Page:The power of the dog.djvu/36

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THE GREYHOUND

"I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot.
"
King Henry V.


EVER since primitive man was put to the necessity of plenishing the larder, dogs have been sub-divided into those that hunt by scent and those that pursue the game by sight. The most notable representative of the latter family is the greyhound, an ancient and persistent type discoverable in most parts of the world. Eastern countries furnish us with noble examples, which probably differ little in shape from the dogs used in the days of the Pharoahs, and from which, the chances are, our own were derived at some remote period. Malory thought it no anachronism to introduce the greyhound into his beautiful story of King Arthur and his knights. Does not the wife of Aries the cowherd explain how King Pellinore "took from me, my greyhound, that I had at that time with me, and said he would keep the greyhound for my love." Malory was perfectly safe in his allusion, for centuries earlier carvings on monuments rescued from ancient Egypt, rude though