HUNTING AND FOWLING.
Among the sports and pastimes of the Greeks, which may be considered
as a kind of supplement to gymnastics, we must class first the chase,
which Xenophon vainly hoped might be made to operate as a check on the
luxurious and effeminate habits of his contemporaries.[679] But each
age having its own distinctive characteristic, it profits very little
to aim at engrafting the customs of one period of civilisation upon
another. The world will go its own gait. Chuckfarthing and Pricking
the Loop might as well be recommended to young gentlemen and ladies
dying for love, as hunting to the population of a vain and foppish
city, to whom wild boars and wolves must seem certain death. However,
the country gentlemen, and the agricultural population generally, long
in their own defence continued the practice of the chase, though in
Attica the absence of wild animals, consequent upon a high and careful
cultivation, had reduced it at a very early period to a matter of mere
amusement.
Footnote 679:
In the early ages of the world, hunting we are assured led to the
establishment of monarchy by accustoming youth whose brains were in
their sinews to pay implicit obedience to their leaders in the
chase.—Bochart, Geog. Sac. t. i. p. 258.
But in remoter times, and in those parts of the country where game
always continued to abound, there were never wanting persons who
delighted in the excitement of the chase. Herdsmen, particularly, and
shepherds, considered it part of their occupation.[680] Thus we find
Anchises a young Trojan chief, who inhabited the hill country, making
his lair of bears and lion-skins, the spoils of his own lance.[681]
Sport, of course, it would furnish to bold and reckless young men, as
lion and tiger hunting still does to our countrymen in Northern India;
but from this recreation proceeded in some measure their safety, since
where wild beasts are numerous they not only devastate the
country,[682] trampling down the corn-fields and devouring herds and
flocks, but occasionally, if they chance to find them unarmed, dine
also upon their hunters. Thus the chase of the Calydonian boar, the
tally-ho’s and view-halloes of which still sound fresh in song, was
undertaken by the Ætolians and Curetes, for the purpose of delivering
the rustic population from a pest;[683] and precisely the same motive
urged Alcmena’s boy into the famous conflict with the Nemean
lion,[684] which he brought down with his invincible bow and finished
with his wild olive club. In like manner Theseus, his rival in glory,
slew the Marathonian bull; and delivered the Cretans from another
monster of the same kind.[685] He engaged, too, with a sow of great
size at Crommyon on the confines of Corinthia, and slaughtered the
pig, an achievement of much utility and no little glory.
Footnote 680:
Iliad, λ. 547.
Footnote 681:
Hom. Hymn in Vener. 160. seq.
Footnote 682:
Paus. i. 27. 9.
Footnote 683:
Iliad, ι. 547. sqq.
Footnote 684:
Theocrit. xxv. 211. sqq.
Footnote 685:
Paus. i. 27. 9. sqq.
The arms and accoutrements of these primitive sportsmen corresponded
with the rough service in which they were engaged. Sometimes, to the
attack of the wild bull or the boar, they went forth with formidable
battle-axes.[686] But when their game was fleet and innocuous a
handful of light javelins and the bow sufficed, as when Odysseus and
his companions beat the country in search of wild goats.[687] In the
Æneid, too, we find the hero doing great execution among a herd of
deer with his bow. Boar-spears also were in use ere the period of the
Trojan war, as Odysseus, who appears to have been excessively addicted
to the chase, is represented going thus armed to the field with the
sons of Autolycos when he was wounded by the hog.[688] With the same
weapon we find Adrastos engaged in the same sport, killing the son of
Crœsos.[689] The chase of the lion, which in Xenophon’s time could
no longer be enjoyed in Greece Proper, required the most daring
courage and the most formidable weapons, spears, javelins, clubs, and
burning torches, with which at last they repelled him at night from
the cattle stalls. Homer, as usual, represents the contest to the
life:[690]
“He turned to go, as slow retreats the lion from the stalls,
Whom men and dogs assault while round a shower of javelins falls.
They all night watch about their herds, lest he intent on prey
Should bear the flower of all their fields, the fattest bull away.
Onward impetuously he bounds—the hissing javelins fly
From daring hands, while torches send their blaze far up the sky.
He dreads, though fierce, the dazzling flames thick flashing on his
sight,
And hungry still and breathing rage, retires with morning’s light.”
Footnote 686:
Iliad, ρ. 520. seq. Feith. Antiq. Hom. iv. c. 2. § 2.
Footnote 687:
Odyss. ι. 155. seq.
Footnote 688:
Odyss. ι. 465. seq.
Footnote 689:
Herod. i. 43.
Footnote 690:
Il. ρ. 657. Cf. Aristot. Hist. Anim. ix. 31. Oppian Cyneget. iv.
131. sqq.
The existence of wild beasts in a country has by some been enumerated
among the causes of civilisation, and it may, under certain
circumstances, deserve to be so considered, though generally such
modes of accounting for things are exceedingly unphilosophical.
Mitford, who advances it,[691] needed but to cast a glance across the
Mediterranean to dissipate his whole theory, since nowhere are there
more wild beasts or men less civilised than in Africa. Egypt, Chaldæa,
Assyria, the earliest peopled countries, enjoyed few of these helps to
refinement. The reasons of Greek civilisation lay neither in their
country or in the accidents of it, but in the race itself, which, as
one family in a nation is distinguished from its neighbours by
superior genius, was thus distinguished from other races of men.
However, the lion, as we have seen, formerly existed among them,
though never probably in great numbers, and even in the age of
Herodotus was still found in a wild tract of country extending from
the Acheloös in Acarnania to the Nestos in Thrace,[692] where in
fabulous times Olynthos, son of Strymon,[693] is said to have been
slain in a lion hunt. In the age of Dion Chrysostom, however, this
fierce animal was no longer known in Europe.[694]
Footnote 691:
Hist. of Greece, i. 16.
Footnote 692:
Herod. vii. 125. seq.
Footnote 693:
Conon, Dieg. iv. ap. Phot. 131. Rüdig. Prolegg. ad Dem. Olynth. p.
3.
Footnote 694:
Orat. 21. t. i. p. 501. Reiske.
Dogs, all the world over and from the remotest times, have been man’s
companions in the chase, and Homer, the noblest painter of the ancient
world, has bequeathed us many sketches of the antique hunting breed.
It has above been seen that in company with man they feared not to
attack even the lion. Odysseus’ famous dog Argos was a hound that
“Never missed in deepest woods the swift game to pursue
If once it glanced before his sight, for every track he knew.[695]”
Footnote 695:
Odyss. ρ. 316. seq.
