THE MODERN GREYHOUND. 13 



was so restricted is shown by the Forest Laws of King 

 Canute, which prohibited anyone under the degree of a 

 gentleman from keeping a Greyhound ; and an old "Welsh 

 proverb says : " You may know a gentleman by his horse, 

 his hawk, and his Greyhound." In the Welsh laws of 

 Howel Dda (who died 948), the King's Buckhound, or 

 Covert-hound, is valued at a pound, and his Greyhound at 

 six-score pence. In the Code of 1080, and the Dimetian 

 Code of 1180, the Greyhound is valued at half that of 

 the Buckhound. 



The alteration in the game laws of modern times, 

 coupled with the great increase of wealth and leisure, 

 have, by giving impetus to the natural desire for field 

 sports characteristic of .Englishmen, led to the present 

 great and increasing popularity of coursing, and conse- 

 quent diffusion of Greyhounds through all classes, heighten- 

 ing an honourable competition, and securing a continued, 

 if not a greater, care, and certainty of the dog's still 

 further improvement. 



It is impossible to separate the Greyhound from coursing 

 as we understand it; for although the sport existed, and 

 was practised in a manner similar to our present system, 

 some seventeen hundred years ago, as described by Arrian 

 in the second century, the thorough organisation of the 

 sport and the condensation of the laws governing it are 

 not only essentially British, but, in their present shape, quite 

 modern ; and it is the conditions of the sport that have 

 produced the Greyhound of the day, to which the words 



They are as swift as breathed stags, 

 Aye, fleeter than the roe, 



are more applicable than to any of its predecessors. 



