpinandi in his ‘venatus et aucupium’ shows in its accompanying most spirited engraving the fox-chase of three centuries ago:

[Sidenote: Venatus et Aucupium per J. A. Lonicer.]

Callida versuto capitur stratagemate vulpes: Novit enim dubias mille dolosa vias, &c.

For the merits of the fox-chase, and its “commoditie of exercise,” see Sir Thomas Elyot’s ‘The Governour,’ Book +i.+ c. +xviii.+ and for “the flying of this chase,” see a Short Treatise of Hunting, compyled for the Delight of Noblemen and Gentlemen, by Sir Thomas Cockaine, Knight—wherein he states “that the author hereof hath killed a foxe distant from the covert where hee was found foureteene miles aloft the ground with hounds,”—a run that would be deemed pretty good, I suppose, even by the modern descendants of any Nimrod knight.

[Sidenote: Skinner, Etymolog. Anglican.]

Nor is the etymology of the English term Beagle of more easy solution. Skinner derives it from the French bugler, mugire; and Menage thinks, as the hounds were sent from Britain into Gaul, the name may be of British origin. A second derivation is proposed by the former philologist, founded on the diminutive stature of the dogs—cani piccoli—Ital. Canes minores. May not a third possible source of the name be found in the barbarous root bigla, vigilia, excubiæ, from the Greek Βίγλα, à Latino vigilia—? The watchful tricks of some of our terrier-beagles in a rabbit-warren, and Oppian’s graphic sketch of the Ἀγασσεὺς, his wiles, &c. favour the notion.

[Sidenote: Venatio Novantiqua.]

Janus Vlitius, who, as Wase remarks, “owns England to have been the school from which he took the dictates of his learned commentaries,” relates the following anecdote of the tiny beagles of his day: “Sunt enim agassæi illi adeò aliquandò exiles, et parvi, ut tres simul leporem in cubili suo invadentes viderim invitos à prædâ suâ, cui mordicùs inhærebant, nihilominùs eluctante relinqui. Et ipse binos nutrivi adeò delicatos et tenellos, ut manu unâ totos circumambirem. Sed hi commensales potiùs, et lusui magis, quàm ad venatum idonei habentur.”

A clever representation of a pack of small, long-eared, beagle terriers at their wonted sport of rabbit-catching is given by J. Stradanus, in his 38th plate, with an explanatory quatrain by K. Dufflæus:

[Sidenote: Venationes Ferarum.]

Callidus effossis latitare cuniculus antris Et generare solet. Verum persæpè catelli Anglorum celeres fallunt pecus: ore prehendunt Illusum: prædam venatorique ministrant.

[Sidenote: Cæsar de B. G. L. +i.+ 10.]

[Sidenote: See H. Stephan. Schediasm. +iv.+ 2.]

[Sidenote: Du Cange Glossar. in voce.]

Cæsar places the Segusiani in Gallia Celtica—“Hi sunt extra provinciam trans Rhodanum primi.” Why, then, may we not suppose these hounds correctly denominated by Arrian?—why may not their title be of local origin, as affirmed by him, rather than connected with their sagacious qualities, as supposed by Vlitius? who would view them as Canes Segusii vel Secutii—the latter term being applied to the Canes Inductores—“quia hominem sequentem ducit Inductor,” with which the Dutch annotator holds the Segusian to be identical. Spelman enumerates the synonyms of segutius, as seusis, sensius, &c. &c.—See Gloss. Arch. p. 114. and derives them à sequendo. Eccard more correctly, I think, refers to the German suchen, or rather Saxon seuken investigare, whence sucher, seuker investigator, and with a Latin termination, suchius, seucius, seusius, secusius, segusius, &c. The Spaniards, according to Wase, “have a blood-hound which is called un podenco,” of small stature, with which they “prick through the woods, or follow any chase.” Possibly Vlitius may have had this hound in his eye when he interpreted the Canes Segusii as Inductores.

[Sidenote: A preface to the Reader.]

There is no variety of sagacious dog, no style of hunting, to which the prefatory encomiums of Wase are more strictly applicable, (however quaint the language in which they are conveyed,) than the beagle tribe, and their various chases. “It is admirable,” says this friend of Edmund Waller, “to observe the naturall instinct of enmity and cunning, whereby one beast being, as it were, confederate with man, by whom he is maintained, serves him in his designes upon others. A curious mind is exceedingly satisfy’d to see the game fly before him, and after that hath withdrawn itselfe from his sight, to see the whole line where it hath pass’d over with all the doublings and cross-works, which the amazed beast hath made, recover’d again, and all that maze wrought out by the intelligence which he holds with dogs: this is most pleasant, and, as it were, a master-piece of natural magique,” &c. See also Gervase Markham’s Countrey Contentments, B. +i.+ c. +iv.+

The swift-footed dogs of our third class are included, we may suppose, in M. F. Cuvier’s first division; having the head much elongated, the parietal bones insensibly approaching each other, and the condyles of the lower jaw placed in a horizontal line with the upper cheek teeth.