And again when the same sagacious Nimrod makes his rounds in quest of
“belly timber,” a brace of dogs runs before him “examining the
traces,” while with boar-spear in hand he follows close at their
heels.[696] But already, even in those days, the habit of keeping more
cats than catch mice had got into fashion—that is among the
great—since we find grandees with their κύνες τραπεζῆες or “table
dogs,”[697] valued simply for their beauty. Patroclus maintained nine
of these handsome animals, and Achilles understanding his tastes, cast
two of them into the flames of his funeral pile, that their shades
might sit at his board in the realms below.[698]
Footnote 696:
Id. τ. 436. seq.
Footnote 697:
Id. ρ. 310.
Footnote 698:
Iliad ψ. 173. seq.
Footnote 699:
Deipnosoph. i. 22. et 24.
Fowling too, if we may depend upon Athenæus,[699] entered into the
list of heroic amusements. It is clear, however, that the sportsmen of
those days were arrant poachers, for, not content with attacking their
prey in open fight, they condescended to spread nets for them and set
gins for their feet. But being accomplished bowmen, however, they
could occasionally, when pressed for provisions, fetch down a thrush,
a pigeon, or a dove with an arrow, dexterously as that Jew in
Eusebius[700] who exhibited his marksmanship to demonstrate the
fallacy of augury. For in the funeral games of Patroclus, we find one
of the heroes hitting from a considerable distance a dove which had
been tied by a small cord to the summit of a mast.[701]
Footnote 700:
Præp. Evang. l. ix. c. 4. p. 408. d.
Footnote 701:
Iliad, ψ. 853. sqq.
They were given moreover not only to fishing with nets—a practice in
nowise unbecoming a hero when in want of a dinner—but even to angling
with “crooked O’Shaughnessies,”[702] as Homer expresses it; though the
passage in the Iliad, indeed, where a net is mentioned, cannot well be
adduced in corroboration, since it may refer to fowling as well as to
fishing.[703] Certain verses in the Odyssey, however, prove beyond a
doubt that the Greeks had already begun to derive a great part of
their sustenance from the sea;[704] and the Homeric heroes even
understood the value of oysters, which, as appears from the Iliad,
were procured by diving.[705]
Footnote 702:
Γναμπτοῖς ἀγκιστροίσιν. Odyss. μ. 331. seq. Ludovic. Nonn. de Re
Cibar. iii. 4. p. 294. Plut. de Solert. Anim. § 24. Cf. Antich. di
Ercol. t. i. tav. 36. p. 191. From an expression of Augustus, if we
can regard it as anything more than a figure of speech, it may be
inferred that to increase the luxury of the sport by converting it
into a species of gambling, people sometimes fished with golden
hooks.—Polyæn. Strat. viii. 24. 6.
Footnote 703:
Iliad, γ. 487. seq. Eustath. ad Odyss. χ. 386.
Footnote 704:
Odyss. χ. 386.
Footnote 705:
Iliad, π. 747. sqq.
Nevertheless these ancient heroes, though by no means averse as we
have seen to pigeons or oysters, delighted chiefly in the chase of the
larger animals, in which article of taste they agreed with Plato, who
considered all other kinds as unworthy of men. He appears to have
entertained an especial aversion for the Isaac Waltons of the ancient
world, and in his advice to youth earnestly exhorts them to eschew
hooks and fish-traps, which he slily classes with piracy and
house-breaking: and so he does fowling. Nor would his generous
philosophy countenance poaching with nets and gins and snares. His
sportsmen, modelled after the old Homeric type, were to mount their
chargers,[706] and accompanied by their dogs come to close quarters
with their wild foes in open daylight, and subdue them by dint of
personal courage.[707] Precisely similar views prevailed in the heroic
age, when the chiefs and principal men were exercised from boyhood in
the chase, as appears from the examples of Achilles and Odysseus;[708]
of whom the former, according to Pindar, tried his hand at a lion at
the age of six years, ἐξέτης τοπρῶτον. Being swift of foot as those
Arabs of Northern Africa, who, as Leo[709] says, are a match for any
horse, he used without the aid of dogs to overtake and bring down deer
with his javelin, and whatever prey he took he carried to his old
master Cheiron. This passage Mr. Cary has translated in the following
vigorous and elegant manner:—
“In Philyra’s house a flaxen boy
Achilles oft in rapturous joy
His feats of strength essayed.
Aloof like wind his little javelin flew,
The lion and the brinded boar he slew;
Then homeward to old Cheiron drew
Their panting carcases.
This when six years had fled;
And all the after time
Of his rejoicing prime
It was to Dian and the blue-eyed Maid
A wonder how he brought to ground
The stag without or toils or hound.
So fleet of foot was he.”
Footnote 706:
Cf. Poll. Onom. v. 17.
Footnote 707:
De Legg. vii. t. viii. p. 71. seq.—In his Republic boys were to be
permitted when they could do so with safety to proceed to the field
of battle, and there to approach sufficiently near the scene as to
be able like young hounds to taste, so to speak, of blood.—t. vi. p.
367.
Footnote 708:
Pind. Nem. iii. 43. seq. Diss. Odyss. τ. 429. seq.
Footnote 709:
Descrip. Afric.
Similar manners, if we may confide in Virgil,[710] prevailed among the
old inhabitants of Latium, and Xenophon[711] in his monarchical Utopia
trains the youth in the same habits.
Footnote 710:
Æneid, ix. 605.
Footnote 711:
Cyneg. ii. 1.
On hunting,[712] as practised in the civilised ages of Greece, we
possess more ample details, and it is chiefly by the minuter touches
that a picture of this kind can be invested with interest and utility.
Xenophon, an aristocratic country gentleman, who living in a corrupt
age was, as I have said, wisely partial to the nobler manners of the
past, considers the chase as a branch of education.[713] He does not,
however, entertain upon this subject the heroic views of Plato, but,
looking solely to utility, not only describes the physical conditions
and mental qualities of the hunter, but the nets, poles, arms, and
every implement made use of by the ancients in the chase.
Footnote 712:
To form a proper idea of the sporting vocabulary of the Greeks, the
reader should consult Julius Pollux, Onomasticon, v. 9.-94.
Footnote 713:
Cyneg. ii. 1.
Not to interfere with the discipline of the schools and the gymnasia,
the youths were exhorted to betake themselves to field-sports about
the age of twenty. Their notions of a sportsman’s costume differed
materially from our own, for instead of decking themselves like our
fox-hunters in scarlet, they selected the soberest and least brilliant
colours both for their cloaks and chitons. The latter were in general
extremely short, reaching merely to the hams, as Artemis is usually
represented in works of art. But the chlamys was long and ample, that
it might be twisted round the left arm in close contest with the
larger animals. Their hunting boots reached to the knee, and were
bound tight round the leg with thongs. Probably also, as in
travelling, they covered their heads with a broad-brimmed hat.
