A bitch’s age may be considered good for the purpose from the second to the seventh year.[219]
[Sidenote: +Chap. XXVIII.+]
[Sidenote: Mode of sexual intercourse.]
It is best for the dog and bitch to be shut up by themselves, and to be out of sight while together.[220] For open and public copulations, if we may believe sportsmen, are not prolific;[221] but such as are effected by dogs in private are reported to succeed.[222]
[Sidenote: Management afterwards.]
Bitches, after being warded, may be led out, as walking about is conducive to their strength;[223] but they must not be slipped again to a hare, for fear of being destroyed by overstraining or excessive fatigue. The dog likewise should not be let loose after a hare until he is recovered from his exhaustion, and invigorated by an interval of at least sixty days’ rest. After which there will be no obstacle to his being coursed.[224]
[Sidenote: +Chap. XXIX.+]
[Sidenote: Breeding season.]
The most favourable season for breeding is the spring of the year,[225] as the temperature is mediate between hot and cold. Winter is not propitious for rearing puppies, more especially on account of the want of milk:[226] and summer is distressing to the dams for suckling. Autumn is worse than spring for this reason, that the winter arrests the whelps before they are thoroughly formed.[227]
[Sidenote: +Chap. XXX.+]
[Sidenote: Management after whelping.]
If you wish a brood-bitch to recover her previous speed,[228] you must not let her suckle her whelps,[229] except merely to lighten any excess of milk,—and then put them to other bitches, selecting such as are well-bred: for the milk of degenerate curs is not congenial to high-bred puppies.[230] If, however, the dam herself appear no longer serviceable for coursing, it is best to leave the whelps with their own mother, and not to put them under a foster-parent.[231] For the growth is stinted by a stranger’s nursing, (as the other Xenophon declares,) but the mother’s milk and breath are cherishing to her puppies.
[Sidenote: +Chap. XXXI.+]
[Sidenote: Food of weaned puppies.]
[Sidenote: Xenophon’s instructions approved.]
When puppies can run about, Xenophon properly recommends that they be fed with milk;[232] for the filling them with heavy food distorts their legs, and occasions diseases in their bodies. And as to giving dogs short names of easy pronunciation,[233] in this we should also attend to him; for the names which he has enumerated, (in part the invention of others, and some of his own creation), are cleverly composed.
[Sidenote: Care of brood-bitches, not allowed to suckle.]
But if you do not as yet wish your bitches to breed up any puppies, you must take the greatest possible care of them while under distress in consequence.[234] For when they have ceased to give suck, their teats become turgid and full of milk, and the parts beneath the belly distended . At which time, it is not safe to loose them after a hare,—for their flanks may be burst asunder: nor should you let them play with another dog, as, by contending and striving with him beyond their strength, they may be placed in equal danger.
It is best to wait till their teats are become flaccid. And you will have a proof that it is safe to take them out, when the hair falls off abundantly, as you stroke it with your hand. They are then, I think, free from the distress they laboured under on account of their milk, and are ready for coursing.[235]
[Sidenote: +Chap. XXXII.+]
[Sidenote: Estimate of Sexes.]
The greyhound bitch is fleeter than the dog,[236] but the dog has more _bottom_ than the bitch;[237] and, because he can run through the whole year, is a much more valuable acquisition: and as good bitches abound, but it is no easy thing to meet with a thorough-good dog, the latter is on this account more precious: and again, it is fortunate if bitches preserve their speed to the fifth year,[238] whereas dogs retain theirs even to the tenth.[239] For all which reasons, in my opinion, a really good, high-bred dog is a great treasure[240]—one that falls not to the lot of a courser without the favour of some god.[241] For such a blessing, then, he should sacrifice to Diana Venatrix.[242] He should sacrifice, too, whenever successful in his sport, dedicate the first-fruits of his spoils to the goddess,[243] and purify his dogs and sportsmen,[244] as regulated by the established rites of the country.
[Sidenote: +Chap. XXXIII.+]
[Sidenote: Celtic hunting rites.]
