[Sidenote: Markham’s Countrey Contentments. B. +i.+ p. 49. See also pp. 50, 51.]
“When you have a perfect and well-shapt greyhound, your next rule is to apply yourselfe to the dyetting and ordering of him, for the pleasure to which you keepe him, that bringing him to the uttermost height or strength of winde, you may know the uttermost goodnesse that is within him, which disorderly and foule keeping will conceale, and you lose a jewell, for want of knowledge of the value. Dyetting then of greyhounds consisteth in four especiall things, viz. foode, exercise, ayring, and kennelling; the first nourishing the body, the second the limbes, the third the winde, and the last the spirits.”
[112] Ἄμεινον δὲ εἰ καὶ ξηρᾷ τῇ τροφῇ χαίροιεν. Hounds readily support themselves with dry oat or wheat meal. _Maza_ is variously interpreted—flour mixed with oil and water, and flour beat up with milk:
[Sidenote: Savary Alb. Dianæ Leporicid. L. +iii.+ p. 31.]
Hordea quotidiana illis sint pabula; avenam Si mediam addideris, sic sponte resolvitur alvus. In panem coquit ille, cavo hic in robore caldâ Digerit in pultem, lambendaque cœna paratur. Nec durum sit sæpe tibi, quâ luce quietem Artemidi debes, illos recreare calenti Jure, minutatim scissis è vilibus extis: Currentem, ilignisve bibant in vasibus undam.
[113] Καμούσῃ δὲ ἐμβάλλειν ἢ ὕδωρ, &c. Arrian says nothing on the treatment of canine disease beyond this hint on diet.
[114] The Cynosophium substitutes the lungs for the liver of a bullock, as nutriment for puppies, when deprived of milk—εἰ γάλα μὴ ἔχεις. See Cynosoph. p. 271.
On the feeding of puppies Nemesian observes, that it should be regulated by the season of the year, atmospheric temperature, &c.
[Sidenote: Cynegeticus v. 161.]
Interdumque cibo Cererem cum lacte ministra, Fortibus ut succis teneras complere medullas Possint, et validas jam tunc promittere vires:
but during the intense heat of summer the puppies are to be kept on lighter food, and then again on meal and whey,
[Sidenote: Ejusdem v. 182.]
Tunc rursus miscere sero Cerealia dona Conveniet, fortemque dari de frugibus escam.
[115]
[Sidenote: Cynosoph. p. 267.]
Ἀγαθὸν δὲ καὶ ἡ ἀσιτία καμνούσῃ. Arrian probably wrote τῇ ἀσιτίᾳ καμνούσῃ: “prodest etiam lac quando cibi fastidio laborat canis.” The remedy suggested by Demetrius of Constantinople for _anorexis_, “bad feeding,” I should consider more likely to increase, than cure the disease; ἐὰν ἀνορεκτῇ κύων, κόπριαν ἀνθρωπίαν δίδου φαγεῖν, κ. τ. λ.
[116]
[Sidenote: Cynosoph. p. 263.]
A short section of the Cynosophium is given to kennel management—κύνας μετὰ ἀνθρώπων κοιμᾶσθαι καλόν· πραεῖς γὰρ ἐκ τούτου γίνονται, καὶ φιλάνθρωποι, καὶ εὐκόλως καλοῦνται—a practical allurement of canine affection heretofore more common than at present. Modern refinement would ill bear the intimate association recommended by Arrian and Demetrius, and practised by James V. of Scotland, with his favourite Bagsche, who was wont
[Sidenote: Sir D. Lyndsay’s Complaynt of Bagsche.]
To lap upon the king is bed, With claith of gold thoch it were spred.
Indeed, we rarely see the high-bred and elegant Celtic hound within the vestibule of a modern dwelling; though heretofore, in the hall of banquet,
[Sidenote: Lay of the Last Minstrel.]
The stag-hounds, weary of the chase, Lay stretch’d upon the rushy floor, And urged in dreams the forest race From Teviot-stone to Eskdale-moor.
[Sidenote: =Mayster of Game.= c. +xx.+ fol. 71.]
Whether the Duke of York’s “childe” lay _with_ the hounds, I know not; but it seems that he did, though not with the intention specified by our author: “alway bi nyght and bi day I wil that some childe lye or be in the kenel with the houndes for to kepe hem from fyghteng,” &c.
[Sidenote: Encyc. Méthod. Les chasses. p. 434.]
I no where find the close cutaneous contact of man and dog, enjoined in the text, recommended in the ancient Cynegetica; but Xenophon advises an intimate acquaintance between the parties in the kennel at the hours of feeding, &c.: if the hounds be fed by the huntsman, they become attached to his person, τὸν διδόντα στέργουσιν, &c. (c. +vi.+): and so if the Veltrarii (“les valets de lévriers, qui exercent les lévriers, et qui les lâchent à la courre”) superintend the feeding their charge, the attachment thereby produced will render actual cohabitation unnecessary.
