34 NOTITIA VENATICA. 



most extraordinary run and killing his fox, had the head brought to 

 table devilled, which he ate. 



The following extract, from an old French work on hunting, entitled 

 " Venerie Royale," relative to the flesh of the wolf, shows that he was 

 not held in very high estimation even in rewarding the hounds after the 

 death : — 



" La chair do loup est la plus difficile a digerer ; car si un chien la 

 mange, sans etre cuitte, il no manque pas d'avoir le flux do sang. Elle 

 est capable aussi de Ic faire mourir, elle n'est pas encore bonne cuitte 

 et bouillie avec de I'eau, mais rostie dans le four, elle so digere, et ne 

 leur fait aucun mal." — Venerie Moyale, 1665. 



Natural history has given the term " Sagax" to the hound, to distin- 

 guish him from the rest of the canine species, and most justly does he 

 merit that expressive appellation. So numerous are the anecdotes re- 

 lated of the feats performed by this animal, that we may almost be con- 

 vinced that he has been directed by a power approaching unto reason, 

 rather than by mere instinct. " Daniel's Rural Sports," to which book 

 I beg to refer my readers, records numerous instances of the sagacity of 

 this spirited companion of the sportsman ; and all other books on hunt- 

 ing teem with such accounts of his exploits, that he ought, without hesi- 

 tation, to take precedence of all other animals which have been rendered 

 subservient to the wants and amusements of manldnd. The life of a fox- 

 hound, from the very day that he enters the kennel, is that of the most 

 perfect slavery ; from the moment that the door is closed upon him his 

 free agency ceases ; he neither eats, works, nor even exercises himself, 

 but at the command of his keeper ; by some innate faculty, he leai'us to 

 imitate the example of others ; he is susceptible of emidation and 

 jealousy, and endeavours not only to execute the commands, but also to 

 discover the wishes of his master. The folloAving remarks of Dr. Hart- 

 ley (extracted from the " Magazine of Natural History"), on the intel- 

 lectual faculties of brutes, are so extremely judicious, and so much to the 

 purpose of the present subject, that I shall subjoin them : — 



" The whole nature of each brute which has been brought up among 

 others of the same species, is a compound of instinct, its own observation 

 and experience, and imitation of those of its own species. Instinct 

 seems to have exerted its whole influence when the creature has arrived 

 at maturity and has brought up its young, so that nothing new can be 

 expected of it (instinct) afterwards.* But the intellectual acquisitions 

 of brutes from observation and experience continue : whence old 

 brutes are far more cunning, and can act better (pro re natA) as cir- 

 cumstances arise, than young ones. It ought also to be remembered 

 that brutes, from their want of words, and from our ignorance of their 

 symbols which they use in giving intimation to each other and to man, 

 cannot make manifest to us the extent of the reason they possess." 



We read, in the " Medical Gazette," that the dog is the only animal 



* " The young dismiss'd to wander earth and air, 



There stops the instinct, and there ends the care." 



Poric's Essay on Max. 



