6i8 The Dog Book 



could not have been grouped with harriers, nor considered as being the 

 tracking bloodhound or limer, neither were they the mongrel mastiff, nor 

 the terrier. The affinity of the alaunt or Great Dane type is with the grey- 

 hound family and the greyhound of England must at one time have 

 covered a good deal of ground in the matter of size. Even as late as the 

 time of Caius we have very conclusive evidence that the greyhound had 

 other vocations than hare and deer coursing and that according to their size 

 and weight they were used for certain game. 



Continental greyhounds were the same variety of swift dog, there being 

 different names for the larger dogs of the chase, the matins and alaunts. In 

 France we find the levrier retaining the size which is shown in the Roman 

 and Greek statuary, a dog of about i8 inches at the shoulder. If there was 

 any levrier of the size of the English greyhound it must surely have been 

 shown in paintings of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, but the only dog 

 of that type is the one so well shown in the picture of Teniers's kitchen. It 

 is easy to see that Teniers painted portraits of his principal employees and 

 even if the dogs were exceptional to this picture we could accept them as we 

 do the portraits of the men. They are not, however, in any way exceptional, 

 but typical of all paintings we have seen of foreign dogs of greyhound type, 

 indicating that the English coursing greyhound must have been increased 

 in height from the continental dog by crosses such as we have indicated. 



When coursing deer came to an end what little remaining use there had 

 been for a large greyhound in England was at an end and he became the 

 coursing dog of to-day. From that time we can reckon that the size of the 

 greyhound became settled as it was found that a medium-sized, correctly 

 built dog could defeat a larger, less clever dog in handling the hare under 

 the rules of coursing which had been drawn up by the Duke of Norfolk at 

 the request of Queen Elizabeth. This event may be said to mark the ascend- 

 ancy of the greyhound as a hare courser, though he was still a deer courser 

 and remained so for a good many years, as we see by Barlow's engrav- 

 ing of holding the hounds till the deer got his "fair law." 



Engraving failed to keep pace with painting and although we have in 

 these earlier wood cuts every evidence that greyhounds were then built on 

 racing lines, better evidence is required to show that dogs of the same times 

 were possessed of quality. Such we find in paintings of the class of that by 

 Wyck, or "Old Wyck" as it is credited on the mezzotint reproduced. That 

 is a head which will bear study and would be fit to represent a very high- 



