GLEANINGS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE 
 
 ANCIENTS.
 
 GLEANINGS 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF 
 THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 REV. M. G. WATKINS, M.A. 
 
 'A\\' ov fitVTOi ffoi, f/v S' tyw, 'AXicn'ou ye airoXoyov epuj. 
 
 Platonis Kespublica^ x. 614, 
 
 LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK, 
 
 2, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. 
 
 1885.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER ^ PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION - vii-xiii 
 
 I. A HOMERIC BESTIARY - - I 
 
 II. GREEK AND ROMAN DOGS - - 2O 
 
 III. ANTIQUARIAN NOTES ON THE BRITISH DOG - - 3 1 
 
 IV. THE CAT - 53 
 
 V. OWLS - - 68 
 
 VI. PYGMIES - - 80 
 
 VII. ELEPHANTS - 88 
 
 VIII. THE HORSE - IO3 
 
 IX. GARDENS- - 125 
 
 X. HUNTING AMONG THE ANCIENTS - - 142 
 
 XI. THE ROMANS AS ACCLIMATIZERS IN BRITAIN - 156 
 
 XII. VIRGIL AS AN ORNITHOLOGIST - - IJ2 
 
 XIII. ROSES - - 189 
 
 XIV. WOLVES - - 201 
 
 XV. ANCIENT FISH- LORE - 213 
 
 XVI. MYTHICAL ANIMALS - 228 
 
 XVII. OYSTERS AND PEARLS - - 244
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 [HESE chapters, on a few of the curio- 
 fities connected with the natural 
 hiftory of the ancients, are in fome 
 refpects a faithful reflection of that 
 knowledge. They are fragmentary, and greatly 
 indebted to the labours of previous workers. But 
 they have not been put together without much 
 trouble and not a little honeft, diligent refearch ; 
 my object being to collect fome of the more inte- 
 refting facts bearing upon ten or a dozen different 
 fubjects, rather than to write a complete natural 
 hiftory of the ancients. I have generally traced 
 thefe curious beliefs through their mediaeval modi- 
 fications ; partly that the reader might be led to 
 contraft them with the exacter knowledge of the 
 prefent day, partly in order to mew their growth 
 from, in fome cafes, pre-hiftoric and geological 
 times. 
 
 No one is more aware of the incompletenefs of 
 thefe EfTays, yet I venture to hope that fome may
 
 viii Introduftion. 
 
 find in reading them a little of the fame pleafure 
 which I have experienced while fearching for the 
 facts they contain among the lefs frequently ex- 
 plored by-paths of claflical literature. They are, at 
 all events, a contribution to a fafcinating ftudy 
 fpeculations rendered venerable by their antiquity, 
 rather than by the credit due to the writers who 
 are here laid under contribution. I would fain 
 fhelter, therefore, under Lord Bacon's mantle : 
 "Summae pufillanimitatis eft auctoribus infinita 
 tribuere, auctori autem auctorum, atque adeo 
 omnis auctoritatis, tempori, jus fuum denegare. 
 Rede enim veritas temporis filia dicitur non 
 auctoritatis." 1 
 
 He who has been accuftomed to teft modern 
 biological problems by means of the inductive 
 philofophy, is ftruck with amazement when he 
 firft turns to the natural hiftory of the ancients. 
 There are many regular writers of it ; many 
 fcattered allufions to and accounts of animal life 
 in the poets. But all the natural hiftory of the 
 ancients labours under the fame faults, faults 
 infeparable, however, from the infancy of the 
 race an inability to difcriminate with any accu- 
 racy, great ignorance of anatomy and phyfiology, 
 and a habit of accepting ftatements on infufficient 
 evidence. The writers of ancient natural hiftory 
 were, to ufe a modern phrafe of pregnant meaning, 
 wholly uncritical. Poetry and folk-lore were 
 confuted with exact fcience. Like children, they 
 were quick to grafp at marvels, to embrace a 
 
 1 "Nov. Organum," i. 84..
 
 Introduction. ix 
 
 narrative eagerly the more marvellous that it was. 
 Anything in the nature of a traveller's ftory they 
 welcomed as readily as we mould diftruft it. 
 " Thus the crocodile from an egg growing up to 
 an exceeding magnitude, common conceit and 
 divers writers deliver, it hath no period of en- 
 creafe, but groweth as long as it liveth. And thus, 
 in brief, in moft apprehenfions the conceits of 
 men extend the confiderations of things, and 
 dilate their notions beyond the propriety of their 
 natures." (Sir T. Browne, " Vulgar Errors," 
 vii. 15.) 
 
 It has often been queftioned whether Hero- 
 dotus was really impofed upon by the Egyptian 
 priefts or not. In either cafe the refult, fo far as 
 he is concerned, is the fame. Many of the 
 marvels in the " Odyffey " are exaggerations and 
 diftortions of merchants' and failors' narratives. 
 While they accepted all that was told them with- 
 out much queftioning or hefitation, the ancient 
 writers of natural hi ftory never dreamt of tefting 
 any conclufion by obfervation, much more by ex- 
 periment. ' Pliny relates a thoufand marvels which 
 he might have omitted or modified had he taken 
 the trouble to confult nature. But a naturalift, 
 in his acceptation of the term, meant little more 
 than a compiler and tranfcriber. From this mif- 
 taken view, natural hiftorians among the ancients 
 were quick to follow previous writers, and it is 
 not furprifmg to find blunders and mifconceptions 
 thus repeated over and over again. No mufeums 
 or collections enabled them to correct wrong im-
 
 x Introduction. 
 
 preflions. Later hiftorians were willing to believe 
 the marvels fet forth by their predeceflbrs, and, 
 fo long as they did not deem it a part of their 
 duty to make original inquiries, it was inevitable 
 that hippogryphs, harpies, chimasras, and many 
 more fabulous monfters were handed on from 
 generation to generation as creatures which pof- 
 feffed a real exiftence. Readers, for their part, 
 were glad to believe all that was ftriking and awe- 
 infpiring. They, no more than authors, dreamt 
 of weighing authorities. 
 
 Turning to Greek writers or retailers of natural 
 hiftory, Homer and Hefiod alluded to many fables, 
 and mentioned many plants and animals in words 
 which fucceeding Greek writers feized upon and 
 amplified. Hippocrates, B.C. 460, may be termed 
 the firft regular writer of natural hiftory, although 
 much has been attributed to him which belongs to 
 writers of the fame name. Ariftotle, B.C. 356, is 
 fuperior to all other Greek writers in copioufnefs 
 and method. Several of his treatifes on natural 
 hiftory have been loft, but what remains gives a 
 high idea of his fagacity. His royal pupil Alex- 
 ander is faid to have fent him fpecimens from the 
 Eaft. Theophraftus, B.C. 322, has left behind 
 valuable writings on botany. Strabo, B.C. 30, is 
 ufeful for geography. Ctefias, who was a con- 
 temporary of Herodotus, wrote on the produces 
 of Perfia and India. Xenophon's work on the 
 chafe was fupplemented by Arrian's book at the 
 beginning of the fecond century after Chrift. 
 Materia medica was handled about the fame time
 
 Introduction. xi 
 
 by Diofcorides. Paufanias, A.D. 160, touches on 
 much that is of phyfical and economical intereft 
 in his " Itinerary of Greece." The " Onomafticon" 
 of Pollux, a Greek fophift and grammarian, A.D. 
 183, treats in ten books of the meals, hunting, 
 animals, etc., of the ancients. Oppian and jElian, 
 in the beginning of the third Chriftian century, are 
 of confiderable intereft to the ftudent of natural 
 hiftory. The former is the author of a long poem 
 on " Fim and Fifhing," and another on " Hunting 
 and Dogs," both of which difplay the characteriftic 
 want of accuracy of the ancient zoological writers. 
 Among other works, ^lian wrote feventeen books 
 " De Animalium Natura." Thefe have come down 
 to us. They are feemingly thrown together with- 
 out any definite arrangement, and abound in 
 hearfay and marvellous anecdotes. Of Stobasus, 
 beyond the facl: that he was born at Stobi, in 
 Macedonia, little is known. Even the time at 
 which he lived is uncertain. He and Photius, 
 however, have refcued for us numerous interefting 
 details of Greek life and many extracts from earlier 
 writers. Among thefe authors, then, the ftudent 
 of Greek natural hiftory has to quarry. 
 
 In the century before our Lord, Caefar and 
 Varro among Latin authors claim attention. The 
 former contains much that is valuable, efpecially 
 in relation to Gaul and Britain ; the latter, of 
 large and varied erudition, wrote no fewer than 
 490 books. His three books " De Re Ruftica " 
 are the moft important treatifes extant upon 
 ancient agriculture. Book I. treats of farms and
 
 xii Introduttwn. 
 
 lands ; Book II. of the management of cattle ; 
 Book III. of the fmaller animals of a farm hares, 
 dormice, etc. The poem (afcribed to Ovid) on fifh- 
 ing (" Halieuticon"), is merely a fragment, yet con- 
 tains many fpirited lines, and the wiles of the lupus 
 to efcape from the hook as there defcribed are the 
 fame which have frequently been experienced by the 
 modern falmon and trout fifher, when the fifh 
 
 " in auras 
 Emicat, atque dolos faltu deludit inultus." 
 
 The vaft compilations of Pliny, A.D. 79, avow- 
 edly intended for a book of reference, have proved 
 a mine of wealth to all fucceeding writers on 
 natural hiftory. They are very uncritical ; Pliny's 
 chief anxiety apparently having been that no mo- 
 ment mould be wafted, and that everything which 
 he heard mould at once be reduced to writing. 
 Nemefianus wrote on hunting, fiming, and navi- 
 gation. Some three hundred lines only of his 
 poem on the firft of thefe fubjects have been pre- 
 ferved. Much that is interesting may be found 
 in Martial's " Epigrams." Mr. Simcox fpeaks of 
 the " carefling defcriptions " of Apuleius, A.D. 163 ; 
 a few pearls may be collected from the depths 
 of his rhetorical fea. Juvenal here and there, in 
 his gloomy pictures of Roman fociety, throws in 
 a brighter tint which he has felected from what 
 may be called the natural hiftory of his day. All 
 fcholarly fifhermen know that charming idyll of 
 Aufonius on the Mofelle. He was evidently an 
 angler, to judge from the fpirited and life-like de- 
 fcriptions of fifh and fifhing which he introduces.
 
 Introduction. xiii 
 
 Befides thefe authors, the ordinary poets have 
 been freely laid under contribution in the follow- 
 ing pages. They form a fample of the wealth of 
 material which yet remains for zoologifts in the 
 writers of Greece and Rome. 
 
 For much of this brief account of Latin authors 
 I am indebted to Mr. Simcox's " Hiftory of Latin 
 Literature " (Longmans). 
 
 M. G. W.
 
 GLEANINGS FROM THE NATURAL 
 HISTORY OF THE ANCIENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A HOMERIC BESTIARY. 
 
 JN fpite of the attention which has of 
 late years been devoted to Homer, 
 very little care has been expended on 
 the plants and creatures which he 
 introduces in his two immortal poems, and yet 
 the fubjecl: is replete with intereft. From the 
 manner in which he notices the moft ftriking 
 features of the flora of Greece, or the remarks 
 which he makes on animated nature, fomething of 
 the man's perfonality and taftes might, it is only 
 reafonable to fuppofe, be inferred. The attempt 
 to recover fpecial traits of the poet by this method, 
 however, fails, and we are reduced, did we only 
 judge by this line of argument, to fall back upon 
 the view of thofe critics who hold that the " Iliad " 
 and " Odyfley " were fimply a floating collection of
 
 2 Gleanings from the 
 
 ballads put together by Peififtratus, while no 
 actual Homer ever exifted ; or, at all events, that 
 he never wrote the fragmentary verfes which were 
 thus pieced together. Interefting queftions alfo 
 arife refpecting the conformity of the Homeric 
 fauna and flora with the prefent ftate of Greece ; 
 what animals or birds have become extinct or 
 diminimed in numbers ; whether any remains of 
 the prehiftoric condition of the country are apparent 
 in the poems and the like. Unluckily the evidence 
 for thefe facts within the Homeric poems is very 
 fragmentary, and there is an utter want of authori- 
 ties with which to compare their ftatements until 
 the time of Herodotus is reached. A fplendid 
 proceflion indeed of animals fet in a beautiful 
 landfcape is prefented to our eyes in Homer, much 
 as the vifitor to an Egyptian temple gazes at the 
 painted birds, beafts, and trees on its walls. But 
 the mind muft for the moft part deal with thefe 
 reprefentations as if ifolated from all further know- 
 ledge of them. In too many cafes, too, Homer 
 only introduces his birds and animals by way of 
 fimile. They are not defcribed as a natural 
 hiftorian would depict them ; they are hinted at and 
 alluded to. So that the ftudent of Homer's 
 natural hiftory finds himfelf baffled on every fide. 
 