The apparatus of a Greek sportsman would appear somewhat cumbersome,
and perhaps a little ludicrous to a modern Nimrod. But understanding
their own object they went their own way to work; their arms and
implements, varying with the chase in which they were engaged,
consisted of short swords, hunting knives[714] for the purpose of
cutting down brushwood to stop up openings in the forest, axes for
felling trees, darts furnished with thongs for drawing them back when
they had missed their aim, bows, boar-spears, weapons peculiarly
formidable, nets small and large, some for setting up in the plains,
some for traversing glades or narrow alleys in the woods, and others
shaped like a female head-net, to be placed in small dusky openings,
where being unperceived the game sprang into them as into a sack,
which closed about it by means of a running cord, net-poles, forked
stakes, snares, gins, nooses, and leashes for the dogs.[715] The darts
used on these occasions had ashen or beechen handles, and the nets
were usually manufactured with flax imported from Colchis on the
Phasis, Egypt, Carthage, and Sardinia.[716] Generally, too, they took
along with them the Lagobalon, a short, crooked stick with a knob at
one end, with which they sometimes brought down the hare in its
flight.[717] This practice, common enough among poachers in our
country, is by them denominated _squailing_.
Footnote 714:
Poll. v. 19.
Footnote 715:
Cf. Grat. Falisc. Cyneg. p. 14. Wase.
Footnote 716:
Xen. Cyneg. ii. 3. Grat. Falisc. Cyneg. p. 6. Wase. Pollux, v. 26.
Footnote 717:
Spanh. Obs. in Callim. Hymn. in Dian. ii. p. 122. Poll. v. 20.—Hares
are hunted with sticks in South Guinea by the blacks.—Barbot. iii.
14.
Without the aid of dogs, however, hunting is a poor sport. The
ancients, therefore, much addicted to this branch of education, paid
great attention to the breed of these animals, of which some were
sought to be rendered celebrated by heroic and fabulous associations.
Thus the Castorides, it was said, sprang[718] from a breed to which
the twin god of Sparta was partial; the Alopecidæ were a cross between
a dog and a she-fox; and a third kind[719] arose from the mingling of
these two races. Among modern sportsmen, there are also good
authorities who prefer harriers with a quarter of the fox-strain.[720]
Other kinds of hounds, as the Menelaides and Harmodian derived their
appellation from the persons who reared them.[721]
Footnote 718:
Poll. v. 39. Xen. Cyneg. iii. 1.
Footnote 719:
Arist. Hist. Anim. viii. 28. Poll. v. 39.
Footnote 720:
Letters on Hunting, p. 60.
Footnote 721:
Poll. v. 40.
But the whole breeds of certain countries[722] were famous, as the
Argive, the Locrian, the Arcadian, the Spanish, the Carian, the
Eretrian; the Celtic or greyhound (not known[723] in more ancient
times); the Psyllian, so called from a city of Achaia; the dog of
Elymæa, a country lying between Bactria and Hyrcania; the Hyrcanian,
which was a cross with the lion; the Laconian, of which the bitch was
more generous,[724] sometimes crossed with the Cretan, which was
itself renowned for its nose, strength and courage,[725] those which
kept watch in the temple of Artemis Dictynna having been reckoned a
match even for bears; the Molossian, less valued for the chase than as
a shepherd’s dog, on account of its great fierceness and power to
contend with wild beasts;[726] the Cyrenaic, a cross with the wolf,
and lastly the Indian, on which the chief reliance was placed in the
chase of the wild boar. This breed, according to Aristotle, was
produced by crossing with the tiger, probably the Cheeta.[727] The
first and second removes were considered too fierce and unmanageable,
and it was not until the third generation that these tiger-mules could
be broken in to the use of the sportsman. Some sought in mythology the
origin of this noble animal; for, according to Nicander, the hounds of
Actæon, recovering their senses after the destruction of their master,
fled across the Euphrates and wandered as far as India. Strange
stories are related of this breed, of which some it is said would
contend with no animal but the lion. Alexander’s dog, which he
purchased in India for a hundred minæ, had twice overcome and slain
the monarch of the forest.[728]
Footnote 722:
Arist. de Gen. Anim. v. 2. p. 344. Virg. Georg. iii. 405. See the
enumeration by Gratius, Cyneg. p. 20. seq.
Footnote 723:
Arrian, de Venat. c. 2.
Footnote 724:
Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 1. Soph. Ajax, 8. Virg. Georg. iii. 405.
Λάκαιναι σκύλακες, Plat. Parmen. t. ii. p. 7. had long noses. Arist.
de Gen. Anim. v. 2. 344.
Footnote 725:
Æl. De Nat. Anim. iii. 2. Pashley, Travels in Crete, i. 33. Hughes,
Travels, &c. i. 489, 501.
Footnote 726:
Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. i.
Footnote 727:
Arist. Hist. Anim. viii. 28, with the observations of Camus, t. ii.
p. 215. Cf. Scalig. de Subtilitat. x. p. 383. Æl. de Nat. Anim.
viii. i.
Footnote 728:
Æl. De Nat. Anim. viii. 1. Poll. Onom. v. 42. seq.
Let us, therefore, now imagine the hounds exactly what they ought to
be, and observe under what circumstances they were led afield. As in
England, their principal sport was the hare. In winter,[729] it was
observed that puss, from the length of the nights, took a wider
circuit, and therefore afforded the dogs a better chance of detecting
her traces.[730] But when in the morning the ground was covered with
ice or white with hoar-frost, the dogs lost their scent, as also
amidst abundant dews or after heavy rains. The sportsman accordingly
waited till the sun was some way up the sky, and had begun to quicken
the subtile odours communicated to the earth.[731] The west wind,[732]
which covers the heavens with vast clouds and fills the air with
moisture, and the south blowing warm and humid, weaken the scent; but
the north wind fixes and preserves it.[733] By moonlight, too, as the
old sportsmen remark, and the warmth it emits, the scent is affected;
besides that when the moon shines brightly, in their frolicsome and
sportive mood the hares, in the secluded glades of the forest, take
long leaps and bounds over the green sward, leaving wide intervals
between their traces.[734]
Footnote 729:
See on the subject of scent, Sport. Mag. Jan. 1840, and compare
Essay on Hunting, p. 1. et seq.
Footnote 730:
Cf. Poll. v. 11. Σύμβολα ἐν τετυπωμένα τῇ γῇ.
