DOGS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 



Laufer states further : " The oldest representation of 

 falconry in China is found on one of the Han bas-reliefs 

 of the Hsiao t'ang shan.* A man on foot holds a falcon on 

 his right fist ; and a greyhound is hunting a stag in front of 

 him. The next in point of time are two wood engravings in 

 the dictionary ' Erh-ya,' f which may be stated to present a 

 rather faithful copy of the illustrations to this work extant in 

 the fourth or sixth centuries. At all events, it may lay just 

 claim to the honour of being the oldest graphic book-illustra- 

 tion of falconry in the world ; the oldest English (and alto- 

 gether European) representation J being from an Anglo- 

 Saxon manuscript of the end of the ninth century or beginning 

 of the tenth, preserved in the British Museum. While the 

 oldest Chinese book on falconry seems to come down from 

 the Sui dynasty (A.D. 518-617), the first European print on 

 the subject is the German book of Anon, printed in Augsburg 

 in 1472." 



Though Kaempfer remarks of the Japanese : " They hunt 

 but little and only with common dogs, this kind of diversion 

 being not very proper for so populous a Country, and where 

 there is so little game," Capt. John Saris wrote about eighty 

 years earlier of the " Captain Generall " of the garrison of 

 Fushimi : " Hee marched in very great state, beyond that the 

 others did. He hunted and hawked all the way, having his 

 owne Hounds and Hawkes along with him, the Hawkes being 

 hooded and lured as ours are. Their horses are not tall but 

 of the size of our midling nags, short and well trust (trussed), 

 small headed and very full of mettle, in my opinion far ex- 

 celling the Spanish lennet in pride and stomacke." 



* Chavannes, " La sculpture sur pierre en Chine," p. 77, and plate xxxviii. 

 f Book II, p. 236. 



j Joseph Strutt, " The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England," new 

 edition, London, 1898, p. 88, Fig. 3. 

 " Voyage of John Saris," Hakluyt Society, 1612-1613. 



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