THE GREYHOUND. 



my nets, and set them in a fit place, and instruct my 

 Hounds to pursue the wild deer till they come to the nets 

 unexpectedly, and so are entangled, and I slay them in 

 the nets/ ' Cannot you hunt without nets ? ' ' Yes, with 

 swift Hounds I follow the wild deer/ ' What wild deer do 

 you chiefly take ? J ' Harts, boars, and reindeer and goats, 

 and sometimes hares/ " In the Cotton Library, also, there 

 exists a manuscript of the ninth century in which a Saxon 

 chieftain and his huntsman, with a brace of Greyhounds, 

 are portrayed. This picture is copied by Strutt in his 

 " Sports and Pastimes," and shows a couple of dogs with 

 something of the type of head, but shorter in body and tail 

 than, our Greyhounds, about to be slipped at wild swine. 

 I am bound to say that the figures of these dogs as repro- 

 duced by Strutt, so far as they can be relied on to 

 represent a breed, are more like the Great Dane of our 

 shows in head and carriage of stern (which latter is Hound- 

 like) ; but the back is shorter, and the ears appear short, 

 pointed, and erect, as if cropped. It is the more important 

 to notice this, as we have the assurance of Strutt that 

 the engravings are faithful copies of ancient ones. Far 

 more Greyhound-like is the dog represented in the picture, 

 " The Unearthing of a Fox," from a manuscript of the 

 fourteenth century in the Royal Library. 



Among the wild clans of the North the ancestors of our 

 Deerhounds were cherished, and used by those hardy hunters 

 in the pursuit of the stag, as well as in the destruction of 

 the wolf ; and the stealing of one that excelled in size, swift- 

 ness, and courage, by a clan that had been the guests of 

 another at a hunting party, led to a furious and bloody 

 combat. And however apocryphal the songs of Ossian may 



