Part 23

Quid freta si Morinûm, dubio refluentia ponto, Veneris, atque ipsos libeat penetrare Britannos? O quanta est merces, et quantum impendia supra! Si non ad speciem, mentiturosque decores Protinùs; (hæc una est catulis jactura Britannis.) At magnum cum venit opus, promendaque virtus, Et vocat extremo præceps certamine Mavors, Non tunc egregios tantùm admirere Molossos!

Their hardihood in seizing the bull is celebrated by Claudian in the well-known verse,

Magnaque taurorum fracturæ colla Britannæ.

In the early authentic record of the Canes Venatici of Britain by the royal sportsman, Edmund de Langley, three sub-varieties of our Canis bellicosus are enrolled, in addition to the mastiff:

“Alaunt is a maner and natre of houndes and the good Alauntz ben the which men clepyn Alauntz gentil. Other there byn that men clepyn Alauntz ventreres. Other byn Alauntz of the bocherie.

“Thei that ben gentile shuld be made and shape as a greyhounde evyñ of alle thinges sauf of the heved, the whiche shuld be greet and short,” &c. “Commonly Alauntz byn stordy of here owyn nature and have not so good witte as many other houndes have. For if a man prik an hors the Alaunt wil gladly renne and bite the hors. Also thei renne at oxen and at sheep at swyne and to alle othere beestis or to men or to othere houndes for men hav seyn Alauntz sle her maystir, and in alle maner wise Alauntz byn inly fell and evel undirstondyng and more foolish and more sturdy than eny other maner of houndes,” &c.

“That other nature of Alauntz is clepid ventreres, almost thei bene shapon as a greyhounde of ful shap, thei hav grete hedes and greet lippes and greet eeris. And with such men helpeth hem at the baityng of a boole and atte huntynge of a wilde boor. Thei holde fast of here nature but thei byn hevy and foule and ben slayn with wilde boor or with the bulle and it is nat ful grete losse,” &c.

“The Alauntz of the bocherie is soch as ye may alle day see in good tounes that byn called greet bochers houndis,” &c.—“Thei byn good for the baytyng of the bulle and huntyng of the wilde boore whedir it be w^t. greihoundis at the tryste or w^t. rennyng houndis at abbay with inne the coverte,” &c.

The first and second of the above sub-varieties appear to have had some commixture of Celtic blood in their veins—indeed the name of Ventreres receives a ready solution in the Latin term Ventraha, by which the greyhound is designated, according to Barthius, in an ancient MS. of Gratius, where the more usual reading is Vertraha—(Veltracha.)

Viewing the “canes gravioribus aptæ morsibus” of Britain to contain only two principal indigenous sub-varieties, the bull-dog may be adduced as an animal of the most ferociously brutal aspect, and most invincible courage in the creation. The mastiff surpasses his congener as much in size, as he is inferior to him in ferocity. See Caius de Canibus Britannicis.

To these truculent dogs, εὐφυεῖς πρὸς κυνηγεσίας, according to Strabo (L. +iv.+), as well as resolute in war, our rude ancestors were beholden for the destruction or expulsion of beasts of prey from these islands. The wolf and the wild boar yielded to their prowess; and they are thence sometimes called Canes luporarii in ancient tenures.

Having mentioned the bellicosi of Molossia and Britain in verses already cited, Gratius compares others to them in the sequel;

Comparat his versuta suas Athamania fraudes, Acyrusque, Pheræque, et clandestinus Acarnan. Sicut Acarnanes subierunt prælia furto, Sic canis illa suos taciturna supervenit hostes.

These were perhaps very cunning and savage varieties of the dog of Laconia, and classed in consequence by the poet with the family of pugnaces; though more properly belonging to that of nare sagaces. The words of Gratius are of doubtful signification, and the passage may be corrupt. He either means, as the British dogs excel in courage, so do the Athamanian in cunning—which is his usual antithetical mode of stating opposite qualities—or else, as the British dogs surpass the Molossian in stoutness, so they equal the Athamanian, Thessalian, and Epirote in subtlety. This interpretation accords with the known properties of the British bull-dog. It is singular that dogs of two districts, Acarnania and Etolia, adjoining each other, and only separated by the river Achelous, should have been of such opposite qualities—the former so mute, the latter, in the sportsman’s phrase, so open.

