Part 7

[Sidenote: P. A. Bargæi de Aucupio L. +i.+ p. 13.]

Cœpêre in pecudes avidi sævire ferasque, Et nil tale priùs meritas captare volantes.

The personal safety of himself and those dependent on his protection, and the daily cravings of hunger, dictated to man the necessity of animal slaughter; so that, in seeking his quotidian meal, he originated the art of hunting:

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +ii.+ 7.]

ἐπιδόρπιον εὕρατο θήρην.

[Sidenote: Tickell’s Miscellanies.]

Rude arts at first, but witty want refined The huntsman’s wiles, and famine form’d the mind.

The first hostile efforts of the barbarian lords of creation against their biped and quadruped subjects, “joint-tenants of the shade” with themselves, were confined, we may suppose, to manifestations of physical strength and brute courage; by which, under the powerful incentives of self-interest, they procured the vital necessaries of food and clothing:

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneget. vs. 2.]

priùs omnis in armis[294] Spes fuit, et nudâ silvas virtute movebant Inconsulti homines.

[Sidenote: Ovid. Metam. L. +iv.+ 699.]

[Sidenote: Xen. de Venat. c. +i.+]

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +ii.+ 5.]

And here at the head of rude pedestrian sportsmen we find the human inventor of the science of the chase, that legendary personage, the Gorgon-killing Perseus[295]—“Gorgonis anguicomæ Perseus superator”—(for I would not deprive Latona’s hunting-twins, Apollo and Diana, nor the worshipful race of Centaurs, φῦλα θηρομιγῆ,[296] of their priority of claim, and patent of precedency, in the apotheosis of the chase,) who, when he had performed this redoubted act of courage, as we are told by the poet of Anazarbus:

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +ii.+ 10.]

ποδῶν κραιπνοῖσιν ἀειρόμενος πτερύγεσσι καὶ πτῶκας, καὶ θῶας ἐλάζυτο, καὶ γένος αἰγῶν ἀγροτέρων, δόρκους τε θοοὺς, ὀρύγων τε γένεθλα, ἠδ’ αὐτῶν ἐλάφων στικτῶν αἰπεινὰ κάρηνα.

[Sidenote: Bedingfield’s Education of Achilles.]

[Sidenote: Callimach. H. in Dian. 105.]

As men in general, however, did not possess the speed of Perseus and Achilles,[297] “To sweep with winged feet along the level plain;” nor the power of catching at force, νόσφι κυνοδρομίης, the fleetest animals of chase, like the goddess Dian; it became necessary to add to their naked powers sundry inartificial implements, auxiliary to the subjugation of some, the destruction and expulsion of other beasts.

[Sidenote: Lucretii L. +v.+ 964.]

Et manuum mirâ freti virtute pedumque Consectabantur sylvestria sæcla ferarum Missilibus saxis, et magno pondere clavæ: Multaque vincebant, vitabant pauca latebris.

[Sidenote: Somerville’s Chace. B. +i.+]

New and unpolish’d was the huntsman’s art; No stated rule, his wanton will his guide. With clubs and stones, rude implements of war, He arm’d his savage bands, a multitude Untrain’d; of twining osiers form’d, they pitch Their artless toils, then range the desert hills, And scow’r the plains below: the trembling herd Start at th’ unusual sound, and clam’rous shout Unheard before; surpriz’d, alas! to find Man now their foe, whom erst they deem’d their lord, But mild and gentle, and by whom as yet Secure they graz’d.

Acquiring knowledge by experience, man advanced in the mechanism and variety of his hunting gear, as in other articles of increasing civilization.

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 5.]

Post aliâ propiore viâ, meliùsque profecti, Te sociam, ratio, rebus sumpsêre gerendis. Hinc omne auxilium vitæ, rectusque reluxit Ordo: et continuas didicêre ex artibus artes Proserere; hinc demens cecidit violentia retro.

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +iv.+ 100.]

Finding, on patient trial, the χάος εὐρὺ περιστεφὲς of Oppian, with its rude accompaniment of fire, &c. insufficient for capturing the more wary creatures—

[Sidenote: Lucretii L. +v.+ 1249.]

Nam foveâ atque igni prius est venarier ortum Quàm sepire plagis saltum, canibusque ciere;

he had recourse to the various kinds of weapons, snares, and wily inventions of slaughter described by Xenophon, Gratius, Oppian, and Nemesian; and often alluded to by other writers, both sacred and profane:

[Sidenote: Virgil. Georg. L. +i.+ 139.]