Footnote 731:
The phrase in Pollux is ἀποφέρεται ἀπ᾽ αὔτων (τῶν ἰχνῶν) τὸ πνεῦμα.
v. 12. The author of the Essay on Hunting (p. 15.) enumerating the
several kinds of scent, speaks of them as stronger, sweeter, or more
distinguishable at one time than another; and Pollux makes use of
much the same language: ἄνοσμα, δύσοσμα, εὔοσμα, κ. τ. λ. l. c.
Footnote 732:
Arist. Prob. xxvi. 23—Falling stars were regarded as a prognostic of
high winds, 24. Letters on Hunting, p. 106.
Footnote 733:
Cf. Xen. Cyneg. viii. 1.
Footnote 734:
Xen. Cyneg. v. 4. Poll. v. 67.
From a remark of Xenophon it appears that at least on one point the
sportsmen of antiquity were less humane than the modern, since they
pursued the chase even in breeding time.[735] They, however, spared
the young in honour of Artemis;[736] the spirit even of false
religion, on this, as on many other occasions, strengthening the
impulses of humanity.
Footnote 735:
See also Spanh. Obs. in Callim. t. ii. p. 123.
Footnote 736:
Xen. Cyneg. v. 14. Klaus. Com. in Agam. p. 114.—Leverets, properly
λαγίδια, were often in common with the young of all other wild
animals denominated ὀμβρίαι and ὀμβρίκια by the poets.—Poll. v. 15.
Several causes coöperated to render hares unplentiful on the Hellenic
continent,—the number of sportsmen, of foxes which devoured both them
and their young, and of eagles that delighted in its lofty and almost
inaccessible mountains, and shared its game with the huntsman and the
fox. Homer, in a few picturesque words, describes the war carried on
against puss by this destructive bird.[737] On the islands, whether
inhabited or not, few of these obstacles to their increase existed.
Sportsmen rarely passed over to them, and in such as were sacred to
any of the gods the introduction of dogs was not permitted, so that,
like the pigeons and turtle-doves of Mekka, they multiplied in those
holy haunts prodigiously.
Footnote 737:
Il. χ. 308. sqq.
It was prohibited by the laws of Attica[738] to commit the slightest
trespass during the chase. The sportsman was not allowed to traverse
any ground under cultivation, to disturb the course of running water,
or to invade the sanctity of fountains. The scene of action
accordingly lay among the woods and mountains, the common property of
the republic, or, if not, abandoned by general consent to the use of
the sportsman. Such were, for example, the woodland districts of
Parnes and Cithæron on the borders of Bœotia. Towards these the
huntsman, well shod, plainly and lightly dressed,[739] and with a
stick in his hand, set out about sunrise in winter, in summer before
day.[740] On the road strict silence was observed[741] lest the hare
should take the alarm and to her heels. Having reached the cover, the
dogs were tied separately that they might be let slip the more easily,
the nets were spread in the proper places, the net-guards set, and the
huntsman with his dogs proceeded to start the game, first piously
making a votive offering of the primitiæ to Apollo and Artemis,[742]
divinities of the chase.[743]
Footnote 738:
Xen. Cyneg. v. 34.
Footnote 739:
Poll. v. 17.
Footnote 740:
The pleasure experienced on these occasions is thus enthusiastically
described by Christopher Wase:—"What innocent and natural delights
are they, when he seeth the day breaking forth, those blushes and
roses which poets and writers of romances only paint, but the
huntsman truly courts! When he heareth the chirping of small birds
perched upon their dewy boughs, when he draws in that fragrancy of
the pastures and coolness of the air! How jolly is his spirit when
he suffers it to be imported with the noise of bugle-horns and the
baying of hounds which leap up and play around him!"—Pref. to Tr. of
Gratius, p. 3.
Footnote 741:
See, in the Cyropædia, i. 6. 40, an extremely interesting passage on
the chase of the hare.—Cf. Oppian. de Venat. iv. 422.
Footnote 742:
Hence the goddess obtained many of the epithets bestowed on her by
the poets, as: ἀγροτέρα, καὶ κυνηγέτις, καὶ φιλόθηρος, καὶ ὀρεία,
ἀπὸ τῶν ὀρῶν· καὶ Ἰδαία, ἀπὸ τῆς Ἴδης, καὶ δίκτυνα, ἀπὸ τῶν δικτύων·
καὶ ἑκηβόλος, ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑκὰς τὰ θνρία βάλλειν· καὶ πολλὰ ἄλλα ὀνόματα
ἀπὸ θήρας.—Poll. v. 13.
Footnote 743:
Xen. Cyneg. vi. 1. seq. Poll. v. 13.—It was customary, moreover, to
nail the head or a foot of the game to some tree in honour of
Artemis.—Sch. Aristoph. Ran. 143.
And now, exclaims the leader of the Ten Thousand, I behold the hounds,
joyous and full of fire, spring forward in the track of their game.
Eagerly and ardently do they pursue it—they traverse—they run about in
a circle—they advance now in a straight line, now bounding away
obliquely—they plunge into the thickets, across the glades, through
the paths, known or unknown, hurrying one before the other, shaking
their tails, their ears hanging low,[744] their eyes flashing with
fire. Drawing near the game they indicate the fact to their master by
their movements, kindling up into a warlike humour, bounding emulously
forward, scorning all thought of fatigue,—now in a body, now
singly,—till reaching the hiding-place[745] of the hare they spring
towards it all at once. In the midst of shouts and barking the swift
animal glances from her form with the hounds at her heels. The
huntsman, his left hand wrapped in his chlamys, follows staff in hand,
animating his dogs, but avoiding, even if in his power, to head the
game.[746]
Footnote 744:
C. Poll. v. 61.
Footnote 745:
Οἱ θάμνοι, the technical term for covert. Poll. v. 15.
Footnote 746:
Xen. Cyneg. vi. 14–17.
A singular species of chase, now common in our own rabbit-warrens,
appears to have passed over from Africa to the Balearic Isles, in an
ancient account of which the first mention of it occurs. Those
islands, it is said, were almost entirely exempted from vermin, but,
on the other hand, contained prodigious numbers of rabbits, which
almost destroyed every herb and plant by biting their roots. At
length, however, they discovered a remedy for this evil. They imported
ferrets from Africa, which, having first muzzled them, they let loose
in the rabbit-warrens. Creeping into the holes they scared forth the
inmates, which were caught by the sportsman. Strabo, who relates the
circumstance, calls the ferret a “wild cat.” Pliny, having likewise
described the devastations of the rabbits, speaks of it under the name
of _viverra_, and says it was held in great estimation for its utility
in this chase, which in the seventeenth century was practised in the
island of Procida, where they procured the animal from Sicily, and
denominated it Foretta, whence the English name. The common Italian
appellation was donnola.[747]
Footnote 747:
Vict. Var. Lect. xxxi. 20. p. 883. seq. Cf. Plin. Hist. Nat. viii.