Some of the Celts have a custom of annually sacrificing to Diana;[245] while others institute a treasury for the goddess,[246]—into which they pay two oboli for every hare that is caught,[247]—a drachma for a fox,[248] (because he is a crafty animal, and destroys hares,)—and four drachmæ for a roe-deer,[249] in consideration of his size, and greater value as game.
When the year comes round, on the return of the nativity of Diana,[250] the treasury is opened, and a victim purchased out of the money collected;[251] either a sheep, or kid,[252] or heifer, according to the amount of the sum: and then, after having sacrificed, and presented the first-offerings of their victims to the Goddess of the chase,[253] according to their respective rites, they give themselves up, with their hounds, to indulgence and recreation,[254]—crowning the latter on this day with garlands,[255] as an indication of the festival being celebrated on their account.[256]
[Sidenote: +Chap. XXXIV.+]
[Sidenote: Injunctions to the observance of religious rites.]
This Celtic custom I follow with my fellow-sportsmen,[257] and declare no human undertaking to have a prosperous issue without the interposition of the Gods.[258] For that Mariners, who regard their safety, supplicate the Gods at embarkation;[259] and, after dangers escaped, offer up sacrifices of gratitude to the sea-deities, Neptune, Amphitrite, and the Nereids.[260] Cultivators of the soil do the same to Ceres, her daughter, and Bacchus;[261] Artificers, to Minerva and Vulcan;[262] Professors of instruction,[263] to the Muses,[264] Apollo Musagetes,[265] Mnemosyne,[266] and Mercury;[267] Lovers, to Venus,[268] Cupid,[269] Suada,[270] and the Graces.[271] And, upon the same principle, Sportsmen should not be neglectful of Diana Venatrix,[272] nor Apollo,[273] nor Pan,[274] nor the Nymphs,[275] nor Mercury,[276] the conductor and president of the highways, nor any other mountain gods[277] that there may be: otherwise their pursuits must turn out abortive, their dogs injured, their horses lamed,[278] and themselves disappointed.[279]
[Sidenote: +Chap. xxxv.+]
[Sidenote: Enforced by examples from Homer.]
[Sidenote: Iliad. L. +xxiii.+ 852. seqq.]
And of this, Homer gives evidence in his poem.[280] Teucer, he says, the best bowman of the Greeks, in the archery-contest hit the cord only, and cut it asunder, because he had offered no vow to Apollo;[281] but that Merion, who was no archer at all, by having invoked Apollo, struck the bird when on the wing.
Again, the posterity of those, who fought against Thebes with Polynices, captured the city,[282]
[Sidenote: Iliad. L. +iv.+ 406. seqq.]
To omens trusting, and the aid of Jove;
whereas their fathers, not at all inferior to them in valour, had perished before it, because they were disobedient to the signs vouchsafed to them by the Gods.
[Sidenote: Iliad. L. +xii.+ 216. seqq.]
And lastly, Hector, inattentive to Polydamas when he objected to an attack on the Grecian fleet,[283] (because the Trojans would not return from it with honour to themselves, as he inferred from a serpent dropped by an eagle,) was soon afterwards taught otherwise by experience, that no good comes of being refractory towards the Deity.[284]
Following these examples, it is right in field-sports, as in every thing else, to begin with adoration of the Gods;[285] and, after having obtained success, to offer thanksgiving-sacrifices[286] and libations,[287] with auspicious words,[288] and crowns,[289] and hymns,[290] and to dedicate the first-fruits of the captured game,[291] as the conqueror does of the spoils of war.[292]
[Illustration: BEGER.]
[Illustration: BARTOLI.]
[Illustration: VAILLANT.]
APPENDIX.
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE CANES VENATICI OF CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY.
——prima illa canum, non ulla per artes Cura prior, sive indomitos vehementior hostes Nudo marte premas, seu bellum ex arte ministres. Mille canum patriæ, ductique ab origine mores Cuique suâ.
+Gratii Falisci Cyneget.+ vs. 151.
[Illustration: MAFFEI.]
[Illustration: BEGER.]
APPENDIX.
In introducing to the reader’s notice the Canes Venatici of the following monograph—wherein the embellishment of fable is often admitted as the language of truth, and amusement is paramount to instruction—it must not be expected that I should carry back the history of the chase to the early period of the world’s annals, when