Tum laqueis captare feras, et fallere visco Inventum.

[Sidenote: Ejusdem 140.]

But “short of due perfection” were all the hunter’s wiles, till the dog was tutored to assist in the sylvan pursuit and massacre, and to contribute the acuteness of his senses, his speed and courage, to the service of mankind; who consummated their superiority over the animals of the forest, when they had directed to their chase the adapted powers of this faithful ally, and begun, in the words of the cited poet of the Georgics—“magnos canibus circumdare saltus,”—redeeming thereby their esculent crops and innocuous herds from the ferocious and depredatory aggression of quadruped felons.[298]

[Sidenote: Sophoclis Antigone, 350.]

Κουφονέων τε φῦλον ὀρ- νίθων ἀμφιβαλὼν ἄγει, θηρίων τ’ ἀγρίων ἔθνη πόντου τ’ εἰναλίαν φύσιν σπείραισι δικτυοκλώστοις περιφραδὴς ἀνήρ· κρατεῖ δὲ μηχαναῖς ἀγραύλου θηρὸς ὀρεσσιβάτα.[299]

The “venandi mille viæ” of the Carthaginian poet have been superseded in the British islands by the superior attraction of the gun:

[Sidenote: Adriani Cardinalis Venatio.]

machinæ, Mirandæ, horrificæ, minacis, atræ, Qualem nec Steropes, nec ipse fertur Pater Lemnius inferis cavernis Informâsse Jovi, nec ulla in orbe Per tot secula cogitavit ætas;

[Sidenote: Certaine Illustrations, &c. p. 25.]

and of various eminent breeds of fleet and sagacious dogs, adapted to the chase at force. But as these methods were heretofore employed by our less civilized ancestry,[300] are still in vogue in unreclaimed countries, and many of them yet practised on the continent of Europe—whatever be their “incongruity to our present factions,” as Wase expresses himself—a brief description of the “supellex venandi” will not be unacceptable to the modern reader, by way of introduction to the subject of classic hunting with the ancient varieties of the canine race.

With seeming accuracy Gratius has described the whole of the antique poaching gear;[301] but it must be confessed that neither Xenophon’s, nor the Faliscian’s, nor the hunting technicalities of the other Cynegetical writers, can be fully explained to modern comprehension.

The deities and demi-deities of sylvan life are objects of invocation in the exordium of Gratius:

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 21.]

His ego præsidibus nostram defendere sortem Contra mille feras, et non sine carmine, nisus Carmine, et arma dabo venandi, et persequar artem Armorum, cassesque, plagarumque ordiar astus.

and then, under their tutelary aid, the poet begins to handle the “arma venandi;” which, as recorded in the Cynegetica generally, consisted of the _linea_ or _formido_, nets of various mesh and size and shape, nooses, springes, and other traps—missile weapons, as darts, arrows, &c.; and those for standing-defence, as the halberd-like boar-spear, &c.: many of these, however, were not of very remote antiquity.[302]

[Sidenote: De Irâ L. +ii.+ c. +xii.+]

The feathered line or _pinnatum_ was called, from its effect, _metus_, _formido_, and δείματα θηρῶν, (Oppian. Cyneg. +iv.+ 389.) “Cum maximos ferarum greges,” says Seneca, “linea pennis distincta contineat, et in insidias agat; ab ipso effectu dicta _formido_.”

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 75.]

Sunt quibus immundo decerptæ vulture plumæ Instrumentum operis fuit, et non parva facultas. Tantum inter nivei jungantur vellera cygni: Et satis armorum est. Hæc clarâ luce coruscaut, Terribiles species: ab vulture dirus avaro Turbat odor silvas, meliusque alterna valet res.

[Sidenote: Wase’s Illustrations, &c. p. 7.]

The line of feathers of various hue, impregnated with artificial odour, “was drawn about the woods (——ὀλίγον γαίης ἐφύπερθεν, Oppian. Cyneg. +iv.+ 386.) in the intermitted spaces where the toyles were pitched, that so the deer (than which no creature is more timorous) might balk them, and be cast upon the net.” The _linea_ thus flanked the δίκτυ or long net, where not extensive enough to enclose the covert; and filled the intervals, between the purse-nets and nooses, when the latter were set independent of the _retia_.

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 85.]

