Part 11

It is best to wait till their teats are become flaccid. And you will have a proof that it is safe to take them out, when the hair falls off abundantly, as you stroke it with your hand. They are then, I think, free from the distress they laboured under on account of their milk, and are ready for coursing.

The greyhound bitch is fleeter than the dog, but the dog has more bottom than the bitch; and, because he can run through the whole year, is a much more valuable acquisition: and as good bitches abound, but it is no easy thing to meet with a thorough-good dog, the latter is on this account more precious: and again, it is fortunate if bitches preserve their speed to the fifth year, whereas dogs retain theirs even to the tenth. For all which reasons, in my opinion, a really good, high-bred dog is a great treasure—one that falls not to the lot of a courser without the favour of some god. For such a blessing, then, he should sacrifice to Diana Venatrix. He should sacrifice, too, whenever successful in his sport, dedicate the first-fruits of his spoils to the goddess, and purify his dogs and sportsmen, as regulated by the established rites of the country.

Some of the Celts have a custom of annually sacrificing to Diana; while others institute a treasury for the goddess,—into which they pay two oboli for every hare that is caught,—a drachma for a fox, (because he is a crafty animal, and destroys hares,)—and four drachmæ for a roe-deer, in consideration of his size, and greater value as game.

When the year comes round, on the return of the nativity of Diana, the treasury is opened, and a victim purchased out of the money collected; either a sheep, or kid, or heifer, according to the amount of the sum: and then, after having sacrificed, and presented the first-offerings of their victims to the Goddess of the chase, according to their respective rites, they give themselves up, with their hounds, to indulgence and recreation,—crowning the latter on this day with garlands, as an indication of the festival being celebrated on their account.

This Celtic custom I follow with my fellow-sportsmen, and declare no human undertaking to have a prosperous issue without the interposition of the Gods. For that Mariners, who regard their safety, supplicate the Gods at embarkation; and, after dangers escaped, offer up sacrifices of gratitude to the sea-deities, Neptune, Amphitrite, and the Nereids. Cultivators of the soil do the same to Ceres, her daughter, and Bacchus; Artificers, to Minerva and Vulcan; Professors of instruction, to the Muses, Apollo Musagetes, Mnemosyne, and Mercury; Lovers, to Venus, Cupid, Suada, and the Graces. And, upon the same principle, Sportsmen should not be neglectful of Diana Venatrix, nor Apollo, nor Pan, nor the Nymphs, nor Mercury, the conductor and president of the highways, nor any other mountain gods that there may be: otherwise their pursuits must turn out abortive, their dogs injured, their horses lamed, and themselves disappointed.

And of this, Homer gives evidence in his poem. Teucer, he says, the best bowman of the Greeks, in the archery-contest hit the cord only, and cut it asunder, because he had offered no vow to Apollo; but that Merion, who was no archer at all, by having invoked Apollo, struck the bird when on the wing.

Again, the posterity of those, who fought against Thebes with Polynices, captured the city,

To omens trusting, and the aid of Jove;

whereas their fathers, not at all inferior to them in valour, had perished before it, because they were disobedient to the signs vouchsafed to them by the Gods.

And lastly, Hector, inattentive to Polydamas when he objected to an attack on the Grecian fleet, (because the Trojans would not return from it with honour to themselves, as he inferred from a serpent dropped by an eagle,) was soon afterwards taught otherwise by experience, that no good comes of being refractory towards the Deity.

Following these examples, it is right in field-sports, as in every thing else, to begin with adoration of the Gods; and, after having obtained success, to offer thanksgiving-sacrifices and libations, with auspicious words, and crowns, and hymns, and to dedicate the first-fruits of the captured game, as the conqueror does of the spoils of war.

APPENDIX.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE CANES VENATICI OF CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY.

——prima illa canum, non ulla per artes Cura prior, sive indomitos vehementior hostes Nudo marte premas, seu bellum ex arte ministres. Mille canum patriæ, ductique ab origine mores Cuique suâ.

+Gratii Falisci Cyneget.+ vs. 151.

APPENDIX.

In introducing to the reader’s notice the Canes Venatici of the following monograph—wherein the embellishment of fable is often admitted as the language of truth, and amusement is paramount to instruction—it must not be expected that I should carry back the history of the chase to the early period of the world’s annals, when

harmony, and family accord, Were driven from Paradise;

and man’s subject creatures revolted from their revolted lord—

καὶ θῆρες αἰδοῦς ἀγνοήσαντες νόμους, ὡς δυσμενῆ φεύγουσι τὸν πρὶν δεσπότην—

the probable date of its institution—(“cum peccato enim animalium noxa simul et persecutio et fuga subintravit, et artes venationum excogitatæ sunt,”)—nor to the later epoch of its Phenician origin, maintained by Polydore Vergil on the authority of Eusebius; nor its more fabulous Theban birth and distribution, the thrice-told tale of John of Salisbury: but rather consider hunting as an art of acquisition and self-defence of remote and undefined antiquity.

On Venation, as a pastime, too much has already been said in the preface to Arrian: and I will at present confine my remarks to a few classical anecdotes of its primitive furniture, its founders, and progressional improvement; premising, by the way, that when men were unacquainted with the blessings of civilization, and had no idea of pleasure beyond the gratification of their appetites—when, in short, they were in a state of nature—hunting was not the by-work of leisure hours, but the call of continual urgency—not the jocund diversion of a day, but the toilsome and perilous occupation of a life. In such early times, the nonage of a fallen world, commenced the war of men with beasts:

Cœpêre in pecudes avidi sævire ferasque, Et nil tale priùs meritas captare volantes.

The personal safety of himself and those dependent on his protection, and the daily cravings of hunger, dictated to man the necessity of animal slaughter; so that, in seeking his quotidian meal, he originated the art of hunting:

ἐπιδόρπιον εὕρατο θήρην.

Rude arts at first, but witty want refined The huntsman’s wiles, and famine form’d the mind.

The first hostile efforts of the barbarian lords of creation against their biped and quadruped subjects, “joint-tenants of the shade” with themselves, were confined, we may suppose, to manifestations of physical strength and brute courage; by which, under the powerful incentives of self-interest, they procured the vital necessaries of food and clothing:

priùs omnis in armis Spes fuit, et nudâ silvas virtute movebant Inconsulti homines.