596 The Dog Book 



kind of medium-sized dogs and breeding them into greyhounds in shape, 

 and eventually approaching them in speed ? We have an instance to hand 

 in the Irish wolfhound, which was extinct, yet by crossing Danes and deer- 

 hounds a dog of the required type was produced in a very few years. 

 Whippets are the production of about thirty years of breeding between ter- 

 riers of various breeds, crossed with Italian greyhounds and small grey- 

 hounds — and what is more symmetrical than a whippet of class ? 



The very name of greyhound is to our mind proof that this dog was 

 originally a much smaller and very ordinary dog. Efforts have been made 

 to prove that the greyhound was the most highly valued of all the dogs, 

 hence and in keeping therewith a high origin was necessary for the word 

 grey. According to some it was a derivation from Grew or Greek hound; 

 Jesse held that "originally it was most likely grehund and meant the noble, 

 great, or prize hound. " Caius held that the origin of the word was "Gradus 

 in latine, in Englishe degree. Because among all dogges these are the most 

 principall, occupying the chiefest places and being absolutely the best of the 

 gentle kinde of houndes." Mr. Baillie Grohman thinks the probable origin 

 was grech or greg, the Celtic for dog, this having been the suggestion of 

 Whitaker in his "History of Manchester." We can see but one solution of 

 the name and that is from grey, a badger. 



There was far more badger hunting than hare hunting when England 

 was overrun with forests and uncultivated land, and a small dog for badgers 

 would have earned his name as the badger hound or " grey " hound. Contem- 

 poraneous with this dog was the gazehound, which ran by sight, and, as 

 terriers became a more pronounced breed and "grey" hounds found a more 

 useful field of operations, the latter were improved in size and became classed 

 with the gazehound as a sight hunter, eventually crowding out the older 

 name of the coursing dog. That is our solution, and there is no wrenching a 

 person's imagination with the supposition that Latin was the common lan- 

 guage of Britain at the early period when this name was adopted. 



We find a very similar substitution of name in the scenting hounds. 

 The term harrier has for so long been associated with the sport of hare 

 hunting that it is common belief that the dog got his name from the 

 hare. A study of Caius would have caused some doubt as to that, for he 

 only names the bloodhound and harrier as hounds of scent. The harrier 

 was the universal hunting dog of his day, being used for the fox, hare, wolf, 

 hart, buck, badger, otter, polecat, weasel, and rabbit. They were also used 