 Yet a few curious facts emerge on careful in- 
 veftigation. The predominance of the lion with 
 Homer in fimiles ferves to mow that this animal 
 was familiarly known in Europe in his time. For 
 many centuries there have been no lions in this 
 continent. The three chief varieties of the animal
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 3 
 
 at prefent are the Barbary, Senegal, and Perfian 
 lion. The disappearance of the lion before 
 civilized life and agriculture is only fecond to that 
 of the elephant. Lions have died out in Egypt, 
 Syria, and Paleftine as well as in our continent, 
 and are being driven farther and farther into the 
 tracklefs wilds of South Africa as population 
 fpreads up the river valleys, and grafly dopes are 
 enclofed for farms. Herodotus tells us that lions 
 abounded on the rocky portions of Macedonia 
 and Theflaly. They attacked the baggage animals 
 of Xerxes on his march through thefe diftricts into 
 Greece, and fell fpecially upon the camels. The 
 hiftorian naively wonders at them for abandoning 
 their ordinary habits of preying on horfes, oxen, 
 and men to attack camels, a creature which they 
 could never before have feen. He gives a moft 
 valuable notice, too, of the region haunted by 
 thefe lions, which, it feems, was from the river* 
 Achelous (the prefent Afpro Potamo) in the weft 
 to the Neftus or Mefto in the eaft, the boundary 
 bet"" .in Thrace and Macedonia. 1 As fhowing 
 the tendency of the ancient natural hiftorians to 
 copy one another, it is worth remarking that 
 Ariftotle and Pliny, when treating of lions, give 
 the fame limits for them. Cybele's chariot was 
 reprefented as drawn by lions ; another teftimony 
 that the early Greeks knew the character of the 
 localities frequented by thefe animals. Of Arif- 
 totle's two kind of lions, the thicker and more 
 hairy variety feems to refer to the ordinary 
 
 1 Bk. vii. 125, 126.
 
 4 Gleanings from the 
 
 African lion with fine flowing mane ; the other, 
 which he defcribes as longer in fhape and more 
 ftraight-haired, might mean what is now known 
 as the manelefs lion of Gujerat. 1 An amufmg 
 chapter of Aulus Gellius 2 arraigns Herodotus, 
 " the moft noble of hiftorians," for ftating that the 
 lionefs only brings forth once during her life, and 
 then only one cub, giving the marvellous reafon 
 which may be found in the third Book of Hero- 
 dotus, the laceration of the mother's internal 
 membranes by the fharp claws of the cub. Againft 
 this teftimony he quotes paflages of Homer, " the 
 moft illuftrious of poets," to mow that lions 
 defended their cubs, not their cub ; and continues 
 by quoting 'Ariftotle on the point, who calls it 
 " an old" woman's fable." But we incidentally 
 learn that lions had become fcarcer in Ariftotle's 
 time, a hundred years after Herodotus, as the 
 former fays, "The ftory hath been put together 
 from the fact of lions being fcarce, and the inventor 
 of the myth not knowing how to account other- 
 wife for this fact." Another inftance of credulity 
 immediately fucceeds this difcriminating remark, 
 which alfo . mows the utterly uncritical ftate of 
 mind of the ancients, even of so diftinguifhed a 
 philofopher as Ariftotle, when the weighing of 
 evidence and collection of facts, which is fo rigor- 
 oufly exacted by the modern inductive philofophy, 
 is concerned. " The Syrian lions," he fays, " bear 
 at firft five cubs, next year four, and fo on down 
 to one, after which they never again generate." 
 1 Ar. ; "De Anlm. Hift.," ix., 31. 2 Ibid., xiii. 7.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 5 
 
 Agamemnon wears a lion's {kin as a mantle; 
 but the animal generally appears in fimiles. 
 Penelope ponders on her bed before fleeping, as a 
 lion when furrounded by a ring of hunters takes 
 counfel with himfelf. We fee the lion in fuch 
 paflages exulting at finding prey, whether flag or 
 wild goat, killing a hind's fawns, putting to flight 
 and feizing oxen, terrifying bleating goats by 
 his prefence, driven ravening by men and boys 
 from the fold, flaying a bull, fighting with a wild 
 boar for water with its cubs, or tracking out 
 a man who has ftolen them, being attacked and 
 killed by angry villagers, or itfelf attacking the 
 folds. Each of thefe pictures is beautiful in itfelf, 
 and the whole give an excellent hiftory of the 
 habits of the European lion. OdyfTeus, after the 
 flaughter of the fuitors, glares round him like a 
 lion. Lions were engraved on the belt of Hercules, 
 and furrounded the forcerefs Circe's abode; cats 
 even at this early period being favourite animals 
 of witchcraft. Proteus again changes himfelf into 
 a lion, fo that this animal muft have been fuffi- 
 ciently familiar to Greeks. When the favagery of 
 Cyclops devouring the two haplefs comrades of 
 OdyfTeus has to be painted, Homer makes him " eat 
 like a lion from the mountains," tearing them 
 limb from limb and not even leaving their bones. 
 Jackals are only introduced at any length in one 
 pafTage, but that an eminently charadteriftic one. 
 The Trojans follow Odyffeus " like dappled jackals 
 from the mountains ftanding round a wounded, 
 branchy flag, v/hom a hunter has {mitten with an
 
 6 Gleanings from the 
 
 arrow. It efcapes by fpeed of foot while its blood 
 is warm and its knees are firm, but when the 
 bitter fhaft fubdues it, then ravening jackals tear 
 it to pieces in a fhady grove among the hills ; but 
 the deity brings there a mighty lion, when they 
 fhrink afide while he devours." 1 The panther only 
 of the /*//</<* is mentioned befides the lion. Paris 
 and others wear its fkin. Its fiercenefs is promi- 
 nent in a fimile when it is reprefented as ifluing 
 from thick covert to charge the hunter, in no way 
 difmayed at his prefence or at the baying of the 
 dogs, and attempting to ftrike him down. Even 
 when pierced by his fpear it ceafes not its rage 
 until overwhelmed by darts or done to death. 
 The lefs warlike tone of the "Odyfley " is indicated 
 by the facl: that there are only four fimiles in it 
 taken from the lion, whereas there are eleven in 
 the " Iliad." The vulture only appears once, war 
 never, and ftorm never. 2 
 
 On the mighty belt of Hercules, in Hades, were 
 wrought bears, the only evidence that Homer 
 knew that ahimal. This is the urjus Arttos, once 
 an inhabitant of our own iflands, and flill to be 
 found in certain mountainous diftricts of Europe. 
 The wild boar is much more familiar to Homer ; 
 it was facrificed to Zeus and the Sungod, and alfo 
 appears in the belt of Hercules. Proteus tranf- 
 forms himfelf into it. The Calydonian wild boar 
 roots up trees in a mythical fafhion, fuggeftive of 
 fome dim remembrance of the mammoth. 3 The 
 
 1 "Iliad," xi. 474. 2 Gladstone ; " Juv. Mundi," p. 514. 
 3 " Iliad," ix. 535.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. j 
 
 dogfldn helmet of OdyfTeus is adorned with teeth of 
 a wild boar. Two warriors fall upon the foe like 
 two wild boars ftoutly charging the hounds. The 
 following pictures are fo lifelike that it is hard to 
 conceive that Homer had not witnefTe.d them. 
 " As when a boar upon the mountains, trufting in 
 his ftrength, abides the mighty on-coming rum of 
 men in a lonely place, and the briftles rife erect 
 upon his back while, his eyes mine with flame ; but 
 he gnafhes his teeth, eagerly defirous to avenge 
 himfelf on dogs and men, fo did Idomeneus," etc, 
 And again : " They rufhed forwards like hounds 
 which fpring upon a boar, after he has been 
 wounded, in front of youthful hunters." 1 Another 
 vivid picture represents a lion and a boar fighting 
 for a rill of water on the mountain-tops, and the 
 lion fubduing the panting boar. 
 
 The wprd " elephant " is only ufed by Homer 
 for a diftinctively eaftern product, ivory. Bulls 
 were found in a wild {late on the Greek moun- 
 tains, as until recent centuries in our own land. 
 Their hides were ufed for deeping on. An allufion 
 occurs to an active hunter cutting d,own a wild 
 bull by a ftroke behind the head with a fharp axe. 
 Scamander is faid to roar like a bull. When 
 Penelope unlocks the doors of her treafury, as they 
 roll back they roar like a bull feeding in a 
 meadow. Oxen were, of courfe, domefticated 
 from very early days. Laomedon caufed Apollo 
 to feed " his heavy-footed, crumpled-horned oxen 
 in the lawns of many-valed wooded Ida." 2 Oxen 
 
 1 "Iliad," xiii. 471 ; xvii. 725. 2 Ibid., xxi. 448.
 
 8 Gleanings from the 
 
 were, eaten at a funeral feaft, and facrificed, ef- 
 pecially black ones, to Pofeidon. The mifguided 
 followers of Odyffeus perifhed through their folly 
 in eating the oxen of the Sungod, in the Ifle of 
 Thrinacia, when the Sungod amufingly threatens 
 Zeus that if the facrilege be not avenged, he will 
 go down to Hades and mine among the dead. 1 
 
 Wild goats feem to have been found on lonely 
 mountains. In the ifle off the land of the Cyclopes 
 were herds of them. They were eaten at feafts. 
 We find them mrinking with fear from a lion. 
 Argus had been ufed to hunt them. The horns of 
 one are mentioned as being fixteen palms in length, 
 which were made into a bow and tipped with gold. 
 Two fpecies of wild goat yet inhabit Europe, the 
 Capra ibex of the Alps, whofe horns will meafure 
 two feet eight inches in length ; and the C. 
 Pyrenaica, of which the horns are only two inches 
 lefs. The goat was facrificed to Apollo in the 
 Homeric poems. A fimile in the " Iliad " repre- 
 fents two lions as fnatching away a goat from 
 fharp-toothed dogs ; they bear it off in their jaws, 
 raifmg it on high from the earth among the 
 thickets. 
 
 The Homeric dogs much refemble modern dogs 
 in their habits. They tear corpfes (like the dogs 
 of Eaftern cities and countries) in conjunction with 
 the fowls of the. air ; and guard fheep and fwine. 
 Eumaeus, the fwine-herd, thus employs four. 
 They hunt lions, boars, ftags, roedeer and hares. 
 A chara.c"teriftic paffage defcribes their behaviour 
 
 . * " Odyflcy," xii.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 9 
 
 with lions. It forms a compartment in the mield 
 which Hephasftus forged for Achilles. " On it he 
 fafhioned a herd of {traight-horned kine ; the cows 
 were made of gold and tin, and with lowing they 
 ran forth from the ftall to their pafture by a rum- 
 ing river edged with rattling reeds. Four fhep- 
 herds of gold marched along with the kine, and 
 nine fwift-footed dogs followed them. But two 
 monftrous lions among the leading kine feized the 
 loud-roaring bull, and he, mightily bellowing, was 
 dragged along, while the dogs and youths followed 
 them up. They, however, having torn off the 
 hide of the great bull, proceeded to lap up its 
 bowels and black blood ; but the fhepherds fruit- 
 leffly prefled upon them, urging on the fwift dogs. 
 They, indeed, kept on fpringing back in difmay 
 from an attempt to bite the lions, but ftanding 
 very near continued howling and avoiding them." 1 
 No greater reproach can be addrefled to a warrior 
 than to ftigmatize him as porTeffing " a dog's eye 
 and a flag's heart." Dogs bay round a palace in 
 Ithaca and tear intruders, juft as the Moloflian 
 dogs of old and prefent days refent the approach 
 of ftrangers. Telemachus ftalks about his ifland 
 home like a modern country gentleman, with his 
 dogs following him. The epifode of Argus, the 
 faithful dog of OdyfTeus, is too well known to 
 need more allufion to it. 2 In the palace of 
 Alcinous were hounds of gold and filver, the work 
 of Hephasftus ; to heighten their marvel the poet, 
 as often in the mield of Achilles and elfewhere, 
 
 1 "Iliad," xviii. 581. 2 " Odyflcy," xvii.
 
 i o .Gleanings from the 
 
 reprefents them as being animated. Here they 
 are " immortal and free from old age for aye." 1 
 Another celebrated dog of myth was the dog of 
 Hades, afterwards known as Cerberus. When 
 Odyfleus meets the made of Heracles in the lower 
 world, the latter tells him that he had been com- 
 pelled to enter Hades while he was yet alive, and 
 drag this dog to the upper air, " for no greater 
 taflc could be devifed ;" but Hermes and blue-eyed 
 Athene helped him to perform it. 2 Orion's dog 
 was a well-known ftar. In all thefe cafes the dog 
 is even in Homer's time a familiar domeftic crea- 
 ture. Lap-dogs too are named. Perhaps a faint 
 reflection of the wonder which the taming of the 
 creature firft caufed among men yet glimmers on 
 the mythical ftories juft related. 
 
