THE SMOOTH ENGLISH GREYHOUND. 31 



brindled colour very rarely has appeared. "With regard to coat, a 

 very high breed is evidenced by its shortness and silkiness of coat, 

 and also by its total absence in the under parts ; but these 

 qualities are generally combined with softness and delicacy of 

 constitution, and I regard with suspicion on that account their 

 presence to any remarkable extent, preferring a moderately hard 

 but short coat, generally diffused over the whole body except 

 the belly, and protecting it from wet and cold. 



Saving now considered in detail the formation of every part 

 of the body, it may impress their peculiar shapes upon the mind 

 of the tyro if the old doggerel rhymes of the fifteenth century's 

 date are once more quoted, subject to the modification which I 

 have already suggested — ■ 



" The head of a snake, 

 The neck of a drake, 

 A back like a beam, 

 A side like a bream, 

 The tail of a rat, 

 And the foot of a cat.'' 



Up to within the last twenty years each coursing district had 

 its peculiar breed of greyhounds, best suited to the country over 

 which it was used. Thus the Newmarket country required a fast 

 and yet stout greyhound to run over its flats, great part of which 

 was arable land, with coverts two or three miles apart. The 

 undulating downs of Wiltshire and Berkshire, again, being almost 

 entirely of grass, allowed a smaller and somewhat slower dog to 

 succeed better than a larger and faster one over plough, which 

 could not get up the severe slopes of Beacon Hill at Amesbury 

 or even the lower ones constantly met with at Ashdown, from 

 Compton Bottom and other spots favoured in the memory of the 

 courser. In Lancashire, again, the courses until lately were 

 seldom severe, partly from the nature of the food of the hares, 



