52 Conrfingy 



merely to fay that they are very ihaggy and 

 ugly, and thofe moil fo that are the beft 

 bred ; therefore, it is a common thing in 

 Galhaj to compare thofe who beg by the 

 highway fide to thefe dogs, for their voice 

 is mournful and plaintive, and they do not 

 open on the fcent as if they were eager and 

 angry with the game, but in a whining and 

 miferable voice, and of thefe nothing has 

 been written worthy of notice. But the 

 fwifter dogs of the Gauls are called, in the 

 Celtic language *, Ver tragi, not from any 

 particular country, as the Cretan, theCarian, 

 or the "f* Laconian, but, as among the 



* by'sT^ayok, Vetragi. I fuppofe the omiffion of the 

 firft § muft be a miftake, as both Blancard and Hen. 

 Stephens write it Vertragi. Martial mentions a fort of dog, 

 called Vertagus, which brought the Harfe' to his mailer 

 without tearing it, which many greyhounds will do. Grotius 

 calls it VertraKus ; Ainfworth renders it a tumbler, (i. e. a 

 fort of "dog fo called,) from the Latin word verto, to turn. 

 But Arrian puts the matter beyond difpute, by faying it is 

 derived from a Celtic word, denoting fwiftnefs ; and he 

 takes particular pains to evplain this by the analogy of 

 Greek derivations. There can be no doubt of its being a 

 greyhound. 



t The Spartan dogs were in particular eileem. ^o 

 Shakefpear : 



" My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind," ^z< '■ 



Cretan 