 Stags and fawns are frequently mentioned in the 
 Homeric poems ; this is only natural, confidering 
 the numbers which in the early days of Greece 
 muft have been found on her mountains or feed- 
 ing in the fair glens befide them. Sheep appear 
 among domefticated animals bleating as they wait 
 to be milked. The riotous wooers of Penelope 
 eat fheep, kine, and goats. There is yet a wild 
 fheep in Sardinia, known as ovis mufmon, with 
 horns one foot eleven inches long. Lambs are 
 born with horns, fays Homer, in Libya, and the 
 fheep there bring forth thrice in a year. 3 Can this 
 ftory of the horned lambs be a reflection of the 
 true hiftory of the wild fheep of Europe ? White 
 
 1 "OdyfTey," vii. 94. 2 Ibid ^ xi- z6 ^ 
 
 3 Ibid., iv. 85, 86.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 1 
 
 and black lambs were facrificed to Earth, Apollo, 
 Helios, and Zeus. As for fwine, the herds kept 
 by Eumasus, their huge pigfties, their grunting, 
 and the manner in which one is butchered by 
 OdyfTeus, are amufingly related in the fourteenth 
 Book of the "OdyfTey." They are called "deli- 
 cately fed," and they were finged when killed for 
 a feaft. 
 
 The wolf was well known to the early Greeks. 
 We find it in conjunction with lions roaming 
 round the mythical palace of Circe. It rufhes 
 on lambs and kids, like champions hurrying to 
 the din of battle, and preys in conjunction with 
 pards and jackals upon flags. The myrmidons 
 whom Achilles leads to war are compared to a 
 flock of wolves in a fine naturaliftic picture ; 
 " like wolves, ravening after prey, around whofe 
 hearts is unfpeakable ftrength, which, having 
 pulled down a mighty horned ftag in the moun- 
 tains, tear it to pieces ; and the face of them all 
 is red with blood. Then they rum off in a 
 flock to lap up the furface of the dark waters 
 from a black-flowing fountain with {lender tongues, 
 vomiting forth clotted gore, and their courage 
 within their breafts is dauntlefs, and their ftomach 
 is diftended." 1 We hear of a wolf-fkin as well as 
 a dog-fkin helmet, and of one made of a weafel's 
 or more probably a marten's fkin. 2 
 
 The horfe is conftantly mentioned, but never 
 feemingly as an animal to be ridden. A charac- 
 teristic pafTage, the only one in which the animal 
 
 1 "Iliad," xvi. 156. 2 Ibid., x. 335.
 
 1 2 Gleanings from the 
 
 is named, introduces the afs: "As when a fluggifh 
 afs, parting by a cornfield, hath overborne the 
 boys, and many a cudgel has been broken round 
 his fides, but he, entering in, ravages the deep 
 crop while the boys beat him with {ticks. Yet 
 their ftrength is but feeble, and hardly have they 
 driven him out when he hath taken his fill of the 
 grain." 1 Mules were apparently much efteemed. 
 There is a mention of them as being very flrong 
 and employed in dragging heavy beams; they 
 draw Priam's chariot, having been given him as 
 illuftrious gifts by the Myfians. When Nauficaa 
 takes her garments to be warned by the fea-fhore, 
 they are drawn thither in a waggon by mules. 
 
 The lift of mammals in the two great Homeric 
 poems, is completed by the hare, which is repre- 
 fented as torn by an eagle, as in the fplendid 
 chorus at the beginning of the Agamemnon of 
 jEfchylus, and by feals. A very curious paffage 
 relates how Menelaus, thanks to the help of 
 Eidothee, daughter of Proteus, furprifed that "old 
 man of the fea" among his feals which flept around, 
 " exhaling a bitter fmell of the deeps of the fea." 
 The ftench of thefe animals is again defcribed as 
 being overpowering, until the goddefs luckily be- 
 thought herfelf of rubbing a little ambrofia under 
 the nofe of each man, which effectually removed 
 the ill favour. 3 The poet probably alluded to 
 the phoca monachus of the Mediterranean, or 
 perhaps the pboca vitulina alfo feen at times in 
 
 1 " Iliad," xi. 557. 2 Ibid., xxiv. 277. 
 
 3 " Odyffey," iv. 404,. 436.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 3 
 
 that fea. Seals are very numerous in the Cafpian 
 Sea, and are even found in the fait fea of Aral, as 
 well as in the frefh-water loch of Baikal. 
 
 In a very curious pafTage of the "Odyiley" 
 (xxiv., 6) reprehended by Plato in his " Republic," 
 the fouls in Hades are compared to bats, "which 
 fly fqueaking in the recefs of a marvellous cavern, 
 when one has fallen from the rock out of the 
 clutter," and OdyfTeus clings to the fig-tree of 
 Charybdis like a bat. 
 
 Thus a Homeric houfehold kept the fame 
 domefticated animals as we do at prefent horfe, 
 afs, mule, meep, oxen, pigs, and goats. It is 
 fingular, when the origin of the domeftic fowl is 
 remembered (the jungle fowl of India), that fowls 
 are not named in the Homeric poems. The 
 common fuppofition that thefe birds were brought 
 weftward by the primitive Aryans, feems therefore 
 erroneous. They came through hiftoric intercourfe 
 with the Eaft, and in Homer's time there is plenty 
 of evidence to mow that this intercommunication 
 of Europe and Hindoftan had not yet begun. 
 
 Turning to reptiles, Proteus turns himfelf into 
 them, 
 
 offff' tTTi ydiav 
 IpTrerd yiyvovrai. Odyjfey, iv. 417. 
 
 A dragon is one of thefe mapes. The dragon 
 (or ferpent) is reprefented as eating birds in other 
 paffages; caufmg a man to fhrink back as he 
 meets it in his path ; an augury appears of " a 
 high-flying eagle, on the left hand, dividing the 
 people, bearing a monftrous bleeding ferpent in its
 
 1 4 Gleanings from the 
 
 claws, alive, yet gafping ; and not yet had it for- 
 gotten to fight, for it fmote the eagle which held 
 it in the breaft by the neck, bending itfelf back 
 to do fo. But the other let it drop to the ground, 
 grieved at the anguifh, and caft it down into the 
 midft of the crowd, while it fled fcreaming on the 
 wings of the wind." Snakes (or dragons) of 
 "Cyanus" are fafhioned gleaming like rainbows 
 on Agamemnon's mield. A dying man lies like 
 a worm j 1 while maggots, in another pafTage, are 
 made to eat corpfes. 
 
 With regard to fim and fifhing, fome fmgular 
 fads appear in the Homeric poems. We will 
 group them together without entering into modern 
 views of clarification, feeling fure that Homer re- 
 garded the whale, for inftance, as a fim, and not 
 a mammal. Fimers apparently cruifed from ifland 
 to ifland of the jEgean, for bodies of the flain 
 wooers are delivered to the fifher-folk to be con- 
 veyed each to his own city in mips. The whales 
 (or larger fim of the fea) are faid to fport round 
 Pofeidon's chariot as he drives over the fea to 
 recognife their king. A fea-monfter (or KJJTOC, 
 which means any large fim or monfter) purfued 
 Hercules from the more of the Troad to the plain 
 in the myth. Fimes, and efpecially eels, 3 are 
 feveral times fpoken of as devouring the flain. 
 Dolphins purfue and eat fim. Homer had noticed 
 a fim " rife," though it is fomewhat bewildering 
 
 1 "Iliad," xiii. 654, 0Kw\ri ; ibid., xxiv. 414, 6v\ai. 
 
 2 "Odyffey," xxiv. 418. 
 
 8 "Iliad," xxi. 353 (the eels and fifh in the river Xanthus).
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 5 
 
 to find out what the following paflage means. A 
 hero is ftricken and falls infenfible, " as, under 
 the ripple caufed by the north wind, a fifh leaps 
 up on the weedy more, and the dark wave covers 
 it." 1 Probably it would be better rendered "a 
 fifh leaps up by the weedy fubmerged reef." As 
 for the capture of fifh, the Laeftrygons hurl rocks 
 at and kill the haplefs mariners of Odyfleus, and, 
 " like men fpearing fifties," they bear home their 
 frightful meal. But angling was known to 
 Homer ; " as when a man fitting upon a projecting 
 rock draws a facred" (i.e. mighty) "fifh to land 
 from the fea with line and mining brafs" hook. 2 
 The fifhing-rod is not here named, and the "brafs" 
 hook was probably a hook of bronze, one of which 
 is figured in Evans's "Bronze Implements." But 
 in the "OdyfTey" (and this Teems a confirmation 
 of the view that it is a later poem than the " Iliad") 
 a rod is employed ; " as when a fifherman on a 
 projecting rock, with a very long fifhing-rod letting 
 down his baits as a fnare to the little fifh, flings 
 into the fea a horn of an ox of the homeftead, 
 and then, as he has caught the fifh, flings it gafping 
 on the fhore." 3 Here a difficulty is contained in 
 the ufe of the horn. It was probably a fheath 
 coming over the bait, either to prevent its being 
 warned off, or to protect it from crabs and the like. 
 Thefe are the two chief authorities for fifhing 
 
 1 " Iliad," xxi. 692. 2 Ibid., xvi. 406. 
 
 3 " Odyffey," xii. 251. A cognate paflage occurs in the 
 " Iliad," xxiv. 80 : Iris "plunged into the depths of the fea like 
 a leaden plumb which in the horn of an ox of the ftall entering 
 the fea drops through it, bearing death to ravening fifties."
 
 1 6 Gleanings from the 
 
 in the Homeric poems. The monfter Scylla is 
 faid to fifh, with her hands groping to catch dog- 
 fifh or dolphins. Plato notices that the Homeric 
 heroes in their feafts never eat fifh, and that their 
 viands are always roafted, never boiled. It is a 
 curious confirmation of the former ftatement that 
 when the men of OdyfTeus fifh in the Ifle 
 Thrinacia, with "crooked hooks," for fifh or fowl, 
 under the prefTure of famine, their mafter will 
 have nothing to do with it, but wanders off" 
 alone. 1 Yet in a picture drawn by the hero of 
 a righteous and profperous king, one touch is that 
 " the fea for him gives fifh." 2 
 
 Afingular pafTage occurs in the " OdyfTey/'v. 432, 
 where OdyfTeus is compared, while in danger of 
 drowning, to a cuttle-fim "which is dragged out 
 of its hole, the many pebbles clinging to its 
 fuckers ;" juft in the fame manner the hero's fkin 
 is torn off from his hands as he grafps at the 
 rocks, and the mighty wave covers him. Again, 
 a man ftricken with a mortal wound, who falls 
 headlong from his chariot, is jeered at in the 
 " Iliad " " if only he were in the fifhy deep, this 
 man would fatiffy many men by grafping for 
 oyfters, plunging in from a fhip, although it was 
 ftormy weather." 3 Were it not for thefe curious 
 
 1 Plato, "Repub.," 404, B. ; "Odyfley," xii. 331. 
 
 2 " Odyfley," xix. 1 13. That fifh were eaten, too, appears 
 from Od. xxii. 383, where OdyfTeus fees the flain wooers lie 
 " like fifh which fifhermen have drawn from the grey fea in a 
 many-mefhed net to a hollow beach, and they all longing for 
 the fca-waves are heaped upon the fand, and the fun fhining on 
 them takes away their life." 
 
 3 " Iliad," xvi. 745.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 7 
 
 words, we fhould not know that oyfters were a 
 dainty fo early as the Siege of Troy. 
 