8, cum notis. Strab. iii. 2. p. 231.
It is clear, however, that in classic times the ferret was unknown in
Greece, otherwise we should never have heard of the proverb of the
Carpathian and his Hare[748] applied to persons who brought evil upon
themselves. Originally, we are told, the Island of Carpathos[749] was,
like Ithaca, entirely destitute of hares; but a pair having been at
length introduced, multiplied so prodigiously that they almost
depopulated the island by devouring the fruits of the earth. A similar
fact is related of the island Porto Santo, near Madeira, for Prince
Henry of Portugal, immediately after its discovery, “sent Bartholomew
Perestrello with seeds to sow and cattle to stock the place; but one
couple of rabbits put in among the rest increased so prodigiously that
all corn and plants being destroyed by them it was found necessary to
unpeople the place.”[750]
Footnote 748:
Suid. v. Λαγώς. t. ii. p. 3.
Footnote 749:
This island now abounds in cattle and game, particularly quails and
partridges.—Dapper, Descrip. des Iles de l’Archip. p. 173.
Footnote 750:
Hist. of Navig. prefixed to Church. Coll. of Voy. and Trav. vol. i.
p. xx.
A peculiar kind of hare is commemorated by the ancients as found in
Elymœa. It is said to have been little inferior in size to the fox, to
have been elongated and slender in shape, and blackish in colour, with
a long white tip at the end of the tail. It is remarked by the same
writer that the scent left by leverets on the ground is stronger and
more pungent than that of the grown hare, so that the dogs become
furious on getting wind of it.[751]
Footnote 751:
Poll. v. 74.
From the chase of the hare and rabbit we pass on to that of the fawn
and the stag, in which they made use of Indian dogs,[752] animals of
great strength, size, speed, and courage. Fawns[753] were hunted in
spring, the season of their birth. The first step was for the
sportsman to beat up the woods to discover where the deer were
numerous; and having found a proper place he returned thither before
day, armed with javelins, and accompanied by a game-keeper with a pack
of hounds. The dogs were kept in leash afar off, lest they should give
tongue at the sight of the deer. He himself took his station on the
look-out. At break of day[754] the does, with their yellowish and
richly-speckled skins, were seen issuing from the thickets, followed
by their still more delicately-spotted fawns, which they led to the
places[755] where they usually suckled them, while the stags stationed
themselves at a distance, as an advanced guard, to defend them from
all intruders. The graceful creatures then lay down to perform their
matronly office, looking round watchfully the while to observe whether
they were discovered. This pleasing task completed, they, like the
stags, posted themselves in a circle about their fawns to protect
them. Sportsmen have no sentiment. At the very moment when this most
beautiful exhibition of mute affection would have warmed with sympathy
the heart of the philosopher or the poet, the dogs were let loose,
while their master and his companions, armed with javelins, closed
upon the game. The fawn itself, unless chilled and drenched by the
dew—in which case it frisked about—would remain still in its place and
be taken. But on hearing its cries the doe rushed forward to deliver
it, and was smitten down by the javelins or torn to pieces by the
dogs. The chase of the female elephant in Africa exhibits the same
traits of affection in the brute and ferocity in man. In this case the
young will fight for his mother, or the mother for her young till
death.
Footnote 752:
Xen. Cyneg. ix. 1.
Footnote 753:
The terms by which, in our old hunting vocabulary, the stag was
known at the different periods of his life are as follow:—1. a fawn;
2. a pricket; 3. a sourell; 4. a soure; 5. a buck of the first head;
6. a buck. Wase. Pref. to Gratius, p. 12.
Footnote 754:
Xen. Cyneg. ix. 3.
Footnote 755:
That is on the ὀργάδες or lawns, which, according to Pollux they
chiefly frequented, v. 15. Cf. Schneid. ad Xen. Cyneg. ix. § 1.
When the fawn had attained any considerable size, and begun to feed
among the herd, the chase of it became more arduous. The fidelity of
instinctive love, opposed to human sagacity, exhibited all its force.
Closing round their young and drawing up in front of them, the stags,
emboldened by affection, trampled the dogs under their feet,
frequently to death, unless the huntsman, dashing into the midst of
them, could succeed in detaching a single animal from the herd. But,
supposing this done, the hounds at first remained far behind the fawn,
which, terrified at finding itself alone, bounded along with
incredible velocity, though, its strength soon failing, it in the end
fell a prey to the hunter.
The object of the ancients, however, in the chase not being simple
sport, but to obtain possession by the shortest method possible of the
game, they set snares in the narrows of the mountains, around the
meadows, near the streams and freshes, and in the thickets—wherever,
in short, stags could be taken. Pitfalls, too, were dug, as in Africa
for the lion,[756] and most of those stratagems resorted to which the
Nubians and Egyptian Arabs put in practice against the gazelle. It was
in fact common to erect, with rough stones or wood, a sort of skreen,
perhaps semicircular, like those behind which the hunters of the
desert hide, to conceal themselves when lying in wait for the
game.[757]
Footnote 756:
Xen. Cyneg. ix. 14. sqq.—Ælian describes another method of taking
these animals not much practised by modern sportsmen; that is to say
by the charms of music, as the Egyptian Psylli captured serpents.—De
Nat. Anim. xii. 46.
Footnote 757:
Poll. v. 36.
For the chase of the wild boar,[758] at once a manly and a useful
sport, somewhat complicated preparations were necessary. In this the
dogs of India, of Crete, of Locris, of Sparta, hunted side by side,
and the sportsman took the field armed with strong nets, javelins,
hunting poles, and snares. The boar-spears of the ancients[759] were
most carefully fashioned, with a broad sharp head and handle of tough
wood. So likewise were their hunting-poles armed with long iron
points, fixed in brazen sockets, with a shaft of service wood.
Footsnares of great strength were set at intervals. This was not the
sport of a solitary hunter. They went out in considerable numbers, and
kept close together, finding still, for lack of fire-arms, no small
difficulty in coping with the foe. On reaching the spot where they
supposed the hog to be ensconced, the dogs were all led carefully in
leash with the exception of one Spartan hound, which was let loose and
accompanied in all his movements. When he appeared to have found the
track, they followed him, and he thus took the lead in the chase.
Numerous signs also directed the movements of the hunter; in soft
places the track, broken branches in thickets, and in forests the
wounds on the bark of trees, given by the boar in sharpening his tusks
as he passed.[760]
Footnote 758:
Cf. Aristoph. Vesp. i. 202. seq. Xen. Cyrop. i. 6. 28.
Footnote 759:
Xen. Cyneg. x. 3.
