486 THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 



The accompanying will illustrate the fidelity of these 

 animals : — 



" Lennard SolikofFer, a Swiss nobleman, who, on the 

 conclusion of the Swiss union, went to Paris as am- 

 bassador, had a large dog, which, on his departure, he 

 ordered to be shut up for eight days. This was done, 

 yet at the end of that period, the dog traced his way 

 to the French capital, four hundred miles, and on the 

 day of audience, rushed in all covered with mud, and 

 leaped up mad for joy upon his master. In the family 

 castle of Thuringia there is a painting of the story." 



SPORTING IN FORMER DAYS. 



Those fierce sportsmen, the Normans, were almost 

 madly attached to the pursuit of the stag, as clearly 

 appears by the fiendish cruelty of the statutor}^ enact- 

 ments of William the First, for the protection of these 

 animals. But in bunting the stag they made use of 

 the spear and the bow, as well as the dog : it is evi- 

 dent that much of the Norman mode of pursuit was 

 retained in the days of Elizabeth. The Normans 

 brought into the country the noble talbot, from which 

 our varieties of the hound have been derived ; and 

 this dog was used for the purpose of rousing game, 

 while the ambushed sportsmen discharged their arrows 

 as it passed ; if it were wounded, the dog pursued it ; 

 and such was the acuteness of its smell, that he was 

 able to follow his game through every soil, every laby- 

 rinth, and all its intricacies. If, however, the deer 

 was only slightly hurt, the chase was long ; it ended, 

 in fact, with the close of the day ; for as the talbot 



