Part 70

The mastiff is at present principally used in this country as a watch-dog; and such appears to have been his vocation of old. “His office is for to kepe his maistre’s beestis,” says Duke Edmund, “and his maistre’s hous. and it is a good nature of houndis for thei kepen and defenden at her power al her maister goodes. thei byn of cherlich nater and of foule shap &c.”—“ther byn many good for men that hunten for profit of housold as for to gete fflesh. Also of maystifs and of alauntis ther byn many good for the wilde boor;”—but “it is of no greet maistrie ne of grete redynes the huntyng that thei do for here nature ys not tendre nosed in harde nor in sandy nor in dusty grounde.” For the etymology of the term mastiff, the reader is referred to Dr. Caius, Minsheu, Skinner, and Holinshed—and for that of ban-dog, a variety of the same, to Skinner in voce. The Mandatarius, Sarcinarius, Defensor, &c. of Caius, the custos curtis, pastoralis, porcaritius, ursaritius, catenatus, &c. of Spelman and others, are all probably Canes Mastivi.

The existence of these noxious beasts of prey, in the sylvan fastnesses of our islands, is too well authenticated by ancient records to be doubted.

Foure manere bestis of Venere there are: The fyrste of theym is the harte: the seconde is the hare. The boore is one of tho: the wulfe and not one mo.

On referring to Blount’s ancient tenures, we find many estates held per serjantiam, whereby the possessor was compelled to furnish these dogs for the destruction of wolves. See A. T. p. 15. p. 52. p. 60. p. 94. “But Almighty God be thanked,” in the ejaculatory language of Sir Thomas Elyot, “in this realme be no such cruel beastes at present to be pursued!”

See Wase’s Illustrations, c. +vi.+ “of the Styles of Hunting different from the English, both Antique and Forreigne.”

Mr. Ritson, in a posthumous work on the Celts, has left it on record that “the Britons, in the last decade of the eighteenth century, made use of Spanish dogs in a war with the Maroon negroes; having no longer any of their own fit for the purpose.”

In Pliny’s animated description of the Indian or Albanian dog’s assault, we observe the crafty wiles or fraudes of the Illyrian and Acarnanian breeds. “Horrentibus quippe per totum corpus villis, ingenti primùm latratu intonuit: mox inruit assultans, contraque belluam exurgens hinc et illinc artifici dimicatione quà maximè opus esset, infestans atque evitans, donec assiduâ rotatum vertigine afflixit.” Indeed all the bellicosi thus attack their prey—but generally in silence. The Indian was latrant, it seems, the Acarnanian mute.

Athamania, called also Illyricum, bordered on Thessaly and Acarnania.

Acyrus, says Wase, is “suspicious of corruption;” which Gronovius proposes to amend by reading Epirus, Vlitius substitutes Taygetus, and Heinsius Argivus.

Pheræ was situate between Demetrias and Pharsalus in Thessaly, near the lake Bœbe—ὑπὸ σκοπιὴν ὄρεος Χαλκωδονίοιο. I am not aware of the dogs of these several places being mentioned by any other author. Pheræ was probably celebrated for its breed of game; for, being one of the many haunts of Dian, it bestowed on the Goddess the local name of Pheræa:

Πότνια, μουνυχίη, λιμενοσκόπε, χαίρε, Φεραίη.

This class appears to answer to the second of M. F. Cuvier, having the head and jaws shorter than those proper to our third class of pedibus celeres, but not so much truncated as in the canes bellicosi. The parietal bones, in such types as are supposed to resemble those of antiquity, do not approach each other above the temporal fossæ, but widen so as to enlarge the cerebral cavity of the forehead.

Perhaps Xenophon’s τὰ δὲ γένη τῶν κυνῶν ἐστὶ δισσὰ may not have so confined an application as here stated. The Καστόριαι and ἀλωπεκίδες may comprehend all the Canes Venatici of the Athenian’s day collectively—at least all such as were used by him in hare-hunting at Scillus.