Footnote 760:
The huntsmen give judgment of the wild boar by the print of his
foot, by his rooting; a wild swine roots deeper than our ordinary
hogs, because its snout is longer, and when he comes into a
corn-field, as the Calydonian boar in Ovid, turns up one continued
furrow, &c.—Wase, Illustrations, V. p. 64.
Generally the traces were found leading to some sheltered nook, warm
in winter, in summer cool, where the boar made his lair. On
discovering him the dog gave tongue, but the animal in general refused
to rise. The hound was then withdrawn and put in leash with the
others, and every opening, save one, leading to the place, closed with
nets, the upper ends of which were passed over the forks of trees. The
nets were hung so as to belly outwards, and carefully disposed so that
they could be seen through. Bushes cut hastily supported them on
either side, and closed every aperture through which the game could
attempt to force a way. This done the hounds were all slipped, and the
hunters, armed with pikes and spears, entered the netted enclosure.
One of the boldest and most experienced led the dogs; the others
followed at intervals, leaving an ample space between them for the
boar, which if closely hemmed in might have inflicted on his opponents
the fate of Adonis. Presently the hounds sprang all at once upon the
game, which rising in sudden alarm tossed the first it encountered
into the air, and breaking through the pack made away towards the
nets, followed by men and dogs in full cry. On finding the
unaccustomed opposition, he would, if running down hill, plunge right
forward to force his way through; if in a plain he would stand still,
glaring fiercely around.
The dogs, however, soon closed upon his track, while the hunters
galled him with javelins and stones, approaching closer and closer
till he was driven by his own impetuosity into the nets. Upon this the
most daring of his pursuers drew near, pike in hand, and sought to put
an end to the contest by piercing him in the head. Sometimes,
notwithstanding all they could do, instead of plunging into the toils
he would turn upon them; in which case some dexterous sportsman, armed
with spear or pike, usually presented himself to receive his charge
with one foot advanced, impelling the weapon with the right hand,
directing it with the left. Instead, however, of rushing on at once
the hog would perhaps pause a moment to reconnoitre, when it behoved
his antagonist carefully to mark every movement of his head or glance
of his eye.[761] For in the very moment that a blow was aimed at him,
he would sometimes dash the spear aside with tusk or snout, and the
next moment be upon his enemy, whose only chance of safety now
consisted in throwing himself instantaneously on his face, and holding
fast by whatever he could grasp, since, the tusks of the boar curving
upwards, he found it difficult to gore his enemy thus lying, and
failing to turn him over would in his fury trample on him. A second
hunter now rushed forward to deliver his companion, and usually drew
off the hog by dexterous attacks in flank. The fallen sportsman,
recovering at the same time his feet and his spear, must by the laws
of the chase return to the combat, and could only secure his
reputation by immolating his foe. By this time, indeed, the task had
generally become easier; for, rendered reckless by fury, he would
throw himself impetuously on their pikes, which, but for the
protecting guards at the head, would have gone through him handle and
all. His whole frame now appeared to be kindled with rage, his blood
boiling, his eyes flashing, and his tusks so nearly on fire that if
brought in contact with hair at the moment of death, they would
frizzle it like a red-hot iron.[762]
Footnote 761:
Cf. Poll. v. 23. sqq.
Footnote 762:
Οὕτω δὲ πολλὴ ἡ δυναμίς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ, ὥστε καὶ, ἃ οὐκ ἂν οἴοιτό τις,
πρόσεστιν αὐτῷ· τεθνεῶτος γὰρ εὐθὺς ἐάν τις ἐπὶ τὸν ὀδόντα ἐπιθῇ
τρίχας, συντρέχουσιν· οὑτως εἰσὶ θερμοὶ· ζῶντι δὲ διάπυροι, ὅταν
ἐρεθίζηται· οὐ γὰρ ἂν τῶν κυνῶν, ἁμαρτάνων τῇ πληγῄ τοῦ σώματος,
ἄκρα τὰ τριχώματα περιεπίμπρα.—Xen. Cyneg. x. 17. Cf. Poll. v. 80.
Oppian. Venat. iii. 379. seq. Scalig. Poët. v. 14. p. 698.
Of the hunting of the bear[763] the ancients have left us no exact
description. As this animal abounded, however, in most parts of
Greece, where it was extremely troublesome and destructive,
particularly to the fruit-trees, various expedients were hit upon for
taking and destroying it. Sometimes it was pursued as game and brought
down by the bow; but the common method appears to have been to make
use of traps and snares. They dug, for example, a deep trench round
one of those trees in the fruit of which the bear particularly
delighted, and covering it with reeds or brittle branches, they
sprinkled thereon a thin layer of earth, and concealed the whole
apparatus with fresh grass. The bear, proceeding as usual towards the
tree on his thievish errand, broke in the roof of the pit with his
weight, and was caught. Even in the most civilised times this animal
had not been wholly extirpated from Attica,[764] but, as well as the
boar, was found on Mount Parnes. In Laconia also, through the whole
range of Taygetos, it abounded, together with hogs, deer, and wild
goats. Bruin was sacrificed in Achaia to Artemis Laphria. In Thrace
the white bear was found.[765]
Footnote 763:
Pausanias mentions the bear as an inhabitant of Pendeli. “About
three years since one was shot in the mountains of Parnassos, and
brought to Aracooa. The lynx, the wild cat, the wild boar, the wild
goat, the stag, the roebuck, the badger, the martin, and squirrel
inhabit the steeper rocks of Parnassos, and the thick pine forests
above Callidia. The rough mountains about Marathon are frequented by
moles, foxes, and jackals; weasels are sometimes taken in the
villages and out-houses; hares are too numerous to be
particularised.” Sibthorp in Walp. Mem. i. 73.
Footnote 764:
Paus. i. 32. 1.
Footnote 765:
Paus. iii. 20. 4. vii. 18. 13. viii. 17. 3.
Respecting the habits of the Grecian bear the ancients have left us
some few facts which may be worth repeating. When it comes forth from
the den,[766] where it has passed the winter, it is said to chew bits
of wood, and to feed on snake-weed, wake-robin, or cuckoo-pint (arum
maculatum[767]), which has a purgative power. These operations
performed, its ravenous appetites immediately awake, and it commences
its devastations in the farm-yard, the orchard and the apiary.
