598 The Dog Book 



Cox is exceedingly unreliable as an authority, because he copied wholesale 

 from old authors, with only a few alterations of his own. In the quotation 

 referred to he says there were in England and Scotland but "two kinds of 

 hunting dogs, and nowhere else in all the world." These are specified as 

 the rache, with brache as feminine, and the sleuth hound. Here he differs 

 from Caius who gives rache as the Scottish equivalent for the English brache. 



Cox copied from some author the statement that the beagle was the 

 gazehound, yet he describes the latter exactly as Caius did, stating that it 

 ran entirely by sight and was " little beholden in hunting to its nose or smell- 

 ing, but of sharpness of sight altogether, whereof it makes excellent sport 

 with the fox and hare." That most assuredly does not fit the beagle yet a 

 little further on he says, "After all these, the little beagle is attributed 

 to our country; this is the hound which in Latin is called Canis Agaseus, 

 or the Gaze-hound." This is not the agasseus which Oppian states was 

 "Crooked, slender, rugged and full-eyed" and the further description of 

 which fits the Highland terrier much better than the beagle, as we have 

 already set forth in the chapter on the Skye terrier. 



Cox credits the greyhound as an introduction from Gaul, but if such 

 was the case they must have been greatly improved in size, or the dogs of 

 the continent must have greatly deteriorated. Quite a number of illustra- 

 tions of continental greyhounds are available to show the size of the levrier 

 of France and Western Europe, and they all show dogs of the same relative 

 size as those so well drawn in the painting by Teniers of his own kitchen. 

 A hundred years later we have Buffon giving us the height at the withers of 

 the levrier as 15 inches, which is just whippet size. 



We have said nothing as to the bloodhound, which is another of those 

 breeds about which there has been a good deal of romance. Originally the 

 bloodhound was the dog lead on leash or Ham, variously spelled, to locate 

 the game. An example of the method is shown in the illustration facing 

 page 284, the head and neck of the deer which is being tracked showing very 

 plainly in the thicket close by. The dog having tracked the game to the 

 wood was then taken in a circle around the wood to find whether exit had 

 been made on the other side. If no trace was found the game was then said 

 to be harboured and to this point the huntsmen and hounds repaired later 

 for the hunt. These limers were selected from the regular pack, not on 

 account of any particular breeding, but for their ability to track the slot of 

 the deer, boar, or wolf. This use as slot trackers resulted in the name of 



