184 ORIENTAL HOUND. 



cated tail, and often a spurious toe on the hind 

 feet ; in general, a structure combining considerable 

 elegance with strength and speed. In this tribe 

 there are, as in the former, likewise two races dis- 

 tinguished by a long and by a short fur ; the former, 

 in general, being used as gun and water-dogs ; the 

 latter, less domesticated, as hunting dogs. 



The Greeks may be considered as the first insti- 

 tutors of artificial breeds, and the contrivers of most 

 of the ancient subordinate combinations which have 

 since so greatly influenced the high bred races of 

 the West. Twenty-four centuries of efforts have 

 not, however, effected more than evolving from 

 races most nearly allied, generations more specifi- 

 cally adapted to given intentions. All the funda- 

 mental qualities of dogs resided, ab origme^ in the 

 species, and by far the greater part of educational 

 susceptibilities were then already fully established. 

 Although hounds were known in the East, and' in 

 Egypt, we have no proof that they (the Greeks) 

 were acquainted with dogs of the present group an- 

 terior to the conquests of Alexander, nor that they 

 became common before Greece was under the domi- 

 v>n of the Romans. The Hellenic sportsmen, and 

 naturalists of this late period, are the writers who 

 then first began to give an intelligible account of 

 them. Demetrius Constantinopolitanus, in his book 

 on the care of dogs, writing after Oppian, shows, 

 that the hounds in his time " were not yet entirely 

 with drooping ears, but, as before observed, they 

 were of a brindled and spotted origin, for he calls 



