THE LONGDOGS AND THEIR QUARRIES 
FOR MANY CENTURIES IN DIFFERENT LANDS THESE DOGS HAVE BEEN BRED ALONG 
LINES OF SWIFTNESS AND ENDURANCE TO RUN DOWN THE GAME OF THE COUNTRY 
By FREEMAN LLOYD 
T HE longdogs and different kinds of 
hawks have been in use as the means 
for capturing game from time im¬ 
memorial. That is the reason, it may be 
well supposed, the greyhound and the fal¬ 
con are given such great prominence in 
the armorial bearings or heraldry of the 
great families of the Old World. There is 
a Welsh or Ancient British adage that “a 
gentleman is known by his hawk, his horse 
and his greyhound.” That surely points 
out the “quality” of the man. Then among 
the Bedouins we hear that the 
three things the wanderer of 
the desert most admires are “his 
horse, his gazelle hound and his 
wife’s earrings.” The saluki 
shami is no other than the grey¬ 
hound of the sandy wastes. 
There are to be found antelope, 
and as we shall presently show 
by the aid of an old print, 
coursing the buck with long 
dogs and hawks is by no means 
a new sport or one undertaken 
by lowly persons. The longdogs 
have been bred for specific pur¬ 
poses. They have been pro¬ 
duced in the different countries 
to run down the particular game 
of those lands, whether the said 
quarry be of the wc'lf or hard¬ 
bitten kind or of the practically 
harmless creature that has to 
depend on its fleetness and nim¬ 
bleness to protect it from its 
many and various enemies. 
It has been the good fortune of the 
writer to see considerable sport in widely 
separated countries and in all of these, 
save in the East of the United States, has 
the working greyhound flourished. There, 
however, he is more of an ornament than 
use, since there is nothing for him to do 
in the way of coursing and the only live 
creature he can gaze or prick his ears at 
is some unwary cat or small dog! For it 
is the nature of the longdog to run after 
and pick up unconsidered trifles! 
All the longdogs of this day are bred 
on very workman-like lines, excepting one 
would think, in the case of the modern 
Irish wolfhound, or wolfdog. He un¬ 
doubtedly, is very great and grand in ap¬ 
pearance ; but, apparently, he is too clumsy, 
or rather without the speed to run into a 
timber wolf when going at his top speed 
as the brute certainly would travel with 
pursuers at his heels. The finer lined Rus¬ 
sian wolfhound has very great pace, lots 
of weight and terrific jaw power. More¬ 
over, he will hold on like a fighting bull 
terrier and will rcdl over and over again 
with his worthy antagonist. We know that 
the borzoi is used almost exclusively in 
Russia for coursing wolves driven out of 
swamps or other coverts by a pack of fox¬ 
hounds, and as there were probably more 
systematically conducted wolf hunts in 
Russia before the Revolution than in any 
other part of the world, it can be readily 
understood that the new muscovite nobles 
knew exactly what suited them best. 
The Russian dog has been in considerable 
use in the United States and Canada. It 
was noticed in Manitoba that they crossed 
the Russian on to the Scottish deerhound 
and a handsome dog was the result. There 
was the ruggedness of the Scotch dog and 
the speedier appearing outline of the borzoi, 
plus the wonderful killing or holding power 
of the Russian. That is what my farmer¬ 
hunting friends aimed at, ^they said; and 
when a dash of English greyhound blood 
was used, then greater speed than ever was 
given since nothing can live with the grey¬ 
hound in fastness and cleverness. These 
three-quarter-bred dogs are 
called “longdogs” on the prairie, 
just as “kangaroodog” is pretty 
well anything like a lathy, 
reachy, longdog in Australia, 
when there is plenty of “grey¬ 
hound” or one of the other 
coursing dogs in his make up. 
“Longdog” is an Old Country 
term that signifies just the sort 
of dog that would be likely to be 
able to pull down a hare by day 
or run her into the net at night. 
He could be even a “lurcher”— 
a most useful mongrel generally 
produced from a cross between 
the greyhound and the smooth 
sheepdog or collie. It is found 
that the term “lurcher” is not 
unduly understood in America. 
The lurcher or longdog of the 
poacher is a silent worker and 
uses his nose as well as his legs. 
He is generally as deadly as a 
stoat and retrieves his game to 
his waiting master who may be on the 
King’s highway, and, therefore, not a 
trespasser on any man’s lands or preserves, 
in the eye of the law. Thus at the dead of 
night is the lurcher waved into a field of 
roots or clover where the hare is likely to 
be feeding and if she be there, then she 
will have to be very smart to keep out of 
the poacher’s pocket and, subsequently, the 
game-dealer’s shop window. 
Gamekeepers or wardens detest the sight 
of a lurcher. The other day, I read in a 
paper from the other side a case wherein 
and JKu/Uvy. 
Contents Copyright. 1918, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 