Delighting greatly in honey it attacks and overthrows the hives which
it tears to pieces in order to devour the combs, though Pliny[768]
adduces another reason for this fact, exceedingly characteristic of
that writer. He says that the bear, after his winter sleep, finding
his eyes dim and his head heavy, applies to the bees as to skilful
oculists, that in revenge for robbing them of their honey, sting him
angrily about the face, which by letting much blood relieves him at
once from his ophthalmia and his headache. The bear, it is well known,
is omnivorous like man. He accordingly plunders the bean-fields, and
feeds on every kind of pulse. In robbing orchards,[769] too, his
courage and ability are great, being as I have said as complete an
adept as a school-boy in climbing trees, out of which when he has
satisfied himself he descends, like the aforesaid mischievous beast,
feet foremost. When none of the delicacies above enumerated was within
his reach, the bear would feed on ants, crabs, or any kind of vermin,
but preferred of course the flesh of the larger animals, such as the
stag, the wild boar, and the bull. His mode of taking his prey was
curious. Upon the boar and stag he probably dropped from his hiding
place in the trees, but the stratagem by which he usually got the bull
into his power was this.[770] Throwing himself on the ground directly
in his way he provoked the lord of the herd to gore him, upon which,
seizing his horns, and fastening ravenously upon his shoulder, he
brought him to the ground, where he fed upon his carcass at leisure.
When flying from the more terrible face of man, the female usually
drove her young before her, or taking them up in her mouth or on her
back, she would endeavour to escape with them into the trees.[771]
Footnote 766:
Aristot. Hist. Anim. ix. 6. viii. 17. vi. 30. Ælian de Nat. Anim.
vi. 3. Cf. Buffon, Hist. Nat. t. viii. p. 27.
Footnote 767:
This now we find is the food of swine. “Leaving Pyrgo (in Bœotia),
we advanced along the plain to Eremo Castro; in our road we observed
droves of pigs tearing up the ground for the roots of the
cuckow-pint (arum maculatum) which was called by the swineherds
δρακοντίο.”—Sibth. in Walp. i. 65.
Footnote 768:
Nat. Hist. viii. 54.
Footnote 769:
Aristot. Hist. Anim. viii. 5.
Footnote 770:
Ælian. de Nat. Anim. vi. 6. Aristot. ut sup.
Footnote 771:
Aristot. Hist. Anim. ix. 6. Ælian. de Nat. Anim. vi. 6.
As the lion was not found in Greece in the civilised periods of its
history, the chase of it cannot be said to have formed an Hellenic
amusement.[772] They might, however, by proceeding a little beyond the
borders in their colonies of Thrace and Asia Minor, on Mount Pangæos,
on the Mysian Olympos, and in Syria, enjoy this dangerous pastime if
they desired it. In all those countries, however, both the lion,[773]
the panther, the pard, the lynx, and other animals of this destructive
class had been confined to the mountains, where, as an acute and
experienced observer has remarked, they lose much of their force and
ferocity. The expression made use of by Xenophon proves in fact that
the dread of man had driven them almost into inaccessible fastnesses,
whither they could not be pursued by the hunter, so that they were
chiefly taken in their descent to the lowlands by poisoning, with
aconite,[774] the waters or the baits which they set for them:
sometimes, indeed, when want compelled them into the plains, parties
of hunters on horseback, and armed to the teeth, would assault and
destroy them, not without imminent peril. Pitfalls, too, of ingenious
construction were dug for them, having an earthen pillar in the centre
on which a goat was tied.[775] The encircling moat, like that above
described, destined for the bear, was concealed by a covering of
slender bushes which, breaking under them, they were precipitated to
the bottom and there killed. The wolf, though a sacred animal[776] in
Attica, had by the laws a price set upon his head, at which
Menage[777] wonders, though the Egyptians also slaughtered their
sacred crocodiles, when they exceeded a certain size.
Footnote 772:
Xen. Cyneg. xi. 1.
Footnote 773:
Pollux (v. 14.) observes that in his time lions were chiefly found
in mountainous tracts as wild boars were in marshes and pardales in
the depths of the woods.
Footnote 774:
Xen. Cyneg. xi. 2. Poll. v. 82. Plin. viii. 27. Dioscor. iv. 77.
Foxes were supposed to be killed by baits steeped in the juice of
bitter almonds (Id. i. 176); wolves, panthers, dogs, &c. by
dog’s-bane.—Id. iv. 81.
Footnote 775:
Oppian. de Venat. iv. 85. sqq.
Footnote 776:
Cf. Hesych. v. Λυκαβ.
Footnote 777:
Ad D. Laert. p. 20. b. c. Meurs. Solon, c. 19.
In the chase of the wild goat the bow, among the mountains of Crete,
was made use of, and so skilful as marksmen were the Cretans[778] that
from the depths of the valleys they would bring down their game from
the pinnacles of the loftiest cliffs.[779] They were fabled to have
been taught the art of hunting by the Curetes, and, practising it
constantly in steep and difficult places, they acquired great
suppleness and agility of body, and were exceedingly swift of
foot.[780]
Footnote 778:
The very name of the Cretans has by some been derived from the use
of the bow. Κρῆτες, παρὰ τὸ ἐπὶ κέρασι βιοτεύειν· κυνηγετικοὶ γάρ.
Etym. Mag. 537. 54. See in Homer a description of the bow of
Pandaros where we are told it was made from the horns of a wild
goat.—Il. δ. 105. sqq.
Footnote 779:
Ælian. Var. Hist. i. 10. On the cothurnos which these hunters wore,
see Spanheim ad Callim. in Dian. 16. p. 142. sqq. Bœttig. Les
Furies, p. 37. The high half-boot worn by Artemis in the chase is
represented in Mus. Chiaramon. pl. 18.
Footnote 780:
Athen. xii. 28. Meurs. Cret. p. 177.
The Macedonians, too, were both practised and enthusiastic sportsmen,
and delighted in the amusement even whilst engaged in their most
toilsome expeditions. Thus during the campaigns of Alexander in Asia,
we find the generals Leonatos and Menelaos or Philotas[781] carrying
about among their baggage, linen skreens, ten or twelve miles in
length, which during their halts they caused to be stretched round a
given district, where they hunted as in a park. An anecdote is related
strikingly illustrating the high estimation in which the chase was
held at the court and among the nobles of Macedonia, where it was
customary for the son to sit upright on a chair at his father’s table
and not to recline among the guests until he had slain a wild boar out
of the toils. Cassander, son of Antipater, continued, it is said,[782]
up to his thirty-fifth year bolt upright at the regal board, because,
though a brave man and a skilful hunter, fortune had constantly denied
him the pleasure of despatching the hog after the prescribed fashion.
Footnote 781:
Athen. xii. 55. Plut. Alex. § 40. See in Wase’s Illustrations, p.
68. an account of the Polish royal hunts in which, on a smaller
scale, the same practice prevailed.
Footnote 782:
Athen. i. 31.
