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Arrian on coursing

Note 66 — ARRIAN ON COURSING.

William Dansey translation

De Venat. c. iii. also c. iv.

Onomastic. L. v. c. 37.

Onomastic. L. ii. c. iv. 73.

Xenophon reprobates hook-nosed hounds, αἱ δὲ γρυπαὶ ἄστομοι, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὐ κατέχουσι τὸν λαγῶ. Pollux would have the heads light and airy, κοῦφαι καὶ εὔφοροι: and when speaking on human anatomy, explains the terms γρυπαὶ and σιμαὶ, ἐπὶ δὲ τοῦ σιμοῦ, φαίης ἂν ὡς ἔστιν ἡ ῥὶς ἐκ μέσων κοίλη· ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τοῦ γρυποῦ ῥὶς καμπύλη. Many of the features of Pollux’s portrait of the C. Venaticus are appropriate to the Celtic hound. See Onomast. L. v. c. 37.

The more modern Cynegetica agree, in all important points, with the structure approved by Arrian: Mayster of Game, c. xv. fol. 66.“A greihounde shuld have a longe hede and somdele greet ymakyd in the manere of a luce, a good large mouthe and good sesours the on agein the other, so that the nether jawes passe not hem above, ne that thei above passe not hem by nether.”

Book of Hawkyng, &c. 1486.

A grehounde sholde be Heeded lyke a snake.

Markham’s Countrey Content. B. i. p. 48.

“Capite et collo oblongis,” says Belisarius: “longo et plano capite,” Albertus. “He should have a fine, long, lean head, with a sharp nose rush-grown, from the eyes downwards.”

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