Note 236 — ARRIAN ON COURSING.

Κύων θήλεια μὲν ὠκυτέρα ἄῥῤενος. I have already remarked that Arrian and Xenophon invariably use the feminine gender when speaking of the dogs of the chase: and so also the Grecian poets, (as the κυσὶν ταχείαις of Euripides, and σκυλάκεσσι θοαῖς of Oppian,) and in some cases the Latin, (as the “canes montivagæ” of Lucretius, “venatica canis” of Ennius, and “multâ cane” of Horace); as if bitches were more quick-scented, “more fleet of foot, or sure of fang.” Minerva, in the Ajax Flagellifer, compares Ulysses searching for the mad Ajax, to a Spartan bitch; though the verse would have admitted the masculine instead of the feminine gender, and the former would certainly have been more appropriate to the sex of the person represented. The gender is changed by the poet in a marked way:

Sophoclis Ajax Flagell. vs. 2.

This opinion, therefore, of the superiority of the bitch over the dog seems to have prevailed in the kennels of antiquity; and such, I believe, is still entertained by sportsmen. “It is an old received opinion,” observes the author ofMarkham’s Countrey Contentments. B. i. p. 47. Countrey Contentments, “amongst many men of the leashe, that the greyhound bitch will ever beate the greyhound dogge, by reason of her more nimblenesse, quicknesse, and agillity; and it is sometimes seene that a perfect good bitch indeed, hath much advantage of an ordinary dogge: but if the good dogge meet with the good bitch, there is then no comparison, but the dogge will be her master, inasmuch as he exceedeth her both in lengthe and strengthe, the two maine helpes in coursing; for her nimblenesse is then no helpe, sith a good dogge in the turne will loose as little ground as any bitch whatsoever.” See also The Countrey Farme, c. xxii. by Markham, ed. 1616. The earliest edition, of 1600, does not contain Markham’s additional remarks on coursing, but merely Surflet’s version of “Maison Rustique.”