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.”