Hic magis in cervos valuit metus.[303] Ast ubi lentæ Interdum Libyco fucantur sandice pinnæ, Lineaque extructis lucent anconibus arma: Rarum si qua metus eludat bellua falsos.

The Cilician poet has left a graphic description of the _formido_, as employed in the Armenian bear-hunt—a picture so vividly sketched, Cyneg. +iv.+ 380, that I regret its length prevents transcription. A part of it will be found hereafter under the Eastern “Canis _Inductor_”—the Armenian limehound. The fourth Halieutic, in an apposite and beautiful simile, describes the startling effect of the feathered line on timid animals of chase:

[Sidenote: Oppian. Hal. L. +iv.+ 586.]

ὧδε καὶ ἐν ξυλόχοισιν ὀρέστεροι ἀγρευτῆρες εἷλον ἀναλκείην ἐλάφων εὐαγρέϊ τέχνῃ, μηρίνθῳ στέψαντες ἅπαν δρίος· ἀμφὶ δὲ κούφων ὀρνίθων δήσαντο θοὰ πτερά· ταὶ δ’ ἐσορῶσαι ἠλέματα πτώσσουσι κενὸν φόβον, οὐδὲ πελάσσαι μαψιδίαις πτερύγεσσιν ἀτυζόμεναι μεμάασιν εἰσόκε θηρητῆρες ἐπαΐξαντες ἕλωσι.

Many notices of this instrument will occur to the classical reader in the works of the Latin poets, but in none more copiously delineated than in the Cynegeticon of Nemesian; who enumerates the many sources whence the feathers of dissimilar tint are to be culled for decorating the “plumed line:”

[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 312.]

Dat tibi pinnarum terrentia millia vultur; Dat Libye magnarum avium fœcunda creatrix, Dantque grues, cygnique senes, et candidus anser; Dant quæ fluminibus crassisque paludibus errant, Pellitosque pedes stagnanti gurgite tingunt: Hinc magè Puniceas nativo munere sumes: Namque illic sine fine greges florentibus alis Invenies avium, suavique rubescere luto, Et sparsos passim tergo vernare colores.

If the reader be interested in the minutiæ of Grecian and Roman net-making, and the methods of fixing the ἄρκυες, δίκτυα, and ἐνόδια, the _casses_, _retia_, and _plagæ_, he is referred for the former to the Cynegeticus of the elder Xenophon, and that most extraordinary work of human research, the Onomasticon of Julius Pollux—for the latter, to the Venatio Novantiqua of Janus Vlitius, a scholar of deep erudition, and an experienced sportsman:—a summary view being all that can be rendered by the present writer, professedly epitomising the labours of more experienced workmen.

The ἄρκυες or _casses_ were conical, purse or tunnel-like nets, ending in a point at one end, and having a running noose of entrance at the other, resembling somewhat a hooped calash, or cowl.

[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 300.]

The δίκτυα or _retia_ were long sean-like nets for open fields, and for encircling brakes and coverts;——“longoque meantia retia tractu.”

The ἐνόδια or _plagæ_ were nets of much less length, to be placed across roads, game-tracks, paths, and narrow openings between bushes.

The ἄρκυες appear to have been sometimes placed independent of the δίκτυα, but more commonly in the course of the main nets; so that when the animals passed along the _linear_ and _reticular_ barrier, exploring a place of egress, terrified by the _formido_, (which flanked the hayes, and occasionally was drawn along above the net-rope to scare the game from overleaping,) and the meshes of the δίκτυα, (continuous except where the purse-nets were introduced with their slip-knot entrance), on attempting to pass out at the apparent opening of the ἄρκυς, they became by their struggles entangled therein[305]—the purse either spontaneously, or by the agency of the men placed there to draw the necessary ropes, immediately closing at the mouth.

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +iv.+ 409.]

ἐπεὶ κελάδοντος ἀήτεω ταινίαι τ’ ἐφύπερθε διηέριαι κραδάουσι, κινύμεναι πτέρυγές τε λιγήϊα συρίζουσιν. οὕνεκα παπταίνουσα κατ’ ἄρκυας ἀντίον ἕρπει· ἐν δ’ ἔπεσεν λινέοισι λόχοις.

