9. 



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Chapters on Hunting: Dogs and Chcctas, hzing an 



extract from the '' Kit^ b'^l-Bazyarah:' a treatise on 



Falconry^ by 

 Tenth Centui 



Kushnj 



an Arab writer of the 



Azoo 



On Hunting Dogs. 



e 



Good dogs should be light-coloured aud black-eyed, for th 

 dight-coloured endure the heat b^^st, while the dark-coloured with- 

 stand the cold best. . It is the nature of dogs to follow up foot- 

 tracks, and to follow up ascent, and to welcome joyfully any one that 

 has been kind to them : no animal is so attached to its master. The 

 best-bred discover, on frosty days, the earths of hares,* since the 

 .breath of the hares thaws the frost at th,e entrances. The dog is 

 a light sleeper, a keen watcher. When it sights a herd of wild 

 asses, it selects the male, even though it knows that the male is 

 ^swifter and more enduring ; for it also knows that the male, after 

 ^ne or two spurts, loses its head and so gets overtaken. If several 

 dogs are slipped and one seizes the quarry and the other fails, the 

 latter does not dispute possession, but seeks another quarry ; and 

 the d 'g acts thus in all else it does. The points of a good dog 

 are that it should be long between the forelegs and the hind legs ; 

 short in the back ; small in the head ; long in the neck ; pendant- 

 eared, with breadth between the ears ; that it should have large 

 prominent eyes ; a long slender muzzle, and be dec^p-moiithed.^ It 

 should have a loud and fierce bark ; a prominent and bi^oad for-ehead : 

 and there should be a few coarse hairs under the cliin and on the 

 cheeks. It should be long in the thighs and in the second tliighs,* 

 and short in the forelegs. The dog reaches maturity and pr-opagates 

 in a year. The salvql ^ (which comes from the village of Salvq in 

 Yemen) propagates at eight months old. The female becomes 

 pregnant by one covering, and carries her young 61 days ; and she 

 -admits the male the third day after parturition. 



r 



r 



1 The anthor was a c«1ebratpd poet and philola^er, and Mmon^st Wb 



poems are ser»*ra] fardiyydt^ or po-ma <m snort. One of his works 13 Rtyled 

 ^ifa^»7-^^J^a^■d wa-Z- Jf'i.^tfW'? or ''Snares Mnd Quarn^-s/' which i^ said to bn 



^ ^ 11 • __ * J.: — ^A..^^r^ TX^ ^^e^lA^A ;■» Vr^w'^t- Villi" MTO < 



a collection of sportinff anecdotes. 

 Rand 



He resided in bigypt, but was a DHiive of 



'yamtart. in x-ainsf^int?. 



Wb ar« indebted to the cniir^esy of the Gotha Library for the loan of 



che MS. from which this extraot is copied. 



2 In the Krtst hHr**H go to ^mnnd, 



S t c„ h'lve a "Heep laughing month." 



♦ Presumably th^s is the author's meaning. The word sSq, however, 

 properly means the tardus of a hawk, the shank of a man, or tlie cannon 

 bone of n foreleg t>f a horse. 



B Colloquially slnyl masc. and Blngtya fem., the grey boo nd^ 



u 