 The zoology of the Homeric poems may be 
 completed by a glance at the infedts, etc., which 
 are named by the poet. The "glancing gadfly" 
 attacks the herds. One kind of worm or weevil 
 attacks the wood of OdyfTeus's bow ; another eats 
 corpfes. Locufts are reprefented fleeing from fire. 
 Flies are often mentioned. A little one per- 
 fiftently attacks a big man, in one paflage ; in 
 another, flies hum round the milk-pails in fummer, 
 or round the fhepherd's pen. A beautiful fimile 
 reprefents Athene caufing an arrow to fly off from 
 Menelaus " as a mother drives off a fly from her 
 child when enjoying a fweet fleep." Still more 
 celebrated is the paffage which introduces the 
 favourite Greek infect, the chirping tettix ; the 
 old men of Troy are no longer able to fight, but 
 are "excellent talkers, like tettixes" (graflhoppers), 
 " which, in the thickets, fitting on a tree, fend 
 forth a thin clear voice." 1 Spiders even had been 
 noticed by Homer, and were not deemed by him, 
 any more than Shakefpeare deems the toad, un- 
 worthy the dignity of poetry. The fetters which 
 Hephasftus conftrucfted in order to enfnare his 
 erring wife were fine, yet ftrong as fpider's web. 2 
 Round the neglected bed of Odyffeus were foul 
 fpider-webs. Bees are mentioned as nefting in a 
 hollow rock, not a beehive another evidence of 
 the antiquity of thefe poems. Evidently bees 
 had not yet been domefticated. They made their 
 
 1 " Iliad," iii. 151. 2 " Odyfiey," viii. 280; xvi. 35. 
 
 c
 
 1 8 Gleanings from the 
 
 nefts, too, in the hollow cave at the landing- 
 place in Ithaca. Wafps are named with them as 
 making their abodes in a rugged path, and not 
 quitting them at the approach of the fpoiler, but 
 fighting for their young. A pafTage which fpeaks 
 of the Trojans ifluing forth from their city, mows 
 that boy-nature was with the Greeks much the 
 fame as it is with us; "they poured out like wafps 
 dwelling near a road-fide, which filly boys are ac- 
 cuftomed to irritate, ever difturbing them as they 
 live in their road-fide homes, and caufe a common 
 evil to many ; and if by chance a wayfarer going 
 by mould unwittingly difturb them, they with their 
 flrong hearts fly each one ftraight before it, and 
 fight for their little ones." 1 
 
 In contemplating the wide range of Homer's 
 natural hiftory, and the evident love with which 
 he dwells upon fome of the nobler forms of 
 animal life, we cannot help being ftruck with the 
 prodigality of his allufions to animals. It mows 
 the ftrength of his fympathies with outer nature. 
 He may thus be advantageoufly compared with 
 his fucceflbrs in Epic poetry. Virgil lavifhes his 
 tendernefs on birds and beasts in the "Eclogues" 
 and " Georgics," but feldom names them in the 
 "^neid ;" feldom, that is, as compared with the 
 frequency with which they do duty as fimiles, or to 
 enliven the Homeric landfcapes. Save in his firft 
 book, or when treating more efpecially of creation, 
 Milton is equally reticent. Indeed, the few allu- 
 fions which our poet does make to animal life, 
 or even to plants and flowers other than thofe 
 
 1 "Iliad," xvi. 259.
 
 Natural Htftory of the Ancients. 1 9 
 
 fuggefted by his claflkal models, are fomewhat fur- 
 prifmg in one fo fond of Englifh landfcape, as we 
 know him to have been from his "Penferofo" and 
 "Allegro," and from the records of his home- 
 life which have been preferved. His fufceptibility 
 to mufic was extreme, and his gorgeous defcrip- 
 tions of mufical harmony, hymns, and the like, 
 have often been noticed. But it has not been 
 remarked hitherto that his ear, rather than his eye> 
 caught thofe reflections of nature which he has 
 loved to reproduce in deathlefs verfd The crow- 
 ing of the cock, iinging of the lark, warbling 
 of the nightingale, and fimilar founds at once 
 occur to the memory. This may account for the 
 paucity of his notices of animated nature. The 
 cuftom of welcoming the founds, and fongs, and 
 cries of external nature through the ear muft often 
 have mercifully flood him in good ftead when the 
 affliction of blindnefs fell upon him in late life. 
 It is obvious how diftinct from both Virgil and 
 Milton is Shakefpeare in the mannef he enlarges 
 upon and welcomes into his verfes the flowers, 
 birds, and beads of common life. Here, as alfo 
 in his grafp of human greatnefs, and his delinea- 
 tion of the mafter-fprings of action, he can only 
 be compared with Homer. Both together are the 
 moft catholic of poets, in the depth of their 
 fenfibilities, the range of their infight, and the 
 power and far-reaching grafp of their fympathy. 
 The natural hiftory of Shakefpeare has been and 
 ftill is ftudied from every point of view ; the above 
 is at leaft a humble contribution towards the fuller 
 enjoyment of Homer.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GREEK AND ROMAN DOGS. 
 
 " Certes, the longer we live, the more things we obferve and 
 marke ftill in thefe dogges." PLINY, Nat. Hift., viii. 40 
 (Holland). 
 
 'E Greeks and Romans were acquainted 
 with the virtues of the dog, and valued 
 ft for its ufe in hunting and the care 
 it took of the flocks or of the houfe, 
 but ufually regarded it, much as did the ancient 
 Hebrews, as a type of mamelefs and audacious 
 evil. So Helen, in the depths of her felf-abafe- 
 ment, applies the comparifon to her own life in the 
 " Iliad," and Hecuba, according to the myth, was 
 changed into a dog. Wealthy men and kings had 
 lapdogs, indeed, but took none of that pleafure in 
 the affection and faithfulnefs of a fagacious animal 
 which caufes the dog to be fo highly prized in 
 modern life. 1 In augury dogs were unlucky, bafe 
 animals (obsccena canes "Georg.," i. 470), and 
 
 1 See a noble paflage on the difference between claffical 
 and Chriftian appreciation of Nature in Ruflcin's "Modern 
 Painters," vol. ii., p. 17.
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 21 
 
 Horace naturally introduces the dogs of the 
 Suburra, the " artificers' " quarter and the moft 
 abandoned precinct of Rome, in a witchcraft fcene 
 of cruelty and uncleannefs (Ep. v. 58). The 
 moft important ftar in the conftellation of the dog 
 was Sirius ; " about four hundred years before our 
 era, the heliacal rifing of Sirius at Athens, cor- 
 refponding with the entrance of the fun into the 
 fign Leo, marked the hotteft period of the year, 
 and this obfervation being taken on truft by the 
 Romans of a later epoch without considering 
 whether it fuited their age and country, the dies 
 caniculares became proverbial among them, as the 
 dog-days are among ourfelves, and the poets con- 
 ftantly refer to the lion and the dog in connection 
 with the heats of midfummer." 1 By way of con- 
 tempt, the worft throw at the dice was known 
 among the Latins as canicula, juft as we brand 
 bad Latinity as dog Latin. The porter at the 
 entrance of both Greek and Roman houfes was 
 ufually attended by a dog ; hence the expreflion 
 cave canem, which was proverbial among the 
 Romans. Sometimes a painted dog with the 
 warning was employed, as in a houfe which has 
 been opened at Pompeii. 
 
 Greece and Rome do not appear to have known 
 as a diftinct breed that peculiar lightly built type 
 of the family, like a greyhound, which was com- 
 mon in Egypt. It had much affinity both in cha- 
 racter and derivation to the jackal. Dogs are not 
 unfrequently found reprefented on the Babylonian 
 
 1 " Dictionary of Antiquities," Art. " Aftronomia."
 
 22 Gleanings from the 
 
 cylinders, and one kind of dog is of this fame 
 greyhound type, while the other, known as the 
 Indian dog, refembled our maftiff. 1 The excellence 
 of the Spartan hound is often celebrated by the 
 ancients, while the Molofli in Epirus pofTefled a 
 breed of large dogs which was, if poflible, ftill 
 more renowned. Mr. Hughes, in his travels 
 through Albania, found thefe dogs as numerous 
 and fierce as they were in old 'days. The breed, 
 he thought, had in no refpect degenerated. He 
 defcribes them as "varying in colour, through 
 different fhades from a dark brown to a bright 
 dun, their long fur being very foft, and thick, and 
 glofly. In fize, they are about equal to an Englifh 
 maftiff; they have a long nofe, delicate ears finely 
 pointed, magnificent tail, legs of a moderate 
 length, with a body nicely rounded and compact" 2 
 Ariftotle,, fpe_aking of thefe dogs, fays that a dif- 
 ference of qualities is obfervable in the males and 
 females, the latter being more gentle and traceable, 
 and more eafily taught. Therefore the females 
 are more prized among the Spartan hounds as 
 being of a nobler nature than males. The 
 Moloflians, he obferves, are not better hunting 
 dogs than others, but form excellent fheep-dogs, 
 from their fize and courage in attacking wild 
 beafts. 3 In another place he gives an excellent 
 life-hiftory of dogs, their generation, birth, den- 
 tition, and the like ; " moft dggs," he adds, " live 
 
 1 Rawlinfon's "Ancient Empires," ii., p. 494. 
 
 2 Arnold's "Rome," ii., p. 438. 
 8 "Hift. An.," ix. I.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 23 
 
 about fourteen or fifteen years, but fome twenty ; 
 wherefore fome think that Homer was quite correct 
 in making the dog of UlyfTes die in his twentieth 
 year." 1 He had noticed, too, that dogs dream, 
 from their howling in fleep, as if they were then 
 following the chafe. We believe it, however, to 
 be a kind of nightmare when dogs thus moan in 
 fleep, in fpite of the Laureate's words 
 
 " Like a dog he hunts in dreams." 
 
 Pliny's account of the dog may be here fum- 
 marized. 2 Along with the horfe he is the moft 
 faithful of animals to man. A dog has been known 
 to defend his matter from robbers as well as he 
 was able, and on his protector being flain, to have 
 watched his body, driving birds and wild beafts 
 from it. Another dog in Epirus, on meeting his 
 matter's murderer, by barking and biting compelled 
 him to confefs the crime. Two hundred dogs ac- 
 companied the king of the Garamantes from exile, 
 ranging themfelves in warlike order againft all 
 adverfaries. Some nations have had armies of 
 dogs, which never declined a combat, and never 
 clamoured for pay, When the Cimbri were flain, 
 their dogs defended the waggons of the tribe. 
 When Jafon the Lycian was killed, his, dog refufed 
 to take food, and died of grief. Dogs have been 
 known to throw themfelves into the flames when 
 the funeral pyre of their mafters was kindled. 
 He gives feveral other inftances of the dog's faith- 
 fulnefs and gentle domeftic habits. A dog will 
 
 1 " Odyfley," vi. 20. 2 "Hilt. Nat.," viii. 40.
 
 24 Gleanings from the 
 
 remember long journeys, and his memory is more 
 retentive than that of any other creature fave man. 
 A dog's attack and rage may be mitigated by the 
 perfon fo afTaulted fitting down quietly on the 
 ground. This belief, as we have fhown, is as old 
 as Homer. The Indians are reported to crofs 
 their dogs with tigers ; the firft and fecond families 
 which refult are condemned as too favage, but the 
 third generation is trained. So cunning are dogs, 
 that in Egypt they run along, lapping the Nile as 
 they go, left by halting crocodiles mould find an 
 opportunity of dragging them in. When Alex- 
 ander the Great was on his march to India, the 
 King of Albania gave him a dog of wonderful 
 fize. Alexander, delighted at its appearance, com- 
 manded bears, boars, and ftags to be flipped to it ; 
 but the creature lay motionlefs in fupreme con- 
 tempt, and at the flothfulnefs of fo huge a form 
 the king's noble fpirit was aroufed, and he bade 
 the dog be killed. His friend now fent another 
 dog of the fame kind to him, with a mefTage that 
 it was only to be matched with lions or elephants, 
 and not with fmall game. The dog foon killed 
 a lion in the prefence of Alexander, and was next 
 matched againft an elephant. Firft of all, with 
 every briftle on its form erefted, the dog bayed 
 and attacked its enemy, firft on one fide, then on 
 the other, flipping in and avoiding the elephant's 
 ftroke wherever an opening prefented itfelf, like a 
 good boxer, until the elephant grew dizzy by per- 
 petually turning round to defend itfelf, and finally 
 falling down, fuccumbed to its petty adverfary.
 
