Part 52

The coursing of deer was a recreation of high repute, and was divided into two sorts; the paddock, and the forest or purlieu. See Daniel’s Rural Sports. But a better authority, Turberville, in “a short observation set downe by the Translatour, concerning coursing with greyhoundes,” attached to “The Booke of Hunting,” has given us his remarks on coursing deer, and the method of doing it in the olden time with “teasers,” (“to start the deare from the whole heard, or make a low deare strain,”) “side laies,” (“to way-lay him by the midway,”) and “back-sets, or receits,” (to meet him “full in the face—to the end they may the more amase him.”) See Turberville’s Appendix to his translation of Fouilloux, and “The Governour,” B. +i.+ c. 17.

Μέγα τε γὰρ τὸ θηρίον, &c. “He is of all beasts,” says Gervase Markham, “the goodliest, stateliest, and most manly:” and Buffon, after describing the stag with his wonted eloquence, concludes, “sa grandeur, sa légèreté, sa force le distinguent assez des autres habitans des bois: et comme il est le plus noble d’entre eux, il ne sert aussi qu’aux plaisirs des plus nobles des hommes; il a, dans tous les temps, occupé le loisir des héros.”

“A red deare will beare sometimes foure or five brase of greyhounds before they can pull him downe: such wonderfull force he is of, and can so easily shake off a greyhound when he pincheth him.”

Ὁ κίνδυνος οὐ σμικρὸς, &c. “He that hath a good hare greyhound, shal do very evill to course a deare with him, for it wil both bruse him and make him lyther: and the course at the hare is much the nobler pastime.”

Oppian denies that deer butt with their horns, and thereby endanger the dogs:

οὔποτε γὰρ κεφαλῇφιν ἐναντία δηρίσαιντο, οὐ θηρσὶ κρατεροῖς, οὐκ ἀργαλέοισι κύνεσσι:

but Xenophon, a practical authority, affirms it—τοῖς κέρασι παίει καὶ τοῖς ποσίν. The thrust from the tynes, or branches, of the stag’s horns, were accounted far more dangerous to a human being than those of the boar’s tusk:

If thou be hurt with horn of stag, it brings thee to thy bier: But barber’s hand shall boar’s hurt heal; thereof have thou no fear.

Ἔνθα τὰ πεδία εὐήλατα. The Homeric scholar will remember the Nomade tribes of this champaign region, on whom Jupiter cast his eyes in looking from Mount Ida towards Thrace. The Mysians were of the number:

——αὐτὸς δὲ πάλιν τρέπεν ὄσσε φαεινὼ, νόσφιν ἐφ’ ἱπποπόλων Θρῃκῶν καθορώμενος αἶαν, Μυσῶν τ’ ἀγχιμάχων, καὶ ἀγαυῶν Ἱππημολγῶν, &c.

Seneca speaks of the “Vacuisque vagus Sarmata campis,”—Claudian, of the “gens exercita campo,”—and an earlier poet, the exiled Ovid, in one of his mournful elegies, commemorates the Scythian’s skill in horsemanship:

Protinùs æquato siccis aquilonibus Istro, Invehitur celeri barbarus hostis equo: Hostis equo pollens longèque volante sagittâ Vicinam latè depopulatur humum.

Strabo notices the hunting propensities of the inhabitants of the Scythian and Sarmatian plains (L. +xvii.+); and the eloquent historian of the Decline and Fall enlarges on the vigour and patience both of the men and horses in the continual exercise of the chase. From the way in which these pastoral tribes of the Scythian plains are introduced by Arrian in connexion with the Celtic coursing, we may conclude that they were Celto-Scythians.

The highest praise is bestowed by Oppian on Sicilian horses, ὠκύτατοι Σικελοί: but fleeter than these are the Armenians and Parthians; and fleetest of all, the Iberians.

Ὁ δὲ ἐς τοσοῦτον ἄρα ἀντέχει.

——non illum unquam genibusve labantem Videris, aut animam fessum vix ore trahentem. Verùm importuno potuit superesse labori Acrior, atque novas currendo acquirere vires, Velocem quandoque fugâ prævertere cervum, Et premere immanes animis optavimus apros.

Ἔξεστιν ἤδη, εἰ μὲν βούλοιο, ἀκοντίσαι ἐγγύθεν ὡς πεπεδημένην.

Cominùs obtruncant ferro, graviterque rudentes Cædunt, et magno læti clamore reportant.

Xenophon gives a full description of the mode of ensnaring deer in a variety of trap called ποδοστράβη, and adds: ἁλίσκονται δὲ καὶ ἄνευ ποδοστράβης διωκόμεναι, ὅταν ᾖ ἡ ὥρα θερινὴ, ἀπαγορεύουσι γὰρ σφόδρα, ὥστε ἑστῶσαι ἀκοντίζονται.

ξυνὸν ἀκοντίζειν δὲ καὶ ἀντία τοξάζεσθαι θῆρας ἀρειοτέρους.

Βρόχον—a noose-rope. Such ropes were generally used by rude nations in battle as well as the chase. For a clever representation of this mode of catching deer, see the Venationes Ferarum of Stradanus and Galle, and the accompanying quatrain of Kilian Dufflæus.

Ælian mentions these horses in his second book of Animal History: ὤκιστοι μέν εἰσιν ἵππων καμάτου δὲ δή τι αἴσθονται οὐδέν· λεπτοὶ δὲ, καὶ οὐκ εὔσαρκοι, ἐπιτήδειοί γε μὴν καὶ φέρειν ὀλιγωρίαν δεσπότου εἰσίν:—and Oppian in his first Cynegetic:

Μαύρων δ’ αἰόλα φῦλα πολὺ προφέρουσιν ἁπάντων ἀμφὶ δρόμους ταναούς τε, καὶ ἀμφὶ πόνους ἀλεγεινούς· καὶ Λίβυες μετὰ τοὺς δολιχὸν δρόμον ἐκτελέουσιν.

Ἐλάφους ἢ δορκάδας. I take ἐλάφος to be the red deer, the cervus elaphus of naturalists; and δόρκας the roe deer, cervus capreolus, the chevreuil of France. To these the poet of Anazarbus adds the fallow deer, under the name of εὐρυκέρωτες.

From hence it would appear that it was no great exploit to take a red or roe deer, in Arrian’s opinion; but the latter was deemed very fleet by the last-cited poet, ὠκυτάτων δόρκων ἀρίδηλα γένεθλα: and his opinion is supported by the high authority of the Mayster of Game, who affirms that “he rennyth wondir fast, and some tyme, at the partyng from his leyre, he shal out goo a brace of good greye houndes.”

The wild ass, or Koulan, is an animal of the greatest speed and beauty. He is elegantly and correctly described by Oppian:

——εὔσφορον, ἠνεμόεντα, κραιπνὸν, ἀελλοπόδην, κρατερώνυχον, αἰπὺν ὄναγρον, ὅστε πέλει φαιδρὸς, δέμας ἄρκιος, εὐρὺς ἰδέσθαι, ἀργύφεος χροιὴν, δολιχούατος, ὀξύτατος θεῖν.

See also the Book of Job, c. +xxxix.+ vs. 5. et seqq. plin. hist. nat. l. +viii.+ c. 44. Varro de R. R. L. +ii.+ c. 6. and the veterinarian apsyrtus, geopon. l. +xvi.+ c. 21. Martial records his beauty, “Pulcher adest onager.” Spelman is mistaken in identifying the onager and zebra, and referring to the stuffed specimen of our college for his example of the former under the type of the latter.