AIM'F. NDIX. 281 



puzzled Brodajus and ofhor classic commentators not a little.' With Hmdit^ns in 



the hint that 'Aya(T(Tfi)s may ho connected with As;assa of Macodo- p. 4o. 



nia, Agasus a port of Apulia, the Tliraciau /Igessus, and Agalhia a 



city of Phocis, no reason is alleged why a British doj^ should deduce 



his name from countries and places so remote. Of the existence of 



such a tiny hound of chase in this country, Rittershusius seems not Ritteralmsius 



to have been aware. British dogs, he remarks, are exceedingly ii. 4-*.' ' "' 



keen-scented, but he cannot divine why called small, fiawv yeros, 



being, in his days at least, of great size. Brodasus, too, ignorant of 



any other than the Britannus of Claudian, cannot reconcile the 



** Anglici canes prodigiosee statura; " of this poet, and his own 



experience, with the portrait of the Oppianic 'Ayaaffevs." 



It is scarce necessary to observe that the dog in question has no 

 affinity with the Agasajus of Dr. Caius, who very absurdly borrows, 

 for his gazehound, a name previously engaged by a totally different 

 dog ; as if to gratify his etymological mania by connecting the terms 

 Agaszeus, a gaze, a gazehound — " neque enim odoratu, sed pro- 

 spectu attento et diligenti feram persequitur iste canis — (Agasaius, a 

 gazehound) — etsi non sum nescius etiam apud Latinos Agasa^i voca- 

 bulum inter canum nomina reperiri" — " Agasa^um nostri abs re qudd J. Caii de Can, 

 hitento sit in feram oculo vocant." 



Camden has fallen into the same error with Caius, and confounded 



1. Nor is the etymology of the English terra Beagle of more easy solution. Skin- 

 ner derives it from the French bugler, mugire ; and Menage thinks, as the hounds 



were sent from Britain into Gaul, the name may be of British origin. A second Skinner Ftv- 

 derivation is proposed by the former philologist, founded on the diminutive molog. Angli- 

 stHture of the dogs — cani piccoU — Ital. Canes miuores. May not a third possible *'^"* 



source of the name be found in the barbarous root bigla, vigilia, excubiae, from the 

 Greek Bi'yAa, a Latino vigilia—? The watchful tricks of some of our terrier-beagles 

 in a rabbit-warren, and Oppian's grapliic sketch of the 'Ayatrffeus, his wiles, &c. 

 favour the notion. 



2. Janus Vlitius, who, as Wase remarks, "owns England to have been the school 

 from which he took the dictates of his learned commentaries," relates the following 



anecdote of the tiny beagles of his day : " Sunt enim agassa.>i illi adeo aliquando Venatio No- 

 exiles, et parvi, ut tres simul leporem in cubili suo invadentes viderim invitos ii prsedl vautiqua. 

 su^, cui mordicus inha;rebant, nihilominus eluctante relinqui. Et ipse binos nutrivi 

 adeo delicatos et tenellos, ut manu un;-. totos circuniambirem. Sed hi commcnsales 

 potius, et lusui magis, quam ad venatum idonei habentur." 



2 N 