The whole management of the nets and lines was vested in the watch αἰζηῶν πυλαωρῶν referred to, who were concealed under copse-wood, for the purpose, more particularly, of attending to the ἐπίδρομος and περίδρομος, the ropes (smooth and knotless) which governed the ἄρκυες, and passed through iron rings, along the course of the δίκτυα, up to the watchmen’s hiding-place:

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +iv.+ 382.]

ἐν δὲ δύω κλῖναν δοιαῖς ἑκάτερθε κεραιαῖς ἀνέρας ἀκρολίνους ὑπὸ μειλινέοισι πάγοισιν.

The length of the δίκτυα or _retia_, properly so called, would astonish a modern disciple of Diana. So great was the extent of ground sometimes enclosed by these toils, that Plutarch mentions, in his life of Alexander, hunting-nets above twelve miles long. With such it was customary to encircle vast tracts of country, and then, by gradually contracting their ambit, to force the animals of the district into a narrower compass;—when at the will of the _magister venationis_, the work of slaughter commenced.[306] This mode of hunting is very clearly described, with its usual auxiliaries of noise and flame, in a simile of the Achilleid:

[Sidenote: Statii Achil. L. +i.+ 459.]

sic curva feras indago latentes Claudit, et admotis paulatim cassibus arctat. Illæ ignem sonitumque pavent, diffusaque linquunt Avia, miranturque suum decrescere montem, Donec in angustam ceciderunt undique vallem, Inque vicem stupuêre greges, socioque timore Mansuescunt. Simul hirtus aper, simul ursa, lupusque Cogitur, et captos contemnit cerva leones.

The Faliscian poet, in the early part of his Cynegeticon, specifies the best materials for the composition of nets, with particular instructions for their size and shape:

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 25.]

Prima jubent tenui nascentem jungere filo Limbum, et quadruplici tormento adstringere limbos. Illa operum patiens, illa usûs linea longi. Tunc ipsum medio cassem qui nascitur ore, Per senos circum usque sinus laqueabis, ut omnem Concipiat tergo, si quisquam est plurimus, hostem. Et bis vicenos, spatium prætendere passus Rete velim, plenisque decem consurgere nodis.

On the same subject the Carthaginian summarily touches, distinctly recognizing the three varieties of which we have been just speaking:

[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 299.]

Necnon et casses iidem venatibus aptos, Atque plagas, longoque meantia retia tractu Addiscant raris semper contexere nodis, Et servare modum maculis linoque tenaci.

And an earlier poet, in his praise of the brumal pleasures of the countryman’s life, sunders _plagæ_ and _retia_, applying them to such totally different purposes, that it is probable they sometimes differed as much in the structure of the mesh, its size, &c. as in the magnitude of the whole instrument:

[Sidenote: Hor. Epod. L. +ii.+ 29.]

At cum tonantis annus hybernus Jovis Imbres nivesque comparat: Aut trudit acres hinc et hinc multâ cane Apros in obstantes plagas; Aut amite levi rara tendit retia Turdis edacibus dolos, Pavidumve leporem, et advenam laqueo gruem, Jucunda captat præmia.

Whatever honour be attached to these reticular inventions, and that of the running-noose, the βρόχος or _laqueus_, is due to Hippolytus:

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +ii.+ 24.]

ἄρκυας αὖτε βρόχους τε, καὶ ἀγκύλα δίκτυα πρῶτος Ἱππόλυτος μερόπεσσιν ἐπακτήρεσσιν ἔφηνε.

The βρόχος generally formed a rhomb-shaped entrance to the ἄρκυς, as probably did the _laqueus_ to the _cassis_:—but as the tunnel was occasionally used separate from the sean-like toil (δίκτυ—_rete_) and from the road-net (ἐνόδιον—_plagæ_), so may these slip-knot nooses have been also set independent of the purses, their usual additaments, in narrow passes, or straits frequented by game:

[Sidenote: P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. L. +i.+]

Namque hos aut foveis, aut cæci in limine callis Occultant, &c.

The noose-ropes,[307] being of much ruder manufacture, and more simple structure, than any variety of net with meshes, must have been of earlier institution.

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 89.]

Nam fuit et laqueis aliquis curracibus usus. Cervino jussêre magis contexere nervo; Fraus teget insidias, habitu mentita ferino.

[Sidenote: Hor. L. +iii.+ Od. +iv.+ vs. 70.]

