52 
The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare’s Time. 
No material alterations have been made in the rules 
and laws of coursing since they received the fiat of the 
Duke of Norfolk, in the reign of Elizabeth. The man 
who slipped the greyhounds was called a fewterer, a term 
that frequently occurs in the dramas of the time. 
The naturalist Buffon is of opinion that the modern 
greyhound is derived from what he calls the “ matin,” but 
in its descent the variety has become finer, more slender, 
and more delicate in shape and skin, from climate, care, 
and attention to breeding only with its own species. In 
Wynkyn de Worde’s Treatise on Hawking , 1496, the proper¬ 
ties of a good greyhound are thus given :— 
“ A greyhounde should be headed lyke a snake, and 
neckyd like a drake, 
Fotyd lyke a cat: taylyd lyke a ratte: 
Syded like a teme : and chyned lyke a bream.” 
Thomas Fuller derives the word “ greyhound ” from the 
gray or badger , from a theory that this dog was employed 
in hunting grays, that is, brocks or badgers. This deriva¬ 
tion is manifestly incorrect, as the badger is far too 
sagacious an animal to come above ground in order to 
provide sport for such a swift-footed antagonist. 
Ben Jonson speaks of some one who— 
“ Restrained, grows more impatient; and in kind 
Like to the eager, but the generous greyhound, 
Who ne’er so little from his game withheld, 
Turns head, and leaps up at his holder’s throat.” 
( Every Man in his Humour , i. 1.) 
Lyly has a similar comparison : “ You resemble the gray- 
hounde, that seeing his game, leapeth upon him that 
holdeth him, not running after that he is held for.” 
(Ephues, p. 420.) 
Dr. Nathan Drake ( Shakspeare and His Times , 1817, 
vol. i. p. 252) informs us that— 
“a very popular diversion was celebrated, during the age of Shak- 
speare, and for more than twenty-five years after, on the Cotswold 
