Note 44 — ARRIAN ON COURSING.

The specific name of Graius, or Græcus, by which Linnæus, Ray, and others, have designated the greyhound, is unfortunate, as it has led to the erroneous opinion that he was known to ancient Greece; whereas it is satisfactorily proved by the younger Xenophon, that his Athenian namesake was not only not acquainted with the Celtic breed of dogs, but that no dogs of similar qualities were known to his predecessor, when he wrote his celebrated treatise on Hunting. Skinner doubts the truth of Minshew’s assertion, already cited, Skinner, Etymologicon.of the Greeks having first employed the greyhound in the chase; “quod facilè crediderim,” says the former etymologist, “si authorem laudâsset.” I know of no authority for such an assertion, and discredit the fact. Indeed, the belief of the existence of the courser’s hound in ancient Greece may be traced to the misconceptions of the gentlemen “è Societate Jesu,” and others, who have favoured us with their expositions of antiquity; and who have understood every keen-nosed, latrant Spartan to be a genuine greyhound. Scholars, ignorant of natural history, and naturalists ignorant of classical learning, have alike given currency to the opinion, in opposition to the contrary statement of the text. Against which the assumption of Savary of Caen,

Album Dianæ Leporicidæ, p. 5.

Historie of Irelande, p. 8.

and the quaint tale of Holinshed can have no weight. For with all due regard to the laborious Raphael, and his coadjutors in historical research, I think it far more consistent with probability that his “peerlesse hounde” was a Celtic greyhound, (to whom “pleasantnesse of mouth” is incorrectly granted by historic licence,) the associate of a Celtic Scot, proximately from Ireland, remotely from Celtic Gaul, than as “fetched so far as out of Græcia from a citie called Molosse, whence the breed of him first came.”