With some of the descendants of the κυνοσουρίδες, the latrant sagacious Lacouni of the modern Votizza, Mr. Hobhouse reports that he enjoyed the sport of coursing with his Grecian host in the Morea. See Journey through Albania, Letter +xvii.+

A limehound—ἡ δὲ κύων ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ ἀφίξεται τόπον ὑλώδη ἰχνεύουσα——...—ἐπειδὰν δ’ ἀφίκηται ἐπὶ τὴν εὐνὴν, ὑλακτεῖ, κ. τ. λ.

A term borrowed, according to Mr. Douce, from the Spaniards, who call the wild cat gato-montes.

Hagnon Astylides—as the Cretans used ἀγνεῖν, according to Hesychius, for ἄγειν, ὁ ἀγνῶν may stand for ὁ κυνηγός. See Wernsdorf, Excursus +iii.+ ad Gratii v. 215. Poetæ Latini Minores, Tom. +i.+ p. 242.

Caius’s love of the marvellous in natural history surpasses (considering the age in which he lived) that of Ælian and Albertus Magnus. Under the heads of Urcanus and Lacæna, this credulous correspondent of the acute Conrad Gesner notes, seemingly in good earnest, that the former is the offspring of the Canis Catenarius and bear, the latter of the dog and fox, “quos, licèt inimicos, pruriens tamen libido sæpè ita hic conjungit, ut alibi solet.” The truth, however, of the latter maybe doubted, after the impossibility of the former.

We may suppose the far-famed hound of Sparta, the foxite harrier, “vulpinâ specie,” not very unlike the prick-eared, or at least semi-pendulous-eared lurcher of modern days, employed by a poaching shepherd to guard his flock, and too often to catch at force, κατὰ πόδας, his master’s hares, or drive them into the wily laqueus or snare:

ἐπεὶ καὶ μᾶλα νομεύει, καὶ πτῶκας βάλλει, καὶ θηρία τ’ ἄλλα διώκει.

Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears, And tail cropp’d short, half lurcher and half cur;

he is too well known by his depredations in the hare-warren to need a fuller delineation.

Janus Vlitius considers the Spartan a long-eared hound, and proposes to read ὦτα μακρὰ instead of μικρὰ in Xenophon’s minute description of the type of excellence in this breed: but Horace’s “aure sublatâ” would rather favour the notion that the ear was small and pricked up in pursuit of game, as we see in lurchers, and such-like poaching tikes:

Nam qualis aut Molossus, aut fulvus Lacon, Amica vis pastoribus, Agam per altas aure sublatâ nives Quæcunque præcedet fera.

on which Dacier observes, “plus les chiens sont courageux, plus ils dressent les oreilles en courant;” a quality for which a prick-eared sharp-scented lurching cur might be praised—which is characteristic of the Molossus, but odious in the genuine well-bred greyhound, with which the “veloces catuli” and “fulvus Lacon” of the contemporary poets of Rome have been ignorantly identified by monkish annotators.

This quality Aristotle justly attributes to the length of the nostrils of the Spartan hound, affording a more extensive surface for the distribution of the minute branches of the olfactory nerves—ὅσων οἱ μυκτῆρες μακροὶ, οἷον τῶν Λακωνικῶν, ὀσφραντικά.

To Darcius of Venusium we owe the following description of the ardour of the Spartan pack;

Inde suos etenim Lacedæmon Achaica laudat, Assueti quoniam sylvis, cupidique ferarum Præcipiti fervore ruunt, perque invia lustra, Convallesque cavas, et sentibus horrida duris Arva, et vulnificis dumeta rigentia spinis Dente rotant prædas, indefessique sequuntur Quod semel emissum est. Illos non obvius amnis Vicinos dirimens sinuoso gurgite colles, Sistit, nec rapidos lato tenet obice cursus. Et licet assiduo frangantur anhela boatu Ora, trahantque ægros afflictis viribus artus, Assequier tamen est animus, &c.