"Scotland, a northern locality, has long been celebrated for its greyhounds, which are known to be large and wiry-coated. They are probably types of the early Celtic greyhounds, which, yielding to the influences of a colder climate than that they came from, became coated with a thick and wiry hair. In Ireland, as being milder in its climate, the frame expanded in bulk, and the coat, although not altogether, was yet less crisped and wiry. In both localities, there being at that time boars, wolves, and even bears, powerful dogs were required. In England these wild beasts were more early exterminated, and consequently the same kind of dog was not retained, but, on the contrary, was by culture made finer in coat, and of greater beauty in form."
[The canis leporarius, or greyhound of the present day, is quite an inferior animal in point of size, when compared with his forefathers, who alone were occupied in the chase of the boar, wolf, bear, deer, and other animals both powerful and savage.
As these wild animals gradually disappeared under the hand of civilization, these hardy dogs were less wanted; and thus, by slow degrees, have degenerated into the less powerful, but more beautiful and symmetrical proportions that we now see. This change, however, has better adapted him for speed, and the coursing of such quadrupeds as depend upon nimbleness and activity of motion, to secure their escape.
Owing, in some measure, to the climate, but more particularly to the inactive life that they lead in this country, so much at variance with that of England, we can lay claim to but few dogs that would be considered above mediocrity among British sportsmen. We have seen several of these dogs which, living in a state of idle luxury, have degenerated considerably even in the third generation; and we cannot now recall but one dog, in the possession of a young lady in Philadelphia, that would at all come up to the English standard of perfection; and this one is a descendant from a fine imported stock in the second generation. The ancient Greeks were much devoted to coursing, but previous to the time of Arrian, their hounds were not a sufficient match, in point of speed, for the hare, and it was seldom that their sports were attended with success in the actual capture of this fleet animal by the dogs alone. If taken at all, it was generally by running them down in a long chase, or driving them into nets, toils, and other similar contrivances, as forcibly described in the following lines of the ancient poet, when extolling the pleasures of a country life.