 Natural Htflory of the Ancients. 25 
 
 Dogs frequently go mad during the thirty dog- 
 days, and the difeafe muft be counteracted by 
 fowls' dung being mixed with their food, adds 
 the grave hiftorian, or if they be already fuffering 
 they muft be treated with hellebore. According 
 to Columella, if the tip of a dog's tail be cut off 
 within forty days from its birth, it will never go 
 mad. A dog has been known to fpeak by way 
 of portent, juft as a ferpent ere now barked when 
 Tarquinius Superbus was driven from the throne. 
 " The beft of the whole litter is that whelpe that 
 is laft ere it begin to fee, or elfe that which the 
 mother carries firft into her kennel." 1 
 
 Such were fome current Roman beliefs about 
 the dog. No more celebrated dog than Cerberus 
 appears in claffical mythology. Virgil fpeaks of 
 his " three gaping mouths," and calls him " the 
 gate-keeper of hell reclining in his blood-ftained 
 cave over half-eaten bones." Still more particular 
 is the portrait which the wretched Culex, when 
 untimely (lain and fent down to Orcus, draws of 
 him " Cerberus barks at me with loud bayings, 
 on both fides of whofe neck twifted fnakes briftle, 
 and his bloodihot eyeballs flam forth a blaze of 
 flame ;" and he adds, " Truftful indeed was he who 
 believed that Cerberus was ever mild-tempered." 2 
 Homer did not know his name, Cerberus, but 
 fpeaks of Hercules dragging into daylight " the 
 dog of mournful Hades," and in the Odyfley 
 Hercules in the Shades himfelf tells the ftory to 
 
 1 Pliny, "Nat. Hift.," viii. 40 (Holland). 
 
 2 "Georg.,"iv. 483 ; "^Eneid," viii. 296; "Culex,"2i9, 269.
 
 26 Gleanings from the 
 
 OdyfTeus "Zeus enjoined on me hard adven- 
 tures, yea, and on a time he fent me hither to 
 bring back the hound of hell ; for he devifed no 
 harder taflc for me than this. I lifted the hound, 
 and brought him forth from out of the houfe of 
 Hades ; and Hermes fped me on my way to the 
 grey-eyed Athene." 1 The popular view is well 
 exprefled by Sophocles ("CEd. Col.," 1568), who 
 fpeaks of " the unconquerable brute who, as the 
 tale runs, fleeps in the gates of Hades, polifhed 
 by the entrance of fo many fouls, and, untam- 
 able guardian that he is, whines out of the 
 grottoes." The conception of a dog which 
 guarded Hades came to the claflical nations, to- 
 gether with the fable of Charon and his boat, from 
 the Egyptians. Orpheus is fuppofed to have in- 
 troduced thefe myths into Greek fancy. Hefiod 
 is the firft Greek to mention the name and 
 genealogy of Cerberus, and with him the dog is 
 " unapproachable, open to no foothing, ravenous, 
 the brazen-voiced hound of Hades, ihamelefs and 
 mighty with fifty heads." 2 After-poets fpoke of 
 him as three-headed, with ferpents for his tail and 
 mane. At length he becomes hundred-headed, 
 and rivals Oriental monfters in prodigality of 
 horrors. Hercules conquered another dog as well as 
 Cerberus, born (like him) of Typhaon and Echidna, 
 the dog of Geryones. It, too, from refembling 
 the guard of Hades, is fometimes called Cerberus. 
 
 1 "Iliad," viii. 367 ; and "Odyffey," xi. 623 (Butcher and 
 Lang's Tranflation). 
 
 2 Hesiod, "Thcog," v. 388.
 
 Natural Htftory of the Ancients. 27 
 
 Now it is remarkable that there are two dogs of 
 hell in the Vedic mythology, as yet unnamed. 
 They guarded the road to Yama, the king of 
 the departed. This fecond Greek dog, generally 
 known as Orthros, is the exacl: copy of the Vedic 
 Vritha, and Vritha (like Orthros) is connected 
 with the dawn. 1 
 
 It is charafteriftic of the mild-tempered Tele- 
 machus, 
 
 " Centred in the fphere 
 Of common duties, decent not to fail 
 In offices of tendernefs, and pay 
 Meet adoration to the houfehold gods," 
 
 that Homer reprefents him, and him alone, in the 
 "Odyfley"as being followed wherever he walks by 
 his dags. 2 Of Odyfleus himfelf the poet ufes a 
 ftfiking ufage ; " His heart within him barked " 
 as he glared at the proud mifdoings of the fuitors ; 
 " as a bitch walking round her tender pups barks 
 if me knows not the man who approaches, and 
 is minded to fight, fo did he growl inwardly when 
 he beheld their evil works." 3 Befides Argus, moft 
 claflical readers will remember the dog which barks 
 at the end of Virgil's incantation fcene, and mows 
 that the fpells have worked upon the forgetful 
 lover, " Hylax in limine latrat." A poem by 
 Gratius Falifcus in the Auguftan age enumerates 
 fome twenty different forts of dogs, but the 
 Britim, Spartan, and Moloflian dogs were the 
 types beft known to the ancients. Dogs were 
 
 1 See Max Muller's " Selefted Eflays" (Longmans, 1881), 
 vol. i., p. 497. 
 
 3 "Qdyfley," xvi. 61, a,nd xx. 145. 3 "Odyfley," xx. 13.
 
 28 Gleanings from the 
 
 kept on the Capitoline as guards for the Temple 
 of Jupiter, and it was told that while thefe raged 
 at everyone elfe who approached, they fuffered 
 Scipio Africanus to draw near unharmed night 
 after night when he was wont to enter the recefles 
 of the Temple, and confult there with Jupiter 
 on the deftinies of the State. Dog-men with dog- 
 like faces and barkings were fabled by the ancients 
 to refide in North Africa and alfo on the Indian 
 mountains, along with other monftrofities, fuch as 
 one-limbed men, men with their heads below their 
 moulders, and the like. 1 Many of thefe reappear 
 in the marvellous recitals told by the Mediasval 
 travellers. The Greek name for a helmet mows 
 what was the ultimate ufe of a dog, juft as we 
 have dogfkin gloves. Virgil does not forget to 
 recommend the dog to the care of huibandmen : 
 
 " Nor laft, forget thy faithful dogs ; but feed 
 With fatt'ning whey the maftiff's generous breed, 
 And Spartan race ; who, for the fold's relief, 
 Will profecute with cries the nightly thief; 
 Repulfe the prowling wolf, and hold at bay 
 The mountain robbers, rufhing to the prey. 
 With cries of hounds thou may'ft purfue the fear 
 Of flying hares, and chafe the fallow-deer ; 
 Roufe from their defert dens the briftled rage 
 Of boars, and beamy stags in toils engage." 2 
 
 As is his wont, ^Elian gives many ftories of 
 dogs and curious fcraps of folk-lore. They have 
 been known, he fays, actually to fall in love with 
 men ; their affection is extreme, fo when one 
 Nicias flipped into a furnace his dogs remained, 
 
 1 Aul. Cell., vii. i, 8, and ix. 4, 9. 
 
 2 Dryden, " Gcorg.," iii. 404.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 29 
 
 howling and dragging out bits of his clothing, by 
 which it was found out how he had perimed. 
 Indeed, they infenfibly acquire the type and 
 habits of their matters. Thus the Cretans are 
 light, fupple, and agile, and fo are their dogs. 
 The Moloffians are like their owners, moft 
 courageous, but when once a Carmanian and his 
 dogs' ire are aroufed they are moft difficult to 
 be appeafed. The Hand of Glory and its ufe to 
 credulous houfebreakers has been defcribed in moft 
 books of folk-lore. ^Elian gives a fomewhat 
 kindred receipt by which a thief may filence the 
 fierceft dog ; viz., by holding to it a torch 
 fnatched from a man's funeral pyre. 1 It were long, 
 however, to dwell on the fuperftitions and ancient 
 folk-lore connected with the dog. We fear left 
 any further attempt to do fo might be like invit- 
 ing readers to zprandium caninum (to quote a Jaft 
 allufion belonging to the ancient dog) ; that is, to 
 a teetotal banquet. 2 There are feveral chapters on 
 the virtues and vices of dogs in Bochart's " Hiero- 
 zoicon." Patroclus, in the " Iliad," potfe/fes nine 
 lapdogs (/cwvec rpaTrf^c), and Achilles facrificed 
 two of them on their matter's tomb (" Iliad," xxiii. 
 173). At Rome dogs were annually truffed upon 
 forks, and while thus, as it were, crucified, were 
 hung alive upon elder-trees, to deal exemplary 
 juftice upon the race which gave no alarm when 
 the Gauls fcaled the capitol. It feems, too, that 
 the Romans, like the Chinefe, valued the flem of 
 
 1 " De Nat. An.," i. 6, i. 8 ; vi. 53 ; iii. 2 ; i. 38. 
 
 2 Aul. Cell., xiii., 30, 12.
 
 30 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 
 
 puppies as an edible in old days. Hence whelps 
 were facrificed as an expiatory offering to the gods, 
 following out the philofophy of facrifice that men 
 mould offer to the gods whatever they moft 
 valued. " And verily at this day," fays Pliny, 
 " they make no fcruple to facrifice a yong whelpe 
 before it be full a day old ; yea, and at the folemn 
 feftivall fuppers ordained for the honour of the 
 gods, they forget not this day to ferve up at the 
 table certain dimes of yong whelp's flem that 
 fucke their dams." At the aditiales, the inau- 
 gural feafts of the magiflrates, the flem of puppies 
 was ordinarily ferved. Perhaps the curious in 
 fuch viands in the Weftern world might even now 
 have no difficulty in procuring puppies, ready 
 drefled for cooking, in the markets of Naples. 1 
 
 1 Pliny, "Nat. Hift.," xxix. 4 (Holland).
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ANTIQUARIAN NOTES ON THE BRITISH DOG. 
 
 jHERE are few more vexed queftions 
 in the archaeology of natural hiftory 
 than the origin of the dog. The 
 fearcher of bone caverns cannot light 
 upon any definite evidence, inafmuch as the 
 fkulls of dogs, wolves, and their congeners are 
 much the fame. The dog family (canis) makes 
 its firft appearance in the lower Pleiftocene era, 
 along with wolves, elephants, and oxen. There 
 is no trace of dogs or other domeftic animals 
 having been known to or ufed by the cave-men ; 
 but in the Neolithic age the dog was occafionally 
 employed for food, probably when old and paft 
 his work, a more humane, if lefs heroic, ending to 
 a life of hunting than was that of the worn-out 
 Argus when he once more faw hismafter ("Odyfley," 
 xvii. 326). In a Neolithic barrow, however, at 
 Eyford, Mr. Greenwell found a dog which had 
 been undoubtedly buried along with a woman 
 whofe Ikeleton was ftill, like that of the dog, in
 
 3 2 Gleanings from the 
 
 situ. Its jaw fhowed it to have been about the 
 fize of an ordinary fhepherd dog. The dog was 
 abundantly reprefented in the Norfolk flint mines 
 known as Grime's Graves. 1 
 
 The dog is met as the trufted friend of man 
 when hiftorical times commence ; thus its com- 
 monnefs precludes much exact mention of it. Its 
 exiftence was taken for granted. Theory, there- 
 fore, flourimes abundantly in connexion with the 
 early hiftory of the dog, and much a pofteriori 
 argument. Such guefles muft be taken obvioufly 
 at their own value. Thus it does not follow that 
 man in his primitive exiftence as a hunter was 
 aided by the fkill and fpeed of dogs, although 
 Pope may find it convenient to fuggeft the notion 
 to our minds by his well-known lines on the 
 " poor Indian " and his dog. Many favage tribes 
 which live by hunting, at the prefent day, never 
 employ dogs. Nor need it necerTarily be fuppofed 
 that the primitive Aryan fettlers in Europe 
 brought dogs with them. Mr. Darwin has paid 
 great attention to the queftion, and as he inclines 
 to believe that different croflings of fome canis 
 primitivus, now loft, with wolves and jackals, may 
 account for the exiftence of the numberlefs modern 
 breeds of the dog, few will venture to contravene 
 his fuppofition. 2 " Many European dogs," he ob- 
 ferves, "much refemble the wolf," and all who 
 have interefted themfelves in this queftion muft 
 
 1 Greenwell's "Britifh Barrows," p. 736; and fee Dawkins's 
 " Early Man in Britain," pp. 87, 217, 304. 
 
 2 See " Plants and Animals under Domeftication," vol. i., 
 cap. i.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 3 3 
 
 have made the fame remark to themfelves with 
 reference to fome Englim fheep-dogs, and ftill 
 more in the cafe of feveral Continental breeds of 
 large dogs. ProfefTor Owen, however, in his 
 " Britifh FoiTil Mammals," afcribes certain canine 
 bones difcovered in an Englim bone-cave to cams 
 familiaris, and thefe are probably the earlieft 
 authentic remains of the Britifh dog. Befides 
 the numerous varieties common to England and 
 Scotland, the latter country pofleffes breeds un- 
 queftionably peculiar to itfelf, as the deerhound, 
 Skye and Scotch terriers. Sir Robert Sibbald, 1 when 
 enumerating the quadrupeds of Scotland in 1684, 
 names the various kinds of dog as being, "cur, 
 fhepherd's dog, greyhound, beagle, bloodhound, 
 moloflus or Englim maftiff, fetting-dog, water- 
 fpaniel, terrier, cants Melitenfis, a Meflin or Jap- 
 dog." Dr. Caius, 2 writing in 1570, had fcarcely 
 been fo particular to aflign each dog to its own 
 country, faying amufingly enough, when his words 
 are contrafted with the fporting of the prefent 
 day: "I cal them univerfally all by the name of 
 Englifhe dogge, as well becaufe England only, as 
 it hath in it Englim dogs, fo it is not without 
 Scottifhe, as alfo for that wee are more inclined 
 and delighted with the noble game of hunting, 
 for we Englimmen are adicled and given to that 
 exercife and painefull paftime of pleafure, as well 
 for the plenty of flefhe which our Parkes and 
 Forefts doe fofter, as alfo for the opertunitie and 
 
 1 "Scotia Illuftrata," Edinburgh, 1684, iii. 5. 
 