These _laquei curraces_,[308] seemingly from this passage made of other materials than hemp before the days of Gratius, are yet in use, under the form of springes and wires, with deer and hare-poachers; who, I find in Oppian, are indebted to the giant-hunter Orion—“integræ—tentator Orion Dianæ”—for the first establishment of their nocturnal depredations:

[Sidenote: Cyneg. L. +ii.+ 28.]

νυκτερίους δὲ λόχους, νυχίην πανεπίκλοπον ἄγρην Ὠρίων πρώτιστος ἐμήσατο κερδαλεόφρων.

[Sidenote: Xen. de Venat. c. +ix.+]

[Sidenote: Poll. Onom. L. +v.+ c. 32.]

We are next introduced by Gratius to _dentatæ pedicæ_, spiked foot-traps or gins, resembling the ποδοστράβαι of Xenophon and Pollux; and formed, as the following lines indicate, of wood, concealed on the ground;

Quid qui dentatas iligno robore clausit Venator pedicas? cum dissimulantibus armis Sæpè habet imprudens alieni lucra laboris?

It being no small recommendation to them that one poacher might reap the fruits of another’s labours. Their invention is attributed to a virtuous and holy Arcadian, ycleped Dercylus,[309] in high favour with the Sylvan goddess, and by her initiated in the mysteries of hunting, and the formation of sundry destructive implements of predation, which he first employed in the valleys of Mount Mænalus, and the Lacedæmonian Amyclæ:

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 95.]

O felix, tantis quem primum industria rebus Prodidit auctorem! Deus ille, an proxuma Divos Mens fuit, in cæcas aciem quæ magna tenebras Egit, et ignarum perfudit lumine vulgus?

And again:

Ergo illum primis nemorum Dea finxit in annis, Auctoremque operi dignata inscribere magno, Jussit adire suas et pandere gentibus artes.

[Sidenote: Plutarch. in Amatorio.]

But it must not be forgotten that a competitor for the glory of these, and other like discoveries, is mentioned by Plutarch, in Amatorio, and by Nonnus, in Dionysiacis, in the person of Aristæus—εὔχονται δ’ Ἀρισταίῳ δολοῦντες ὀρύγμασι καὶ βρόχοις λύκους καὶ ἄρκτους, ὃς πρῶτος θήρεσσιν ἔπηξε ποδάγρας:—indeed, if we may credit the Christian poet of Panopolis, the sire of the hapless Actæon is entitled to the invention of almost every article of hunting-gear, the dresses of sportsmen, initiation of hounds of chase, &c.—of many of which he has been deprived by less rightful claimants:

[Sidenote: Nonni in Dionys. L. +v.+]

κεῖνος ἀνὴρ πρώτιστος ὀρίδρομος ἅλματι ταρσῶν εὗρε φιλοσκοπέλοιο πόνον κεμαδοσσόον ἄγρης, πῶς νοερῷ μυκτῆρι παρὰ σφυρὰ φορβάδος ὕλης θηρὸς ἀσημάντοιο κύων μαντεύεται ὀδμὴν, ὄρθια ὀξυκέλευθον ἐπὶ δρόμον οὔατα τείνων· καὶ δολίης δεδάηκε πολύπλοκα δίκτυα τέχνης, καὶ σταλίκων τύπον ὀρθόν. κ. τ. λ.

To the first-mentioned Arcadian worthy Gratius attributes the earliest fashioning of hunting-spears with _moræ_ or guards. Virgil sings of “lato venabula ferro,” for close conflict; and Gratius more particularly adds, to the honour of Dercylus’s armoury, the introduction of bifid spears:

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 108.]

Ille etiam valido primus venabula dente Induit: et proni moderatus vulneris iram Omne moris excepit onus. Tum stricta verutis Dentibus et geminas subiêre hastilia furcas.

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +ii.+ 22.]

But although the Arcadian formed the spear for pedestrian assault, and Meleager was conspicuous in the use of it,—ἐν σταδίοισιν ὀρειοτέροισι μόθοισιν,—a more celebrated hero first wielded it in distant jaculation on horseback:

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +ii.+ 14.]

ἱππαλέην δ’ ἄγρην ὁ φαεσφόρος εὕρατο Κάστωρ, καὶ τοὺς μὲν κατέπεφνεν, ἐπὶ σκοπὸν ἰθὺς ἄκοντι βαλλόμενος, τοὺς δ’ αὖτε θοοῖς ἵπποισιν ἐλαύνων θῆρας ἕλε ξυλόχοισι μεσημβρινοῖο δρόμοιο.

