92 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
appeared ; all the information I could procure on this interesting 
subject leads to this conclusion : the setter dog is a creation of 
modern times, whose date is not well fixed. It sprung in Eu- 
rope after falconry, the air chase, an institution of high antiquity. 
As dogs were necessary to make the feathered game rise, and the 
hairy game run, before the birds of prey, some were met with that 
naturally pointed at the game before starting it ; this disposition 
has been cultivated by prolonging the point to the dead set. By 
this means the crouching dog has been obtained, the dog that 
crouches against the game that he sets, allowing himself to be 
covered with the latter under the net (or by the falcon). 
The gun having come, which permitted to kill flying, the crouch- 
ing dog has transformed himself into a simple setter. All those 
statues of dogs bequeathed to us by the ancient world represent 
running dogs. Diana of Ephesus and Diana of Poictiers had only 
greyhounds in their suite. 
Education has introduced such modifications in the conforma- 
tion of the species, that it would be quite impossible for the anat- 
omist of this day to assign a common origin to such or such fam- 
ilies of dogs from the inspection of their crania. 
We hardly even know now whether the dog is carnivorous, pis- 
civorous, or frugivorous ; for his appetites are proportional to the 
means of his master. We shall find farther on, under the chapter 
of each beast of the chase, the portrait of his dog, of his special 
hunter. In the eye and the step of certain dogs, as of certain 
men, there is a seal of distinction which proclaims them types of 
noble race. Let us resume in one trait our opinion of the dog. 
The better we learn to know Man, the more we learn to honor 
the Dog. 
THE HORSE. 
Every one has written on the horse, from good- man Job, who 
does not date from yesterday, down to Youatt and M. Lancosme 
Breve ; but no one has defined him, not even Mons. Buffon, al- 
though he wrote with ruffled lace sleeves. 