 2 "Of Englifhe Dogges," 1576 (reprinted 1880), p. 2. 
 
 D
 
 34 Gleanings from the 
 
 convenient leifure which wee obtaine, both which 
 the Scottes want." 
 
 Narrowing our inveftigations to the dogs of 
 our own land, the next information which we 
 obtain comes from Art. Dogs are frequently found 
 reprefented on the Romano-Keltic pottery of 
 England, efpecially on Durobrivan ware. Thefe 
 dogs commonly fall under one of two types ; 
 they are large and fierce, like our prefent bull- 
 dogs and maftiffs; or they referable a fleet, 
 {lender hunting-dog, fuch as our greyhound. By 
 comparifon of the forms ftill remaining at the 
 different mufeums on pieces of pottery, fome par- 
 ticulars might be obtained refpedling the various 
 breeds of the early Britim dog, if we could be 
 fure that the artift did not ufe conventional or 
 imaginary types of dog-life. At this point, too, 
 the well-known paflages in the daffies which refer 
 to the excellence of Englifh dogs come in. The 
 larger and fiercer kinds were much employed both 
 by the Roman fojourners in Britain and their 
 countrymen at home in chafing the wild boar. 
 Shepherd-dogs, too, may have been needed to 
 tend the " magnus numerus pecorum " of which 
 CadTar fpeaks in our ifland. The luxury of the 
 Roman capital at York would alfo be almoft 
 certain to demand the fmaller breed for pets. 
 Even in the Homeric times Kings kept them 
 ("Odyfley," xvii. 309). Britifh maftiffs were 
 much celebrated amongft the ancients. Martial 
 fays of another kind (xiv. 200): 
 
 " Non fibi fed domino venatur vertagus acer, 
 Illaesum leporem qui tibi dente fcret."
 
 Natural Hiflory of the Ancients. 35 
 
 Vertagus is faid to be a Keltic word, though it 
 fomewhat fuggefts verto as its root, a dog which, 
 like a greyhound and retriever combined, would 
 purfue the windings of the hare's terrified flight, 
 and then return when it had fnapped up its prey, 
 carrying it to its matter. The molojfus or maftiff 
 was a word foon ufed in a much wider fenfe than 
 its primitive meaning, (a dog belonging to the 
 Molofli), warranted. Virgil's 
 
 " Veloces Spartae catulos acremque moloffum " 
 
 (Georgia, iii. 405) 
 
 is an inftance of fuch ufe, while the other, the 
 Laconian dogs, have not been forgotten by our 
 own Shakefpeare : 
 
 " My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind." 
 
 (Midsummer Night's Dream.") 
 
 And he goes on to fpeak of their " tuneful cry," 
 reminding us of Walton's enthufiaftic words : 
 " What mufic doth a pack of hounds then make 
 to any man, whofe heart and ears are fo happy 
 as to be fet to the tune of fuch inftruments !" 
 ("Compleat Angler," i. i.) 
 
 Holinmed 1 inferts a curious chapter "of 
 our Englifh dogs and their qualities " in his 
 "Chronicles." "There is no countrie," he fays, 
 " that maie compare with ours in number, ex- 
 cellencie, and diverfitie of dogs." Of all who 
 have praifed thefe creatures, Garden writes moft 
 marvels of them ; " who is not afraid to compare 
 fome of them for greatnefTe with oxen, and fome 
 
 1 "Chronicles" (six vols., 1807), vol. i. 386.
 
 36 Gleanings from the 
 
 alfo for fmalneffe vnto the little field-moufe." 
 One of Holinfhed's divifions of Englifh mafliffs 
 is fufficiently amufing : "Some doo both barke 
 and bite, but the cruelleft doo either not barke 
 at all, or bite before the barke, and therefore are 
 more to be feared than anie of the other." The 
 whole chapter deferves perufal. 
 
 Turning to the numerous varieties of our dogs, 
 it is worth while quoting fome curious fails here 
 from Mr. Darwin : " The bulldog is an Englifh 
 breed, and, as I hear from Mr. G. R. Jeffe, feems 
 to have originated from the maftiff fince the time 
 of Shakefpeare ; but certainly exifted in 1631, as 
 mown by Preftwick Eaton's letters. There can 
 be no doubt that the fancy bulldogs of the prefent 
 day, now that they are not ufed for bull-baiting, 
 have become greatly reduced in fize, without any 
 exprefs intention on the part of the breeder. Our 
 pointers are certainly defcended from a Spanim 
 breed, as even their prefent names Don, Ponto, 
 Carlos, etc. mow ; it is faid that they were not 
 known in England before the Revolution in 1688 ; 
 but the breed fince its introduction has been much 
 modified, for Mr. Borrow, who is a fportfman, 
 and knows Spain intimately well, informs me that 
 he has not feen in that country any breed * corre- 
 fponding in figure with the Englifh pointer ; but 
 there are genuine pointers near Xeres which have 
 been imported by Englifh gentlemen.' A nearly 
 parallel cafe is offered by the Newfoundland dog, 
 which was certainly brought into England from 
 that country, but which has been fince fo much
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 3 7 
 
 modified that, as feveral writers have obferved, it 
 does not now clofely refemble any exifting native 
 dog in Newfoundland." 1 
 
 With regard to this variety of canine breeds, 
 their extinction and the rife of others in their 
 place, Mr. Darwin again fays : " Through the 
 procefs of fubftitution the old Englifh hound has 
 been loft ; and fo it has been with the Irifh wolf- 
 dog, the old Englifh bulldog, and feveral other 
 breeds, fuch as the alaunt, as I am informed by 
 Mr. JefTe. But the extinction of former breeds is 
 apparently aided by another caufe ; for whenever 
 a breed is kept in fcanty numbers, as at prefent 
 with the bloodhound, it is reared with fome 
 difficulty, apparently from the evil effects of long- 
 continued clofe interbreeding." 2 Many an ex- 
 tinct breed (unlefs the animals exifted only in the 
 imagination of their painters) may be feen in 
 Berjeau's illuftrations of dogs, taken from old 
 fculptures and pictures. And every admirer of 
 Diirer's pictures muft remember the curious hairy 
 dog with large ears, fomething like an eccentric 
 Scotch terrier, which appears in fo much of his 
 work; while at other times a dog is introduced 
 which refembles a modern bull-terrier pup, both 
 of which, however, it would be difficult to find 
 examples of at the prefent day. 
 
 Mr. J. E. Harting confiders that all the dif- 
 ferent breeds of our dogs may be conveniently 
 deduced from the crofTmg of fix large groups: 
 
 1 " Varieties of Plants and Animals under Domeilication," i., 
 p. 44. 2 Hid., i., p. 45.
 
 38 Gleanings from the 
 
 i, the wolf-like dogs; 2, greyhounds ; 3, fpaniels; 
 4, hounds; 5, maftiffs; 6, terriers. Profeflbr 
 Fitzinger enumerates more than 180 kinds of 
 domeftic dogs. Mr. Harting alfo notes that all 
 the dogs of Gaul and ancient Britain had erecl or 
 femi-erecl: ears, like wild dogs. 1 
 
 A very important notice of Britim dogs, to 
 continue our chronological furvey, is recorded by 
 Strabo, a contemporary of Caefar. After fpeaking, 
 like the latter, of the herds 2 of cattle to be feen 
 in Britain, he adds that "hides, flaves, and dcgs 
 of good breeding ufeful for hunting are exported 
 from it. The Kelts alfo ufe both thefe and the 
 dogs of their own lands for warlike purpofes." 3 
 Thus the geographer curioufly enough comprifes 
 Britim dogs under the fame two heads as, it has 
 been feen, they are arranged by the early ceramic 
 arts of Britain. Pliny tells us that the Britons 
 were wont to breed their dogs from wolves. 
 
 The next citation demands a long leap, to 
 Oppian's time, A.D. 140. Here we firft meet 
 with the term agajfeus^ which has been fo varioufly 
 interpreted. It is often rendered " beagle," and 
 by fome "gazehound," which feems to mean a large 
 hound running by fight, like the Irifh hound, or 
 the prefent Scotch deerhound. And fo Tickell 
 writes : 
 
 1 Davis Lefture, July 3, 1884. 
 
 2 Compare, too, Eumenius, " Panegyric of Britain," 
 " tanto laeta munere paftionum." 
 
 8 Kovtc ivfvtic irpOQ raf KVi'fyeaiae, KeXroi Si Kai Trpbf rot'e 7roXf//onc 
 Xpwvrai Kai TOVTOIQ, K. T. \. (See " Monumenta Historica Britan- 
 nica," 1848, vol. i., p. 141.)
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 39 
 
 " See'ft thou the gazehound ? how, with glance fevere, 
 From the clofe herd he marks the deftined deer ?" 
 
 To our mind, however, Oppian's description ap- 
 pears to apply to no Britim dog fo well as to a 
 Scotch terrier. We fubjoin a tranflation of his 
 fonorous Greek hexameters : 
 
 " There is a certain kind of whelps apt for 
 tracking game, but of fmall power ; little in fize, 
 but worthy of much fong, thefe the fierce tribes 
 of painted Britons rear, and they are known par- 
 ticularly as agajftfi. In point of fize they re- 
 femble thofe good-for-nothing dainty houfjhold 
 pets, lapdogs ; round in fhape, with very little 
 flefh on their bones, covered with fhaggy hair, 
 flow of vifion, but armed on their feet with cruel 
 claws, and fharply provided with many poifonous 
 canine teeth. For its fcenting powers, however, the 
 agajfcus is chiefly renowned, and it is excellent at 
 tracking, fince it is very (killed to difcover the 
 leaft footprint of any running game, and even to 
 mark the very taint of its quarry in the air." 1 
 
 Again the poverty of the times in literature 
 compels us to leap over rather more than a 
 century to Nemefianus. This Carthaginian poet 
 alfo celebrates the hunting-dogs of Britain : 
 
 " Sed non Spartanos tantum tantumve Molossos 
 Pafcendum catulos, divifa Britannia mittit 
 Veloces, noftrique orbis venatibus aptos." 2 
 
 We have another fcrap relating to Britifh dogs 
 
 1 Oppian, " Cyneg.," i. 468. This defcription in the cr'ginal 
 is a very favourable fpecimen of Oppian's ftyle. 
 
 2 Nemefiani, "Cynegct," v. 123.
 
 40 Gleanings from the 
 
 in Claudian (about A.D. 400). He fpeaks of the 
 moloflus " hunting with tender nofe ;" and again, 
 of the " immortal moloflus barking amid the 
 thick mifts furrounding the mountain-tops," 1 
 which are probably not maftiffs in general (or 
 from the context Britain might perhaps claim 
 them), but ftrictly the dogs of the tribe Molofli. 
 Soon afterwards, amid an enumeration of different 
 dogs, he does fpecify the Britifh maftiffs : 
 
 " Magnaque taurorum fracturae colla Britannae." 
 
