Note 184 — ARRIAN ON COURSING.
William Dansey translation
Xenophon De Venat. c. ix. recommends Indian dogs for deer-hunting, as they are strong, large, swift-footed, and resolute.
In the ancient field sports of Britain we find the deer, the wolf, and the fox, and even sometimes the wild cat, (of which last the Mayster of Game c. x. reports, “he hath the Devyllis spyryt,”) coursed with greyhounds: but at present these diversions are discontinued, and the hare alone deemed worthy of the honourable distinction of competing in speed with the Celtic hound:
Book of St. Alban’s.
And where that ye come in playne or in place, I shall you tell whyche ben bestys of enchace: One of theym is the bucke: a nother is the doo: The foxe and the marteron: and the wylde roo.
The coursing of deer was a recreation of high repute, and was divided into two sorts; the paddock, and the forest or purlieu. See Daniel’s Rural Sports. But a better authority, Turberville, in “a short observation set downe by the Translatour, concerning coursing with greyhoundes,” attached to “The Booke of Hunting,” has given us his remarks on coursing deer, and the method of doing it in the olden time with “teasers,” (“to start the deare from the whole heard, or make a low deare strain,”) “side laies,” (“to way-lay him by the midway,”) and “back-sets, or receits,” (to meet him “full in the face—to the end they may the more amase him.”) See Turberville’s Appendix to his translation of Fouilloux, and “The Governour,” B. i. c. 17.