10 PREFACE. 



have in vain endeavoured to procure a copy. It is a prosaic 

 work, treating more of animal history, as I am informed, than of 

 venation : still as this abbreviator of the labours of his prede- 

 cessors was a man of various acquirements, and extensive erudi- 

 tion, it would have been satisfactory to me to have examined 

 his " Compendium Thereuticaj Universse ; " or at least the first 

 part of it, devoted to the hunting of terrestrial animals. 

 H. Fracastorii Xhe Alcou of Fracastor is in every one's hands ; being 



Alcon, seu de ^ / o 



Cura Caiium. annexed to the editions of the Poeta Venatici by Johnson and 



Kempher, It contains nothing on the subject of coursing. 

 M. A. BlonHi To Michael Angelo Blondus or Biondi, we are indebted for 



de Canibus et 



Venat. libellus, the first hint on clothino; o-i'eyhounds in the field, and for other 



matters connected with the discipline of the kennel and its 



Joan. Darcii inmates ; and to Joannes Darcius, a truly classic poet of 



Venusini Canes 



Francof. 1582. Venusium, not unworthy the natal town of Horace, for an 

 elegant sketch of a hare-course, cited in the subsequent 

 annotations. 



It is singular that the greyhound, indigenous as we suppose 

 him of Gallia Celtica, should have been so little noticed by his 

 countrymen — that a variety of chase heretofore peculiar to Gaul 

 should have been omitted in almost all the cynegetical works 

 of Frenchmen of the olden time ; and that the same omission 

 should be chargeable on the moderns, — on the " Venerie 

 Normande" of M. Le Verrier de la Conterie, the " Traite de 

 Venerie" of M. D'Yauville, and even, to a great extent, on the 

 volume of the Encyclopedic Methodique, which professes to be 

 a "■ Dictionnaire de toutes les especes de Chasses." 



afforded the few parallel passages adduced from Albertus Magnus, Belisarius, and 

 Tardif. For all others tlie translator is himself answerable, having culled them from 

 the original sources, and generally from the most approved editions. 