There is one department of the chase, and that perhaps the most
curious and interesting, which was not practised by the Greeks of
classical times, though it cannot be said to have been unknown to
them; I mean falconry, described by several ancient writers as it was
pursued in India and in Thrace. If I give a short description of it,
therefore, it must be regarded as a digression introduced for the
purpose of completing, as far as possible, the circle of ancient
amusements. Ctesias,[783] who was contemporary with Socrates, and
published his Indian history four hundred years before Christ, seems
to be the oldest writer by whom falconry is mentioned. He tells us
that among the Hindùs hares and foxes were hunted with kites, ravens,
and eagles, and minutely describes the way in which the birds were
broken in. Having been caught while young, they were first taught to
fly at tame hares and foxes in the following manner. The animals with
pieces of flesh tied to them were started in sight of the falcons,
which were immediately let loose and sent in pursuit. When they caught
and brought back the game the flesh was given them as their reward,
and by this bait and allurement they were encouraged to persevere.
When sufficiently trained, they were taken to the mountains and flown
against wild hares and foxes. The passion for falconry is still kept
alive in the East, particularly in Persia, where the shâh-baz, or
royal falcon, is flown against hares and antelopes, occasionally
invested with leathers, which protect him from being torn
asunder.[784] But the most daring and dangerous service in which
falcons have ever been employed is the chase of the wild horse by the
Turcomâns of Khiva on the eastern shores of the Caspian.[785] A more
detailed description of ancient falconry than that given by Ctesias is
found in a work attributed to Aristotle.[786] It is said, observes
this writer, that the youth of Thrace, who were addicted to hunting,
pursued their game by the assistance of hawks. On arriving upon the
ground, the falcon, which had evidently been trained for the purpose,
obeyed the calls of the sportsmen and chased the birds into the
thickets, where they were knocked down with hunting-poles and taken.
Even when the falcons themselves captured the game, they brought it to
the hunters, who as in modern times gave them, as a reward, some
portion of the animal.
Footnote 783:
Ap. Ælian. de Nat. Anim. iv. 26.
Footnote 784:
Sir John Malcolm’s Sketches of Persia.
Footnote 785:
Anthony Jenkinson in Hackluyt, v. i. p. 368.
Footnote 786:
De Mirab. Auscult. 128. Beckm. Hist. of Discov. and Inven. i. p.
321.
In their fowling they made use of great cruelty:—Pigeons and
turtle-doves were commonly blinded, to be used as decoys, and in this
condition would sometimes live eight years.[787] Partridges were
employed for the same purpose in a different manner. The male bird
having been tamed was put out in the neighbourhood of a covey, upon
which the boldest of the wild birds came forward to fight him, and was
secured with the net. The challenge was usually accepted by every male
bird in the covey until one after another they were all taken. When
the female was employed she drew them successively to the nets by her
call.[788] The first that is deluded is generally the principal cock
in the covey, which the others collecting together seek to drive away.
To elude their pursuit the leader sometimes drew near the decoy in
silence, that he might not have to contend with the other males. Not
unfrequently they would descend and allow themselves at such times to
be caught on the roofs of the houses.[789]
Footnote 787:
Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 8. Xenoph. Cyrop. i. 6. 39. has introduced
many particulars respecting fowling.
Footnote 788:
Cf. Xen. Memorab. ii. 1. 4. Their nets were denominated νεφέλαι,
Schol. Aristoph. Av. 194. Cf. Schol. Pac. 1144. The man who watched
the nets bore the name of λινόπτης.—Aristot. ap. id. ibid.
Footnote 789:
Athen. ix. 42.
The Greeks established at Alexandria had, according to Athenæus, who
was a native of Egypt, a kind of chase peculiar to themselves, viz.
that of the horned owl. The sophist of Naucratis has indeed been
suspected of confounding the ὠτὸς with the ὠτὶς, that is, the owl with
the bustard;[790] but it having been in his power to examine what he
relates, I shall lay his account before the reader, who will judge for
himself. This bird, it is said, is found in great numbers in the
desert near Alexandria, (though I myself saw none there,) and is as
much given to mimicry as a monkey. Above all things he is ambitious of
imitating man, and, as far as possible, will do whatever he sees done
by the fowler. Aware of his propensity in this way, these gentlemen,
when desirous of taking an owl, carried along with them into the
desert a thick tenacious glue, with which on coming within eyeshot of
the Otos they affected to anoint their eyes. Then laying down the
glue-pot on the sand they retreated to some hollow for concealment.
Upon this the owl having watchfully observed their movements,
approached, and covering his eyes with the treacherous ointment was
blinded and taken.
Footnote 790:
Alexand. Myndius calls it the λαγωδίας in which case it may probably
mean the _Ptarmigan_.
Another mode of catching this bird also prevailed. It having been
discovered that he was as partial as the Bedouin Arab to the company
of a horse, the fowlers covered themselves with horses’ skins, and in
this disguise approaching the flock were enabled to catch as many as
they pleased. A third method of taking the Otos was one which exposed
the unfortunate bird to the ridicule of the comic poets. The fowlers
setting out upon the chase in pairs, separated at coming in sight of
the game. One of the two then stepped out in front of the game and
commenced a jig, upon which the thoughtless mimic immediately did the
same, beating exact time with his feet, and keeping his eye fixed upon
his wily teacher. While the merry victim was thus engaged, capering,
springing, and pirouetting like a feathered Taglioni, the other
bird-catcher approached from behind and seized him by the neck.
The same story is related by other writers of the Scops or
mocking-owl, in imitation of whose movements, the ancients had a
celebrated dance.[791]
Footnote 791:
Athen. ix. 44. seq. Arist. Hist. Anim. viii. 12 ad fin.
Quails in certain seasons of the year frequent Greece in vast numbers,
as they do Egypt and Southern Italy.[792] It has been supposed that
the island of Delos received the name of Ortygia from the quails
(ὄρτυγες), which alighted on it in great numbers during their
migration towards the north. They were likewise plentiful in
Phœnicia,[793] where they sacrificed them to Heracles. Numerous
contrivances were resorted to for catching this bird. During pairing
time it was taken as follows: mirrors were set up in the fields with
snares in front of them, and the quail running towards the imaginary
bird was there entrapped. Clearchos of Soli describes a curious mode
of capturing jackdaws. In places frequented by those birds they used,
he says, to lay broad vessels filled to the brim with oil. Presently
the jackdaws, curious and prying in their temper, would alight on the
edges, and, being vastly pleased with the reflection of their own
beauty, would chuckle over it and clap their wings, till becoming
saturated with oil the feathers stuck together and they could no
longer fly.
Footnote 792:
They are taken in so great numbers in the island of Capri that they
constitute the chief source of revenue to the bishop of that island.
Footnote 793:
Phanodem. l. iii. ap. Ath. ix. 47.