[Sidenote: Thereutices Compendium, p. 743.]

Having had an opportunity of consulting Conrad Heresbach’s “Thereutice” since the earlier part of this work was printed off, I may here subjoin the learned epitomizer’s description of the greyhound type:—“aliud genus Venaticorum, quos leporarios et emissarios vocant ac vertagos;—hos quærimus, qui sint corpore procero, agili et expedito, cruribus prioribus excelsioribus, capite longiusculo, neque carnoso sed levi, cruribus brevibus atque erectis, oculis micantibus, pectore toroso, cæteris expeditis membris, nisi quòd clunes latiusculos habentes magis probantur, et caudâ longâ et levi, non hirsutâ. Vidimus tamen è Norwegiâ et insulâ Thulæ adductos pernicitate non vulgari, qui et caudâ et corpore toto villosi erant. Verùm hi non ad sagacitatem sed ad velocitatem usurpantur. Ejus generis sunt Britannici, simul et pernicitate et robore valentes, nisi quod corpore vasto, cervis persequendis magis idonei.” The latter are doubtless Caledonian deer greyhounds.

This property, I allow, is impaired in certain modern individuals of the Celtic family, hereafter mentioned, in whom the admixture of nasal sagacity indicates impurity of blood, and degeneracy from the parent stock. The lines of Gratius, descriptive of the greyhound’s speed, and keenness of vision, have been already cited under the Sagacious class: Englished by Wase, (totidem versibus, the good man’s only poetical merit) they run thus:

[Sidenote: A Poem of Hunting, &c. Englished by C. Wase, Gent. 1654.]

—chuse the grayhound py’d with black and white, He runs more swift then thought or winged flight; But courseth yet in view, not hunts in traile, In which the quick Petronians never faile.

Xenophon’s foxite has small ears, (unless with Vlitius we read ὦτα μακρὰ,) and Arrian’s Celt large, down-falling ears, as if broken—small and stiff ones being deemed a blemish in the greyhound. But in other respects the ears of the Oppianic hound closely resemble Arrian’s type, and also Nemesian’s—both confessedly Celtic. See Arrian de Venat. c. v. 7. and Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 112.

For a beautiful image of the Celtic greyhound the reader is referred to Père Montfaucon, L’Antiquité expliquée. Tom. +iii.+ Liv. +iv.+ pl. 176. A medallion from the arch of Constantine exhibits the Emperor Trajan with his huntsmen, accompanied by a type of this dog, the most elegant which antiquity has transmitted to us. It has been copied on stone for the preceding work by Messrs. Day and Haghe; who have added to our embellishments Chrysis and Aura from an ancient gem—Lælaps from Tempesta—and some spirited outlines from the antique. But I have most pleasure in referring my readers to the genuine Celtic exemplars—the veloces catuli—of the Townley collection of the British Museum, faithfully lithographed by the same artists. This beautiful group of greyhound puppies, in white marble, was found by Mr. Gavin Hamilton in the year 1774, at Monte Cagnolo, part of the villa of Antoninus Pius, near the ancient Lanuvium, beyond the “lucus et ara Dianæ,” of the Via Appia. A second, nearly similar, was discovered at the same place, and purchased by Visconti for the Vatican Museum. Of an earlier date, however, than these most interesting groupes, is the medallion selected as the frontispiece of the present work. For although the triumphal arch, whence it was originally copied, was not erected till about A. D. 300. that arch was a piece of architectural patch-work, made up of the spoils of earlier structures—its medallions and principal ornaments being derived from one 200 years older, commemorative of Trajan’s victories over the Dacians and Parthians,—amongst the former of whom, on the authority of Arrian, deer-coursing was an established sport in the beginning of the second century. About the latter period, or at the very close of the first century, the medallion of the frontispiece was probably wrought; whereas the Monte Cagnolo groupes, if executed expressly for the decoration of Antoninus’s villa, were half a century later.

[Sidenote: Morell. T. +xv.+ 20. 21. &c.]

I know of few other authentic representations of the οὐέρτραγος κύων,—unless the varying type of Dian’s canine attendant, on antique gems, lamps, coins, relievos, &c. (the most beautiful of which is on the Sicilian coins of Augustus Cæsar);

[Sidenote: Callimach. H. in Delum. vs. 228.]

