THE DENT GREYHOUNDS INDIAN GREYHOUNDS. 80 



held up by its leg's, in the same position as when standing 1 , opposed to the sun or a 

 strong- light, the texture of the skin is so exceedingly fine, that through it, the chain 

 of the intestinal canal may be distinctly perceived. 



These animals have the most delicate skin and coat, and are the most elegantly 

 formed of all the canine race, and being- at the same time, when in high condition and 

 defended from cold, the most sprightly, playful, and inoffensive, are the proper objects 

 of the mere amateurs of the dog, who look for nothing farther in him, than the delight 

 of his society. We have had reports of the result of trials of the Italian Greyhound in 

 the field, and it seems allowed they have speed enough to course the Hare, but their 

 tenderness is such, that the ground must be chosen for them, which ought to be 

 the velvet turf of a Park or open Downs. Running over heavy land lets down 

 their sinews, and their feet are so soft that they are equally unfit for a flinty soil, 

 or a country encumbered with thorns and briars. Nevertheless, as individuals 

 of this variety have shewn great speed, the experiment has been repeatedly made 

 of crossing our Greyhound bitches with the Italian dog, and no doubt some of our 

 crack Greyhounds have in them, a portion of Italian blood. The Lord Orford, so 

 renowned for his partiality to Greyhounds, and who for years together, kept fifty 

 couple of them, never parting with a single whelp which he bred, untried, made 

 experiment of the Italian cross, and it was said with a degree of success ; a cross 

 surely of more rational hope, than that of the Bull Dog which he also tried. This 

 last whim was another proof of the eccentricity of the noble Sportsman's mind, for a 

 more eccentric cross he could scarcely have devised, unless JFo//" hunting had been 

 the object, and in that case, perhaps, a cross with the Mastiff would have been 

 more to the purpose. 



It was said, the once famous Dent Greyhounds of the East Riding, Yorkshire, 

 owed their great delicacy of skin, small ear, and fine head, to an Italian cross. 

 The Greyhound bitch is supposed to be naturally endowed with more speed than the 

 dog, a position which probably would not be borne out by a retrospect of the trials 

 of the last thirty years. 



According to the Author of the * Wild Sports of the East,' the Greyhound of 

 India is almost universally of a bark colour, and of a fiery unsociable disposition ; 

 some of them having considerable speed, but without the stoutness or power of con- 

 tinuance, which distinguishes the European hound. They are besides more staunch 

 to sheep, goat or hog, than to the hare, and apparently rather of the mongrel or 

 lurcher kind, than the genuine greyhound. This Author corrects those who doubt 

 the degeneration of Quadrupeds in consequence of change of Climate, and asserts 

 that, dogs of European breed become, after every successive generation, more and 

 more similar to the Pariah, or indigenous dog of that Country ; but he has as 

 usual, neglected to adduce the probable intercopulations between the foreigner and 

 the native, in the meanwhile ; whilst he allows, that some breeds of European dogs 

 preserve their native purity in India, to the eighth or ninth generation, and even 



