Note 12 — PREFACE.

Symmachi Epist. L. ii. Epist. 77.

The date of the greyhound’s introduction into these islands is with difficulty ascertained. If the “septem Scoticorum canum oblatio” of Flavian, wherewith he graced the Quæstor’s spectacle of his brother Symmachus at Rome, be really coarse varieties of the Celtic type, as supposed by Christopher Wase, this hound must have been found here as early as the reign of Theodosius. Indeed Hector Boethius and Holinshed place him amongst us at an earlier period: nor is it improbable that he originally accompanied theSee the Appendix Class iii. Scoto-Celts from the continent of Europe at their primary irruption into Ireland and Scotland. We have evidence of his being an inmate of the Anglo-Saxon kennels in the days ofCotton. Mss. Tiber. B. v. Elfric, Duke of Mercia; and manuscriptal paintings have descended to us of a Saxon chieftain and his huntsman, attended by a brace of greyhounds, of the date of the 9th century—the earliest representation which I have seen of this hound as connected with British field-sports.