Part 45

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!

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:

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.

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:

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.

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:

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:

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:

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.

“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:

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

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.