— — κύων—— Ἀρτέμιδος, ἥτιςτε θοῆς ὅτε παύσεται ἄγρης, ἵζει θηρήτειρα παρ’ ἴχνεσιν, οὔατα δ’ αὐτῆς ὀρθὰ μάλ’, αἰὲν ἑτοῖμα θεῆς ὑποδέχθαι ὁμοκλήν...

[Sidenote: Museo Chiaramonti. T. +xvii.+ T. +xviii.+]

approach, in any instance, near enough to the courser’s hound to be deemed a likeness—sometimes a beagle, sometimes a foxite, at other times a greyhound, let the reader compare the outlines of Beger and La Chausse, seemingly of the Celtic type, with the lop-eared harrier of Visconti and Guattani, (Diana ed Ecate combattono coi Giganti,) and the prick-eared lurcher of the same authors, (Diana ed Apollo,) and then decide on the admissibility of the effigy in this place.

[Sidenote: Goltzii Numismata Græciæ. T. +xviii.+ f. 7. 8. 9. 10.]

To the medallion of Vaillant, of small dimensions, but of singular beauty, exhibiting a brace of greyhounds in the act of seizing a deer—copied here in outline as a vignette—may be added four impressions of the same hound, in four different attitudes, most elegant and characteristic, on coins or medals of the isle of Cythnus, one of the Cyclades; and a stag pursued by a greyhound, in Recueil d’Antiquités, Tom. +i.+ p. 219.

[Sidenote: History of Four-footed Beasts, compiled from Gesner and others, p. 115.]

“The first greyhound,” says Topsel, (translating what Pollux had related of the Molossian,) “was that of Cephalus, fashioned by Vulcan in Monesian brass, and when he liked his proportion, he also quickened him with a soul, and gave him to Jupiter for a gift, who gave him away again to Europa, she also to Minos, Minos to Procris, and Procris to Cephalus, &c.

[Sidenote: H. Stephani Schediasm. L. +iv.+ 1.]

The etymology of this harsh-sounding term is more readily elucidated by tracing it in the Celtic, than in the Latin language; from the latter of which Henry Stephens, on the authority of Turnebus, attempts a fanciful derivation. “Vertragus—Fertragus—Fertrahus—ex eo nimirùm quòd feram trahat ad dominum, literâ g locum literæ h accipiente, sicut tragulam nomen à trahendo habere grammatici affirmant.” He does not, however, attach much faith to the derivation, though favoured by Martial’s Epigram,

[Sidenote: Martial. Epig. L. +xiv.+ Ep. 200.]

Non sibi sed domino venatur Vertragus acer, Illæsum leporem qui tibi dente feret;

[Sidenote: Adr. Turnebi Adversar. L. +xviii.+ c. +i.+]

and Turnebus himself, when proposing it, says “Scio ego jocularem istam visum iri audaciam, et risus excitaturam.” Ridiculous enough assuredly it is! The greyhound very rarely brings the hare to his keeper, often devours it—besides, the bearing of his game to his master is not peculiar to this dog, Oppian mentioning the same quality in the Ἀγασσεύς—

[Sidenote: Cyneg. L. +i.+ vs. 524.]

καὶ γενύεσσιν ἑλὼν φόρτον μέγαν ἀντιάσειεν, ὦκα φέροι μογέων τε, βαρυνόμενος τε πελάζοι.

Seeing that this derivation could not be upheld, young Gerard Vossius endeavours to adapt his etymology to the little light which Arrian himself throws upon the name, deriving it from veertigh or veerdigh, nimble. But we shall approach nearer to the true root by referring to the passage of Gratius, in which the same dog is mentioned under the title of Vertraha;

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 199.]

At te leve si quà Tangit opus, pavidosque juvat compellere dorcas, Aut versuta sequi leporis vestigia parvi: Petronios, scit fama, canes, volucresque Sicambros, Et pictam maculâ Vertraham delige falsâ. Ocyor affectu mentis pinnâque cucurrit, Sed premit inventas, non inventura latentes Illa feras.

Spelman, citing this passage, reads Veltrahum, and gives many synonyms of the same in the column of his Gloss. Arch. ‘de Canibus Veterum’—but all more or less corrupt. The correct term would be Veltracha, which has been changed to Veltrachus, Vertrachus, Vertragus, in which last form it is found in our readings of Arrian—Οὐέρτραγος. Du Cange suggests Velt-jaghere, campestris Venator, ex velt campus, and jaghere venator, as another probable source of Veltragus or Vertragus. See his Glossary, in voce.

The reader need not be informed, that in the term Οὐέρτραγος Arrian employs the Greek οὐ, as the nearest approach to the initial V—whether using the digamma (the V of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the F of Dr. Marsh) as his prefixture, I leave to others to determine.