 From thefe femi-claflical notices the antiquarian 
 ftudent of Englifh dogs will not find much to 
 detain him till he comes to the early Foreft 
 Codes. Thus Cnut's " Foreft Laws," 2 in Canon 
 31, lay down that "no man of mean eftate mail 
 have or keep the dogs called by the Englifh 
 'greyhounds.' A freeman may, provided that 
 their expeditation mall have been effected in the 
 prefence of the chief forefter." 
 
 Again, Canon 32 (translated by Manwood), 
 allows "thofe little dogges called Velteres, and 
 fuch as are called Ram-hundt (al which dogges are 
 to fit in one's lap), may be kept in the foreft, 
 becaufe in them there is no daunger, and therefore 
 they mall not be hoxed or have their knees cut." 
 
 As another fpecimen of the ferocity of the 
 ancient foreft laws of our early kings, the follow- 
 ing may be adduced : Canon 34, " If any mad dog 
 
 1 "Dc Cons. Stilich.," iii. 294. 
 
 2 "Ancient Laws of England," publifhed by the Record 
 Commiflion, 1841. 
 
 3 Manwood's "Foreft Lawcs," 1615.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 4 1 
 
 mall have bitten a wild beaft, then he mall make 
 amends according to the value of a freeman, which 
 is twelve hundred millings. If, however, a royal 
 beaft mall have been killed by his bite, he mall be 
 guilty of the greateft crime." 
 
 Much that is interefting connected with dogs 
 ufed for falconry and the chafe may be found in 
 the "Boke of St. Alban's," 1486 ; but no Englim 
 writer treated fyftematically of the different breeds 
 of Britifh dogs until John Caius, or Kayes, wrote 
 his celebrated tractate " Of Englime Dogges, 
 the diverfities, the names, the natures, and the 
 properties." Having been addrefTed in Latin to 
 the famous Conrad Gefner, in order to aid that 
 naturalift in his hiftory of animals, it was tranflated 
 into Englifh by "Abraham Fleming, Student," 
 with the motto, " Natura etiam in brutis vim 
 oftendit fuam" and publifhed in I576. 1 A highly 
 euphuiftical dedication to his patron, the Dean of 
 Ely, was prefixed by this fame Fleming, who alfo 
 perpetrated fome verfes on dogs on the reverfe of 
 the title-page, entitled " A Profopopoicall fpeache 
 of the Booke," which from their ftyle and fubject 
 may moft truly be termed one of the earlieft 
 fpecimens of doggrel. 
 
 One or two interefting facts attach to John 
 Caius befides the authorfhip of the earlieft book 
 on Englim dogs. This "jewel and glory of 
 Cambridge," as Fleming ftyles him, was born in 
 1510, and rofe to be a diftinguifhed phyfician. 
 
 1 This has been reproduced in 1880 in a very convenient 
 little volume (only changing the old Englifh black-letter of the 
 original into ordinary Roman type) at the Bazaar Office.
 
 42 Gleanings from the 
 
 His name is ftill perpetuated in Gonville and 
 Caius College at Cambridge, which, after its firft 
 foundation by Edmund de Gonville in 1348, was 
 refounded by Caius, to whom it owes even more 
 than to its original founder. A great portion of 
 the exifting College was built by Caius, and he 
 was for many years firft Fellow and then Mafter 
 of it. Caius College is ftill the medical College 
 of the Univerfity, and can in paft years reckon 
 many notable phyficians amongft its fons, efpecially 
 Harvey, the difcoverer of the circulation of the 
 blood. Perhaps even more honourable than this 
 is the diftinction Caius has obtained of being 
 alluded to in no obfcure manner by Shakefpeare. 
 " Mafter Doctor Caius, the renowned French 
 Phyfician," is one of the characters in "The Merry 
 Wives of Windfor" (1602) ; his fervants are Mrs. 
 Quickly and Rugby, while, characteriftically 
 enough, when angry with Sir Hugh, Shakefpeare 
 makes him fay, " By gar, he mall not have a ftone 
 to throw at his dog" (" Merry Wives of Windfor," 
 I., iv. 119). Here it may be remarked incident- 
 ally that Shakefpeare, like the Bible, never fays a 
 good word for the dog, in fpite of its fidelity and 
 ufefulnefs. 
 
 The many divisions of his fubject which " that 
 prodigy of general erudition" (as Hallam calls 
 Gefner) was accuftomed to make, doubtlefs caufed 
 the plan to find favour in the eyes of his difciple, 
 Caius. As the archaeology of the dog ends with 
 his book, it is worth while giving an account of 
 it for the benefit of thofe dog-lovers who have
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 43 
 
 not yet made the acquaintance of this " breviary 
 of Englifhe dogges," as the author terms it. His 
 defign is to " exprefTe and declare in due order, the 
 grand and generall kinde of Englifh Dogges, the 
 difference of them, the ufe, the propertyes, and 
 the diverfe natures of the fame." The treatife is 
 efpecially valuable for giving us the chief kinds 
 of dogs then known in England (from which the 
 pointer, it will be noticed, is abfent) ; but there 
 are many quaint remarks and fmgular opinions 
 alfo comprifed in it. Firft of all, Caius makes 
 three great divifions of the Englifh dog : 
 
 " A gentle kind, ferving the game, [i.e. a well- 
 bred kind]. 
 
 A homely kind, apt for fundry necefTary ufes. 
 A currime kind, meete for many toyes." 
 
 Thefe are fubjected to fundry more careful 
 divifions ; and, finally, the firft clafs is fubdivided 
 into dogs for the chafe and dogs ufeful in fowl- 
 ing, under which heads the animals themfelves are 
 one by one particularly described. 
 
 Of dogs ufeful in the chafe, Caius enumerates 
 " Hariers, Terrars, Bloudhounds, Gafehounds, 
 Grehounds, Leviners or Lyemmers, Tumblers, 
 Stealers." The harrier is our modern hound; 
 and, if the author's clarification of its duties may 
 be trufted, was put in his day to very mifcellaneous 
 ufes. It has " bagging lips, and hanging eares, 
 reachyng downe both fydes of their chappes," and 
 was ufeful to hunt " the hare, foxe, wolfe, harte, 
 bucke, badger, otter, polcat, lobfter (! !), weafell, 

 
 44 Gleanings from the 
 
 and conny " only " the conny," Dr. Caius 
 explains, " wee ufe not to hunt, but rather to take 
 it, fomtime with the nette, fometime with the 
 ferret." The terrar " creepes into the grounde, 
 and by that meanes makes afrayde, nyppes and 
 bytes the fox and the badger." It is evidently 
 the original of the modern fox-terrier. On the 
 bloodhound the author enlarges with evident 
 delight. It is ufeful, he fays, to track wounded 
 deer or their poachers, and is kept " in clofe and 
 darke channels " (kennels) in the day-time by its 
 owner, but let loofe at night, " to the intent that 
 it myght with more courage and boldnefle practife 
 to follow the fellon in the evening and folitary 
 houres of darknefTe, when fuch yll-difpofed varlots 
 are principally purpofed to play theyr impudent 
 pageants and imprudent pranckes." Thefe hounds 
 are alfo much ufed, he tells us, on the Borders 
 againft cattle-lifters. The females are called 
 braches, in common with " all bytches belonging 
 to the hunting kinde of dogges " (conf. Hotfpur's 
 words, i Henry IV., iii. i, "I had rather hear 
 Lady, my brach, howl in Irim "). The gaze- 
 hound (ago/feus) he defcribes as a northern hound, 
 which, " by the fteadfaftnes of the eye," marks 
 out and runs down any quarry which it once 
 feparates from the herd. It clearly in this place 
 refembles the prefent Scotch deerhound. The 
 "grehounde" is "a fpare and bare kinde of dogge, 
 of flefhe but not of bone ; and the nature of thefe 
 dogges I find to be wonderful by y' teftimoniall 
 of hiftories," for which he cites Froiflart. At the
 
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 45 
 
 prefent day greyhounds are generally fuppofed to 
 be remarkably Jacking in any other virtue than 
 that of fpeed ; all other points in their breeding 
 are neglected to enfure this good quality. The 
 lymmer (from ligo, becaufe held in a learn) is " in 
 fmelling fmgular, and in fwiftenefTe incomparable." 
 It is little ufed in England at prefent, but may be 
 feen in Brittany and on the Continent, where it is 
 a ufeful creature in the mifcellaneous collection of 
 big hounds employed to hunt the wolf and boar. 
 The verfagus, or tumbler, is another dog little 
 known in England now. It was wont to frifk 
 and tumble over and over, and by its antics 
 fafcinated rabbits and the like, until, gradually 
 drawing nearer, it made a rum at them. It 
 furvives in the little dog employed by the few 
 fowlers in the fens which yet exifl, in order to 
 lure the wild-fowl, who have been attracted by 
 the decoy-ducks, further into the " pipe " of the 
 net. " The dogge called the theevifhe dogge " 
 finds its modern exemplification in the " lurcher " 
 of gipfies and poachers. " At the bydding and 
 mandate of his matter it fteereth and leereth 
 abroade in the night, hunting connyes by the ayre 
 which is levened with their faver, and conveyed to 
 the fenfe of fmelling by the meanes of the winde 
 blowing towardes him. During all which fpace of 
 his hunting he will not barcke, lead he mould bee 
 preivdiciall to his owne advantage." 
 
 Fowling dogs are the fetter, the water-fpaniel, 
 and " the dogge called the fifher, in Latine cants 
 pifcator" Dr. Caius here fomewhat unconfcioufly
 
 46 Gleanings from the 
 
 imitates the famous chapter " Concerning Snakes 
 in Iceland," for he is fain to confefs, in his chapter 
 on the " Fifher," that " affuredly I know none of 
 that kinde in Englande, neither have I received by 
 reporte that there is any fuche." He appears to 
 confufe it with the beaver or otter, and writes as 
 if the beaver were not yet extinct in England. 
 The whole chapter reminds an angler of the 
 celebrated queftion which is raifed in Walton's 
 book, whether the otter be beaft or fim, folved by 
 the huntfman, who avows that, at any rate, " moft 
 agree that her tail is rim." 1 Indeed, the author's 
 wonderful divifions of his fubject irrefiflibly fuggeft 
 that Shakefpeare had this book in his mind when 
 he wrote : 
 
 " Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men, 
 As hounds and greyhounds, mungrels, fpaniels, curs, 
 Shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves are cleped 
 All by the name of dogs ; the valued file 
 Diftinguifhes the fwift, the flow, the fubtle, 
 The houfe-keeper, the hunter ; every one 
 According to the gift which bounteous nature 
 Hath in him clofed ; whereby he does receive 
 Particular addition from the bill 
 That writes them all alike." 2 
 
 Next our author comes to " the delicate, neate, 
 and pretty kind of dogges, called the fpaniel 
 gentle, or the comforter, in Latine Melitacus or 
 Fotor " (from Melita or Malta, fo anfwering to 
 our Maltefe dog). Dr. Caius had evidently no 
 affection for thefe, and delivers himfelf of feveral 
 cauftic fentences, which may well be quoted for 
 
 1 " Compleat Angler," i. z. 
 
 2 " Macbeth," iii. z (written in 1606).
 
 Natural Hiflory of the Ancients. 47 
 
 the benefit of a good many " filly women " at 
 prefent : " Thefe dogges are Htle, pretty, proper, 
 and fyne, and fought for to fatiffie the delicate- 
 nefle of daintie dames and wanton womens wills 
 inftrumentes of folly for them to play and dally 
 withall, to tryfle away the treafure of time, to 
 withdraw their mindes from more commendable 
 exercifes, and to content their corrupted con- 
 cupifcences with vaine difport " (a felly fhift to 
 fhunne yrckfome ydleneffe)." And again, " that 
 plaufible proverbe verified upon a Tyraunt, 
 namely that he loved his fowe better than his 
 fonne, may well be applyed to thefe kinde of 
 people who delight more in dogges that are 
 deprived of all poffibility of reafon, than they doe 
 in children that be capeable of wifedome and 
 judgement." 
 
