Page:The power of the dog.djvu/38

 these recourse was had to the Backsets, which were slipped in the face of the oncoming animal, "to the end they may more amase him." This does not sound very sporting, but our author assures us that a red deer was so powerful that it sometimes took four or live brace of greyhounds to pull him down. Coursing the hare was set down as the nobler pastime. As in the present day, so in Elizabethan England, it was not the kill that determined the merit of a greyhound, but "he that giveth most Cotes, or most turnings, winneth the wager." At modern coursing meetings, if two hounds are alike in colour, one has to wear a red, the other a white collar, in order that the judge may be able to distinguish. Turbervile remarks: "For the better decidyng of all these questions, if it be a solempne assembly, they use to appoynt Judges whiche are expert in coursing, and shall stande on the hilles sides whether they perceyue the Hare will bende, to marke whiche dogge doeth best, and to give judgement thereof accordingly: some use when their Greyhoundes be both of a colour to binde a handkerchef aboute one of theyre neckes for a difference. But if it were my Dogge he shoulde not weare the handkerchef, for I coulde never yet see any dogge win the course which ware the handkerchef. And it standeth to good reason that he whiche wareth the handkerchef should be combred therewith, both bycause it gathereth winde, and also bycause it doth parteley stoppe a dogges breath." Strange that the expedient of making both wear different coloured handkerchiefs was not devised until a later date.