or Zoological Recollections, 323 



in many country places he is taught to turn the spit and roast 

 the meat, by continued exercise in a kind of tread wheel. 



" But as a dog that turns the spit 

 Bestirs himself, and plies his feet 

 To climb the wheel ; but all in vain. 

 His own weight brings him back again, 

 And still he 's in the self-same place 

 Where, at his setting out, he was." Hudihras, 



According to Horace, the sight of a bitch with young was 

 considered as an unlucky omen ; and of a sullen discontented 

 person we say, that the black dog has walked over him. A 

 certain German empiric, when his patient was surfeited by 

 eating too much hare, directed him, upon the principles of 

 antipathy and contrast, to take greyhound broth. And at 

 the time when the place of resort for recreation to the citizens 

 of London was at the sign of the Dog and Duck, a learned 

 traveller, in portraying the manners of the British capital, 

 relates that the inhabitants flocked to a certain place of en- 

 tertainment to feed on dog and duck. 



Although in China and Tartary his flesh is used for food, 

 and a living dog is said to be better than a dead lion, in 

 Europe, his carcass is considered so utterly worthless, that 

 even his skin is now of little value. The skins, however, of 

 young puppies were formerly tanned, and formed a soft kind 

 of leather which was manufactured into gloves. The hair of 

 a dog, when burnt, was formerly prescribed as an antidote 

 against the effects of intoxication: hence a man too much 

 excited by drink at night, is recommended to take a hair of 

 the same dog the next morning, as a means of gradually coun- 

 teracting his state of debility. 



The greyhound is so called, not from any allusion to colour, 

 but because he came originally from Greece, Canis Grains^ 

 and therefore should be written graihound. 



[For anecdotes on the sagacity of dogs, see the second 

 series of Jesse's Gleanings in Natural History ; and in the 

 Field Naturalisfs Magazine, I. 485., there is an interesting 

 communication " on the Fidelity and Attachment of Dogs to 

 their Masters," by Miss Hunter.*] 



* [" My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind. 

 So flew'd, so sanded ; and their heads are hung 

 With ears that sweep away the morning dew ; 

 Crook-knee'd and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls ; 

 Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells. 

 Each under each." Midsummer Nighfs Dreamy act 4. sc. 1. 



" »S/)aw?V/-like, the more she spurns my love, 

 The more it grows and fawneth on her still." 



Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 4. sc. 2. 

 Y 2 " That 