[Sidenote: Natalis Comes de Venatione. L. +i.+]
Quod superest, celeris catuli cui credita cura, Nutriat illecebris hunc, et sibi jungat amore. Sic facilè et noto domino parere jubenti Disceret, acceptisque sequi vestigia signis.
[117] Εἰ γὰρ ἀγρυπνήσειεν, ἐξάγειν ἐπὶ θήραν οὐκ ἀσφαλές. We find in the Hieracosophium, undisturbed sleep is deemed necessary for the hawk the night preceding a flight, ἀταράχου ὕπνου μετεχέτω.
[118] Ἐπιστάξειε—the common reading being probably corrupt, I have received the emendation of Zeune in his Index Græcitatis, ἐπιστενάξειε.
[119] Οὐδ’ εἴ τι ἀπεμέσειε τῶν σιτίων. Such rejection of food by vomiting is an indication of indigestion; and the latter, of course, of unfitness for the chase.
Xenophon forbids hounds to be taken out hunting unless they feed heartily; for bad feeding is an indication of bad health. De Venat. c. +vi.+ 2.
[120] Ψώρας ἐμπίπλασθαι. Mange is a chronic inflammation of the skin, constitutional in some dogs, in others infectious, and in a few cases I have known it hereditary.
Ancient sportsmen had great dread of mange in their kennels. Gratius, the only one who has entered much into canine pathology amongst the cynegetical writers, recommends that the first dog affected with mange should be destroyed, to prevent others from catching so loathsome a disease—a radical cure!
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. v. 408.]
At si deformi lacerum dulcedine corpus Persequitur scabies, longi via pessima lethi, In primo accessu tristis medicina; sed unà Pernicies redimenda animâ, quæ prima sequaci Sparsa malo est, ne dira trahant contagia vulgi.
If, however, the disease be of a mild type and slow in its progress, it is curable, he says, with an ointment which he prescribes, but which I do not introduce here, as the cutaneous detergents of the scientific Delabere Blaine will be found by the reader far more efficacious. Venesection and purgation, as recommended by Savary, are most important auxiliaries to inunction:
[Sidenote: Album Dianæ Leporicidæ. L. +vi.+ p. 79.]
Altera latrantum pestis, commercia quæ per Vicina insinuans sese, diffunditur agmen In totum, tenerosque brevi depascitur artus, Deformis scabies, hoc potu ventre soluto, Victa fugit, si vena die sit aperta sequenti: Atque malum bini post intervalla diei, Toto, quod docuit Fulloxius, unguine cures.
[Sidenote: =Mayster of Game.= c. +xix.+ fol. 70.]
[Sidenote: c. +xiii.+ fol. 56.]
De Langley’s instructions to the kennel-man are excellent: “I wyll hym lerne that onys in the day he voyde the kenel and make it al clene, and remeve her strawe, and putt agayn ffressh new straw, a greet dele and ryght thikke; and ther as he leith it the houndes shall lye, and the place there as thei shuld lye shuld be made of tree a foot hie fro the erthe, and than the strawe should be leide upon, bi cause that the moystnesse of the erthe shuld not make hem morfound, ne engender other siknesse bi the which thei myght be the wors for huntyng,” &c. And before, he says: “The skabbe cometh to hem whan thei abiden in her kenel to longe and gon not on huntyng, or ellis her litter and couche is unclene kept, or ellis the strawe is not remevid and hur water not fressh; and shortly the hound is unclene, I hold, and evel kept or long waterles, havyn comonly this mamewe.”
[121] The courser will not fail to observe Arrian’s intimate knowledge and experience of his subject. The minute instructions communicated in this chapter on rubbing and dressing the Celtic hound, “in cute curandâ,” prove the great care paid by ancient coursers to the condition of the skin in running animals; without which, indeed, no greyhound can compete with an upland champaign hare.
[122] The effect of friction with the hand, or hair-cloth, or flesh-brush, is farther illustrated by Nemesian, on grooming the horse:
[Sidenote: Cyneget. v. 294.]
Pulvere quinetiam puras secernere fruges Cura sit, atque toros manibus percurrere equorum, Gaudeat ut plausu sonipes, lætumque relaxet Corpus, et altores rapiat per viscera succos. Id curent famuli, comitumque animosa juventus.
[123] Τὴν τρίχα μαλθακὴν ἐργάζεται, &c. This is partially effected in modern days by body-clothes. The clothing of greyhounds, as at present practised by coursers, is of more remote antiquity than the days of Michael Angelo Biondi; having its probable origin in the στελμονίαι of Xenophon, who describes, in the 6th chapter of his Cynegeticus, all the accoutrements of his hunting pack. These consisted of collars, δέραια, soft and broad, so as not to rub off the dog’s hair; leading-thongs or straps, ἱμάντες, independent of the collar, with a handle attached to them; and sur-cingles or body-clothes, στελμονίαι, with straps sufficiently broad not to gall the bellies of the animals. Such was the Athenian’s κυνῶν κόσμος: and it is probable that the latter, though used for the protection of the hound from injury during the chase, and not merely, as at present, against cold, may have been the type of the modern application.