36 DOMESTICATED HUNTING-DOGS. 



Fig. 4. PAIR OF SMOOTH GREYHOUNDS RIOT AND DAVID. 



THE SMOOTH GREYHOUND. 



This elegant animal appears to have existed in Britain from a 

 very early period, being mentioned in a very old Wel-h proverb, 

 and a law of King Canute having precluded the commonalty from 

 keeping him. Numberless hypotheses have been brought forward 

 relative to the origin of the greyhound, Buffon tracing him to the 

 French nation, and some other writers fancying that they could 

 with more probability consider him as the descendant of the bull- 

 dog or the mastiff. But as I believe that it is impossible to ascer- 

 tain with any degree of certainty the origin of the species Canis, so 

 I am quite satisfied with the conclusion that no long-standing va- 

 riety can be traced to its source. We must, therefore, be content 

 to take each as we find 1 it, and rest content with investigating its 

 present condition ; perhaps in some cases extending our researches 

 back for fifty or a hundred years, and even then we shall often 

 find that we are lost in a sea of doubt. 



Until within the last twenty-five years public coursing was con- 