[Sidenote: Cyneg. L. +i.+ vs. 91. seqq.]

—a style of hunting, which we may suppose to have been much practised in the Roman empire by persons of noble rank, as Montfaucon gives several representations of it from the sepulchre of the Nasoni:—in exact accordance with which, the ἱππελάτης of Oppian is decked out for the equestrian chase.

[Sidenote: Martial. de Amph. Cæsar. L. +xi.+]

The reader’s recollection will readily supply, from authors in every one’s hands, the use of bows and arrows,[310] and small darts—“excussâ lancea torta manu,”—in the early annals of field-sports:

[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 122.]

Quocirca et jaculis habilem perpendimus usum: Neu leve vulnus eat, neu sit brevis impetus illi. Ipsa arcu Lyciâque suas Diana pharetrâ Armavit comites; ne tela relinquite Divæ, Magnum opus et volucres quondam fecêre sagittæ.

The far-famed female ally of Meleager in the attack on the Calydonian boar,

[Sidenote: Golding’s Ovid’s Metam. B. +viii.+]

the paragone Of Lycey forest, Atalant, a goodly lady, one Of Schænyes daughters,

claims the merit of first employing archery; having been instructed[311] both in κυνηλασίη and εὐστοχίη by Dian herself, (see Callim. H. in Dian. vs. 217.)

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +ii.+ 26.]

Σχοινῆος πρώτη δὲ κλυτὴ θυγάτηρ Ἀταλάντη θηρσὶ φόνον πτερόεντα συηβόλος εὕρατο κούρη.

We are unacquainted with the form and use of many of the weapons, with which Oppian accoutres his able-bodied rustics for the covert-side,

[Sidenote: Ejusdem L. +i.+ 148.]

καὶ μὴν τόσσα φέροιντο ποτὶ κνημοὺς ξυλόχους τε ἐργοπόνοι κρατεροὶ θήρης ἐρικυδέος ὅπλα, ἔντεά τ’ εὐθήροιο μέγα πνείοντα φόνοιο, κ. τ. λ.

[Sidenote: Nat. Com. de Venat. L. +iv.+]

[Sidenote: Hieron. Ruscell. Schol. Breviss. Illustr. Ald. F. Venet. +m.d.li.+]

and Natalis Comes, with his brief scholiast Ruscellius, throws no light on them, in the borrowed armoury of his first cynegetic. The Oppianic catalogue runs through eight lines, in which we recognize, in addition to the former implements of predatory hunting, others particularly devoted to the capture of the hare, the ἁρπάλαγον and λαγωοφόνος τρίαινα, the hare-pole, and three-pronged hare-fork—belonging probably to the class of murderous instruments mentioned by the poet of Barga:

[Sidenote: P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. L. +i.+]

Nec desint duræ sinuato vertice clavæ Quæ leporis cursum jactæ compescere possint.[312]

Among the more simple modes of following wild animals for capture, I should have earlier mentioned that of _tracking_—from its simplicity, probably, coeval with the rudest species of pursuit. It is alluded to in the 32nd Epigram of Callimachus,

Ὠγρευτὴς, Ἐπικυδὲς, ἐν οὔρεσι πάντα λαγωὸν διφᾷ, καὶ πάσης ἴχνια δορκαλίδος, στίβῃ καὶ νιφετῷ κεχαρημένος—

in the 1st Georgic of Virgil vs. 308. and the 2nd Satire of the 1st book of Horace vs. 105. Oppian describes _tracking_ as twofold, by men, and dogs,—the former of course being the more ancient, and more correctly termed _tracking_, the latter _scenting_:

[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +i.+ 450.]

εἴδεα δὲ στιβίης δυσδερκέος ἔπλετο δισσὰ, ἀνδρῶν, ἠδὲ κυνῶν· μέροπες μὲν ἄρ’ αἰολόβουλοι ὄμμασι τεκμῄραντο, καὶ εὖ φράσσαντο κέλευθα· μυξωτῆρσι κύνες δὲ πανίχνια σημήναντο.

Savary’s ejaculation on snow-tracking the hare is more amusing than poetical:

[Sidenote: Alb. Dianæ Leporicidæ L. +iii.+]

O nix! improba nix! generosæ invisa Dianæ, Pernicies leporum! venantum ignobile vulgus Quam votis petit assiduis, ut cæde cruentâ Depopuletur agros! &c.