4 COURSING 



recover her presence of mind. Then, he says, * if she be a 

 racer she will prick her ears and bound away from her seat 

 with long strides ; ' and he grows enthusiastic over the sight 

 that ensues when the greyhounds stretch out at full speed after 

 her. The spirit in which this ancient Greek wrote will warmly 

 commend itself to readers of to-day. Those coursers who are 

 true sportsmen, Arrian asserts, 



do not take their dogs out for the sake of catching a hare, but for 

 the contest or sport of coursing, and they are glad if the hare 

 escapes. If she fly to any thin brake for concealment, where they 

 see her trembling and in the utmost distress, they will call off their 

 dogs. Often, indeed, when following a course on horseback, have 

 I come up to the hare as soon as caught, and have myself saved 

 her alive, and then have taken away my dog, fastened him up, and 

 allowed her to escape. And if I have arrived too late to save her, 

 I have struck my head with sorrow that the dog had killed so good 

 an antagonist. 



All this is as it should be, and in passing on with a tribute 

 of respect to the good sportsman who wrote it nearly two thou- 

 sand years ago, it need only be incidentally added that he says 

 nothing about testing the relative merits of greyhounds. These 

 old coursers went out merely to see their dogs run a hare, and, 

 though Arrian enforces the rule that more than a brace of 

 greyhounds should never be slipped at a time, this is because 

 he thought two greyhounds to one hare made a fair encounter. 



The date when matches were first made between dogs is 

 not easily to be traced, but it was certainly before the time of 

 Elizabeth, during whose reign, by special command of the 

 Queen, certain * laws of the Leash or Coursing ' were drawn up 

 and * allowed and subscribed by Thomas, Duke of Norfolk.' 

 They will be of much interest to the coursers of the present 

 time, and are therefore here quoted : 



i. That he that is chosen Fewterer, or that lets loose the grey- 

 hounds, shall receive the greyhounds matched to run to- 

 gether, into his Leash, as soon as he comes into the field, and 



