244 LEPORID.E— LEPUS 



Hare-hunting was mentioned by Homer (? 850 B.C.), both in 

 the Iliad and the Odyssey ; and it is also referred to in "The 

 Shield of Hercules " (line 302), a poem ascribed, but with 

 doubtful propriety, to Hesiod (? 700 b.c. ; see ed. Paley, 1883). 

 It was a favourite amusement of Xenophon, who (in a treatise 

 mentioned on p. 235) described it as already a well-organised 

 sport of long standing, although, as might have been expected, 

 not so advanced as under modern methods, since Xenophon 

 seems to have had very little idea of giving the quarry " fair play." 



Another Greek writer of repute, Arrian, who was born 

 about the close of the first century of the Christian era, was 

 probably the first to describe true coursing in a work also 

 named Cynegeticus. Of this a most valuable critique and 

 translation into English, entitled Arrian on Coursing, was 

 published anonymously in 1831 for Bohn's library ; but in the 

 unsigned article on "Coursing" in the 11th ed. Encyc. Brit., 

 1910, vii., 321, its author is stated to have been the Rev. W. 

 Dansey. 



Amongst the most interesting parts of Arrian's work is his 

 account of his favourite greyhound " Horme," whose manners 

 and habits appear to have differed in no important detail from 

 those of modern dogs. 



According to Arrian the Gauls of his day were very keen 

 coursers, and their hounds formed a definite breed already well 

 known as the " canis gallicus." 



As a matter of fact, these early greyhounds were not always 

 used according to modern notions of legitimate sport, but were 

 often combined with the slower hounds that hunted by scent, as 

 is well shown in two plates 1 opposite pp. 182 and 196, in 

 Baillie-Grohman's 1909 edition of The Master of Game. It 

 was, therefore, not until our ancestors began to separate the 

 usage of hounds which worked only by sight from those 

 employing scent, and to restrict the former to the pursuit of a 

 definite quarry, that a state of things approaching modern con- 

 ditions came in view. 



In other respects very little real difference is perceptible 



1 These, with others of great interest published in the same work, are reproduced 

 from a French MS. of Gaston de Foix's Livre de Ckasse, no satisfactory English 

 illustrations of the period being available. 



