ON COUKSlNt!. 



lUI) 



and are glad if the hare meet with au escape : if she fly to Chap. XVI 

 any thin brake for conceahnent, though they may see her 

 trembhng and in the utmost distress, they will call off their 

 dogs, ^ and more particularly so, when they have run well.^ 



Often, indeed, when following a course on horseback, have I 

 come up to the hare as soon as caught, and myself saved her 

 alive: and then, having taken away my dog, and- fastened 

 him up, allowed her to escape. "^ And if I have arrived too 

 late to save her, I have struck my head with sorrow, that the 

 dogs had killed so good an antagonist. ^ 



liare and dog ; — a trial of the former's speed, its distinctive excellence, (so elegantly 

 alluded to by Anacreon in his complimentary ode to the ladies. 



^iffis Kepara ravpois, 

 oirKas S' iSdiKev 'Innois, 

 iroSaiKlriv Aayuols) 



Anacreon. Od. 

 II. 1. 



against that of the latter, whose shape marks its natural designation for such a com- 

 petition. Coursing does not seem to have been otherwise practised as an emulative 

 sport in the classic ages ; nor indeed till a very modern period of its annals. 



5. Kal KaracpvySvTa is OLKoivOai ecrriv 8t€ oKiyas o'l5e Kal iBSvres eirrTJX^Ta K. t. A. — 

 A uohie paragraph ! conceived and penned in the true spirit of an enlightened 

 sportsman — Read it all ye who dare calumniate, wilh Savary and Somerville, 



The mean, murderous, coursing crew, intent 

 On blood and spoil ! 



The Chace. 



6. Zfune would read Siaywvhano, as referring to the hare, whose life is spared for 

 having run well. Such a reading, if tenable, (which, I fear, for the reasons given by 

 Sclmeider, it is not,) would add much to the beauty of the passage. 



7. How different the sentiments of the Bithynian courser from those of the Sci- 

 luntian huntsman : like a modern thistle-whipper or pot-hunter, Xenophon bids us 

 search every hiding-place for the worn-out hare, that we may catch her at force, kutci, 

 irJSos, or drive her into the snares ! while Arrian rejoices in her safety and grieves 

 over her accidental capture and destruction. 



8. "Enaiffa rijv Ke<pa\-fiv. Blane supposes Arrian to strike the greyhound's head as 

 a chastisement for having killed the hare : but this interpretation is too absurd to be 

 admitted. Many arc the exan)ples of the custom of striking the head with the hand. 



De Venat. 



C. VI, 



