O N C O U R S I N (; . 151 



ceased to oivc suck, tlioir teats become turgid and full of Chap. XXXI. 



milk, and the parts beneath tiic belly distended. At which 



time, it is not safe to loose them after a hare, — for their flanks 



may be burst asunder : nor should you let them play with 



another dog, as, by contending and striving with him beyond 



their strength, they may be placed in equal danger. 



It is best to wait till their teats are become flaccid. And 

 you will have a proof that it is safe to take them out, when the 

 hair falls off" abundantly, as you stroke it with your hand. 

 They are then, I think, free from the distress they laboured 

 under on account of their milk, and are ready for coursing. * 



The greyhound bitch is fleeter than the dog,^ but the dog Chap, xxxil. 



Estimate of 



Sexes. 



put aside from taking the dog, and whose milk-vessels are distended towards the 

 close of the period of gestation, as if she were actually pregnant. This interpretation 

 is ingenious, and may be tenable ; but as I find no such caution in any ancient author, 

 and have never seen any mischief accrue from running a bitch at the time alluded to, 

 (though her speed is certainly impaired by the constitutional plethora of the period ;) 

 and, moreover, as it magnifies a very unimportant circumstance in the physical 

 condition of the bitch, and is, on the whole, rather a far-fetched interpretation, I 

 have followed Blancard and Zeune in the more usual acceptation of the verb ffKvXa- 

 Kfvfiu, i. e. catulos nutrire. No man in his senses would think of coursing a brood 

 bitch while in the state described in the text. 



4. Kal iraplaram-ai ijSri is SpSfiov. These words commence the 32nd Chapter in 

 all the editions which I have examined ; and though Schneider suggests their 

 adaptation to the close of the present Chapter, he does not venture to change their 

 position. Inasmuch, however, as the division into chapters is probably arbitrary, and 

 the words in question are more appropriate here than at the commencement of the 

 ensuing Chapter, they are here introduced. 



1. Kvwv driXeia ixev wKurepa &pp(vos. I have already remarked that Arrian and 

 Xenophon invariably use the feminine gender when speaking of the dogs of the 

 chase : and so also the Grecian poets, (as the Kva\v raxeiais of Euripides, and ckv- 

 XaKicrai 0oa7sof Oppian,) and in some cases the Latin, (as the " canes montivag«" 

 of Lucretius, " venatica canis" of Ennius, and " multd cane" of Horace); as if 

 bitches were more quick-scented, " more fleet of foot, or sure of fang." Minerva, - 

 in the Ajax Flagellifer, compares Ulysses searching for the mad Ajax, to a Spartan 

 bilch ; though the verse would have admitted the masculine instead of the feminine 