CANES VENATICI. +Class II.+

CANES SAGACES.

Hæ nare sagaces.

The multitudinous varieties of this class have one common quality, by which they are united in the same family, and which Gratius terms “venandi sagax virtus,” diversified in its phenomena, and operative under great dissimilarity of external shape.

Of the larger and more powerful varieties the type is given by Xenophon in the third and fourth chapters of his Cynegeticus, and by Julius Pollux in the fifth book of his Onomasticon:—that of the smaller and more nimble sorts will be found hereafter in the examples of the Canis Petronius of Gratius, and the Canis Agassæus of Oppian. The names of the hounds, principally derived from the countries of which they were supposed to be indigenous, have been already enumerated. Their mode of hunting is faithfully struck off by the Latin poet of the Halieutica, a fragment of disputed authorship, heretofore attributed to Ovid, but latterly to Gratius:

Quæ nunc elatis rimantur naribus auras, Et nunc demisso quærunt vestigia rostro, Et produnt clamore feram, dominumque vocando Increpitant. Quem si collatis effugit armis, Insequitur tumulosque canis camposque per omnes.

In our descriptions of the pugnacious class, we followed, where able, the order of the Faliscian’s Cynegeticon,—filling up lacunæ, when apparent, from extraneous sources; but, in the present class, we have no such text-book by which to regulate our progress, and must be beholden to the Greek and Latin Cynegetica, collectively, for an arrangement of the individuals of this class in such sequence, as the scale of their importance in the kennels of antiquity may seem to justify. And first, and foremost, we place the well-known hound of Lacedæmon.

The Spartan dog, in its two varieties of Castorian and Foxite, was employed by Xenophon for the common purposes of hunting. The Καστόριαι were so called ὅτι Κάστωρ ἡσθεὶς τῷ ἔργῳ μάλιστα αὐτὰς διεφύλαξεν; or, in the words of the Onomasticon, because they were Κάστορος θρέμματα, Ἀπόλλωνος τὸ δῶρον.

ἄξομαι ἐκ Σπάρτης ἑτέρους κύνας, οὓς ἀτιτάλλει ἠϊθέων ἐς ἔρωτα ἐμὸς κάρνειος Ἀπόλλων.

The ἀλωπεκίδες had their name διότι ἐκ κυνῶν καὶ ἀλωπέκων ἐγένοντο; Castor, according to Nicander, having united the dog to the fox, and produced a hybrid sort of sporting hound of great repute.

Castorides venatori gratissima turba.

But as if Castor and Pollux, being twin brothers, born ὠδῖνι μιῇ, (Apollon. L. +i.+) possessed a common identity, the honour of having first initiated the canine race in the pursuit of game, is indifferently awarded to both. Oppian, we have already seen, bestows it on Pollux, and Xenophon on Castor—“ovo prognatus eodem.” Aristotle considers all the Canes Laconici to be of the sort called ἀλωπεκίδες—not that they were all sprung from the fox and dog, but were fox-like in appearance:—and on the same authority, we hold that the bitches of a Spartan kennel were superior to the dogs—Λάκαιναι κύνες αἱ θήλειαι εὐφυέστεραι τῶν ἀῤῥένων εἰσί.

Although the eloquent compiler of the Cynegeticus distinguishes his harriers, as above stated, into Castorian and Foxite hounds, he notes no characteristic peculiarities in either: but Themistius, the Paphlagonian philosopher, induces us to believe that each possessed the distinctive features of a particular family—ἕτερον μὲν κάλλος καστορίδων κύνων, ἕτερον δὲ ἀλωπεκίδων. Vlitius’s fanciful emendation of the text of the Onomasticon has led him into an error, and produced the monstrous birth of a third variety, which he ascribes to Julius Pollux, called ἀλωπεκικαστόρες; but which that learned man’s work will not admit.

Of the whole Spartan tribe the swiftest, perhaps, were the κυνοσουρίδες of Callimachus—deriving their name from Cynosura of Laconia—