 Another chapter leads to the canes ruftici the 
 dogs properly affociated by the ancients with 
 Great Britain. And firft comes the fhepherd-dog, 
 which, the author explains, need not be fierce, as, 
 thanks to King Edgar, England holds no wolves. 
 The maftifF, or bandog, which " is vafte, huge, 
 ftubborne, ougly and eager, of a hevy and 
 burthenous body, and therefore but of litle 
 fwiftnefle, terrible, and frightfull to beholde, and 
 more fearce and fell than any Arcadian curre 
 (notwithftanding they are faid to have the genera- 
 tion of the violent lion)," obtains a long notice with 
 divers hiftorical anecdotes. A good many crofs- 
 divifions follow in as many different feclions treat- 
 ing of the " dogge-keeper " (or watch-dog) ; the
 
 48 Gleanings from the 
 
 butcher's dog ; the Moloflus ; the dog that carries 
 letters and the like wrapped up in his collar ; the 
 " mooner, becaufe he doth nothing elfe but watch 
 and warde at an ynche, wafting the wearifome 
 night feafon, without {lumbering or deeping, baw- 
 ing and wawing at the moone, a qualitie in mine 
 opinion ftraunge to confider ;" the dog that draws 
 water out of wells; and the " Tyncker's curre," 
 which many can yet remember drawing pots and 
 kettles about the country. Moft of thefe, adds 
 the author, are excellent dogs to defend their 
 matter's property ; and fome are very " deadly, for 
 they flye upon a man, without utterance of voice, 
 fnatch at him, and catche him by the throate, and 
 moft cruelly byte out colloppes of fleafhe." 
 
 The next chapter contains an account of " curres 
 of the mungrell and rafcall fort," which may be 
 called " waps " or warners. The turnfpit and 
 dancer (fo called becaufe taught to dance and 
 perform antics for gain) are treated of herein. It 
 would be unlike the author's age to forget the 
 marvels of canine life, fo his book concludes with 
 a chapter " of other dogges wonderfully engendered 
 within the coaftes of this country ; the firft bred 
 of a bytch and a wolf (lycijcus} ; the fecond of a 
 bytyche and a foxe (lac<ena) ; the third of a beare 
 and a bandogge (urcanus)." A few clofing words 
 are entitled, "a ftarte to outlandifh dogges," which 
 bear hardly upon Scotch and Skye terriers, now fo 
 common as pets, fo ufeful, and, it may be added, 
 fo faithful. Like Dr. Johnfon, Caius evidently 
 could not abide anything Scotch. "A beggerly
 
 Natural Hiflory of the Ancients. 49 
 
 beaft brought out of barbarous borders, fro' the 
 uttermoft countryes Northward, etc., we ftare at, 
 we gafe at, we mufe, we marvaile at, like an affe 
 of Cumanum, like Thales with the brafen fhancks, 
 like the man in the Moone." And fo we heartily 
 bid farewell to Dr. Caius and his amufing tractate, 
 {ruffed full (" farfed " he would term it) of quaint 
 fentiments and recondite allufions. It is a book 
 which will delight all dog-lovers, independently 
 of its value in continuing the hiftory of their 
 favourite animal from claflical times. Perhaps it 
 is worth adding that he repeats the old receipt for 
 quieting a fierce dog which attacks a paffer-by, 
 viz., to fit down on the ground and fearleflly 
 await his approach. Whether anyone has ever 
 tried to put it in practice in real life we know 
 not, nor have we ever cared to effay its virtues ; 
 but Ulyffes certainly knew its value, and tried it 
 to fome purpofe (fee Plin., " Nat. Hift.," viii. 40 ; 
 and "Odyffey," xiv. 31). 
 
 Chaucer, like Shakefpeare, feems to have had 
 no great affection for dogs, but has not forgotten 
 them in his portrait of the Priorefs, Madam 
 Eglantine. Her humanity and tendernefs had to 
 be defcribed, and her love for her dogs gave the 
 needful opportunity. 
 
 " Of fmale houndes hadde fhe, that fhe fedde, 
 With rofted flefh, and milk, and waftel brede, 
 But fore wept flie if on of hem were dede, 
 Or if men fmote it with a yerde fmert, 
 And all was confcience and tendre herte." (Prologue.} 
 
 In the ftory of " The Pardonere and Tapftere," 
 another kind of dog is defcribed : 
 
 E
 
 50 Gleanings from the 
 
 " A whelp 
 
 That ley undir a fteyir, a grete Walfh dog, 
 That bare about his neck a grete huge clog, 
 Becaufe that he was fpetoufe, and wold fone bite." 
 
 Though the poems of Tickell and Somerville 
 can fcarcely, in point of time, be deemed old 
 enough to merit an antiquarian's notice, yet are 
 they fufficiently remote from the prefent genera- 
 tion's reading to warrant here a word or two, 
 which may aptly conclude thefe notes. A frag- 
 ment of a poem on hunting by the former, the 
 friend and mourner of Addison, is marked with 
 all his claffic eafe and grace. The following 
 lines will illuftrate at leaft one of Dr. Caius's dogs. 
 Tickell bids his reader mark : 
 
 " How every nerve the greyhound's ftretch difplays, 
 The hare preventing in her airy maze j 
 The lucklefs prey how treach'rous tumblers gain, 
 And dauntlefs wolf-dogs fliake the lion's mane ; 
 O'er all the bloodhound boafts fuperior (kill, 
 To fcent, to view, to turn and boldly kill." 
 
 And what reminifcences of the " Georgics " 
 breathe in this portrait of a hound ! We truft 
 thefe famples may induce fome readers to turn to 
 a poet who has been too long unjuftly neglected : 
 
 " Such be the dog I charge, thou mean'ft to train, 
 His back is crooked, and his belly plain, 
 Of fillet ftretch'd and huge of haunch behind, 
 A tapering tail that nimbly cuts the wind ; 
 Trufs-thighed, ftraight-hamm'd, and fox-like form'd his paw, 
 Large legged, dry foled, and of protended claw ; 
 His flat wide noftrils fnuff the favoury fteam, 
 And from his eyes he moots pernicious gleam, 
 Middling his head and prone to earth his view, 
 With ears and cheft that dafli the morning dew :
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 5 1 
 
 He beft to ftem the flood, to leap the bound, 
 And charm the Dryads with his voice profound ; 
 To pay large tribute to his weary lord, 
 And crown the fylvan hero's plenteous board." 
 
 Gervafe Markham's quaint picture of the " water 
 dogge " may well be compared with this (fee his 
 "Hunger's Prevention," London, 1621, in which 
 are a good many more notices of dogs) : " His 
 Necke would bee thicke and fhort, his Breft like 
 the breft of a fhippe, fharp and compafle; his 
 Shoulders broad, his fore Legs ftraight, his chine 
 fquare, his Buttockes rounded, his Ribbes com- 
 pafle, his Belly gaunt, his Thyes brawn, his 
 Gambril crooked, his pofteriors ftrong and dewe 
 clawde, and all his four feete fpacious, full and 
 round, and clofed together like a water duck" 
 (chap. ix.). 
 
 Much curious matter on dogs may be picked 
 out of George Turberville's " Book of Faulconrie," 
 publifhed in 1575; and his "Noble Arte of 
 Venerie," in which he largely compiled from Du 
 Fouilloux and Jean de Glamorgan. Harington, 
 Glanville, Barlow, and William Harrifon, in 
 Holinfhed's "Hiftory" ed. 1586, cap. 7, may 
 alfo be confulted with profit. Some of this old- 
 world learning has been brought together by Mr. 
 G. R. Jefle in his " Refearches into the Hiftory of 
 the Britifh Dog" (London, 1866). All thefe 
 authors love dogs as fervently as the Indian hero, 
 Yoodhift'huru. When the chariot of Indru was 
 waiting to convey him to heaven, he came attended 
 by his dog. " I don't take dogs," faid Indru. 
 " Then I don't go," replied Yoodhift'huru. The
 
 5 2 -Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 
 
 dog, however, turns out to be Humu, a god, and 
 the difficulty was got over (fee Berjeau's "Varieties 
 of Dogs in old Sculptures," etc., London, 1863, 
 
 P.O. 
 
 Somerville's four books in blank verfe on the 
 chafe are, perhaps, too lengthy for readers who 
 tire quickly of Milton; but the adventurous 
 explorer will find fome landfcapes in them which 
 betray no mean defcriptive fkill, lit up every here 
 and there by a flam of imagination. He, too, 
 was evidently a dog-lover ; and feveral good 
 defcriptions of the hounds which found favour 
 with huntfmen at the beginning of the laft 
 century atteft his enthufiafm for hunting. After 
 his verfes no further excufe can be found for con- 
 tinuing the fubjecl, though it is worth while to 
 add that a few notices on dogs are contained in 
 Pepys's " Diary."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CAT. 
 
 to all as is the domeftic 
 cat, a number of interefting queftions 
 are involved in its early hiftory. A 
 diftinguifhed biologift has recently 
 taken it as the type of the felidce, and filled a 
 goodly volume on it without by any means 
 exhaufting the fubject. 1 The origin of the large 
 family of cats, both foffil and living fpecies, is 
 traced in geologic time by Lyell and Owen to the 
 Pliocene Period, when, together with the canid<e> 
 cats alfo came into being. Profeflbr Owen enume- 
 rates as foffil fpecies F. Speltea, great cave tiger, 
 whofe remains have been found in Kent's Hole 
 and el fe where ; F. Par do ides y of which one tooth 
 was found by Mr. Lyell in the Red Crag, New- 
 bourn, in 1839; F- C atus -> tne wild cat probably 
 identical with the prefent wild cat of the north ; 
 and a huge fabre-toothed feline animal as large 
 as a tiger, and, to judge from its teeth, more 
 1 St. John Mivart's "The Cat" (Murray, 1881).
 
 54 Gleanings from the 
 
 deftructive, Mach<erodus latidens. Its remains 
 have alfo been found in Kent's Hole and at Kirk- 
 dale. 1 Mr. Mivart, however, who has more 
 recently inveftigated the fubject, enumerates, with 
 descriptions, fifty diftinct fpecies of living cats, and 
 adds, "A much larger number of fpecies have 
 probably exifted in the paft." The great cat, 
 known as the cave lion (F. Spel^ea^ lived in 
 England in middle and late pleiftocene times ; but 
 Mr. Mivart traces the anceftry of cats to a much 
 more diftant period. " The remains of certain 
 large cats have been found in pliocene, and 
 miocene, and even in eocene deposits, which differ 
 from any exifting cats in the enormous size of 
 their upper canine teeth, e.g.^ mach<erodus^ hoplo- 
 phoneus, pseud^elurus" 2 etc. There are figns that 
 the cat was domefticated in the bronze period. 
 
 It is commonly fuppofed that the wild cat is 
 the anceftor of our domeftic cats, but this is 
 certainly a miftake. 3 Few animals are more irre- 
 claimable than the wild cat. One which the Duke 
 of Sutherland, as head of the Clan Chattan, or 
 Clan of the Cats, exhibited in a flrong cage at the 
 Cryftal Palace fome years ago during a mow of 
 cats, flew fiercely at all who approached it. No 
 amount of kindnefs appears to tame it ; and the 
 progeny invariably revert to a wild life in the 
 
 1 Owen, "Hiftory of Britifh Foffil Mammals and Birds." 
 (Van Voorft, 1846), p. 173. 
 
 2 Mivart, utfup., pp. 431, 432. 
 
 3 Prof. Owen thinks that " our houfchold cat is probably a 
 domefticated variety of the fame fpecies which was contem- 
 porary with the fpclzean bear, hysena and tiger." (" Britifh 
 Foffil Mammals," p. 173.)
 
 Natural Hijiory of the Ancients. 5 5 
 
 woods as foon as poflible. Befides which, the 
 period of geftation of the wild cat is fixty-eight 
 days, twelve days longer than that of the domeftic 
 animal. 1 The late Mr. F. Buckland, too, pointed 
 out, as a ftriking difference between it and the 
 domeftic animal, that its inteftines are much shorter 
 than thofe of the latter animal. Thus they were 
 found to be only five feet in two fpecimens of the 
 wild cat, whereas they would probably be three 
 times that length in the domefticated creature. 2 
 This ftatement, however, requires confirmation. 
 In the spring of 1884 a fuppofed wild cat was 
 mot in a large extent of woodland near Wragby, 
 in Lincolnfhire, called Bullington Wood. Wild 
 cats are fuppofed to have been extinct in this 
 county from quite the beginning of the century. 
 This cat was (luffed, and feen by many others as 
 well as the writer. It might either be a true wild 
 cat in which cafe it had efcaped from confine- 
 ment or elfe was a furvival of the true old 
 Britim wild cat. It is curious, in connection with 
 this, that the laft locality in which the kite was 
 feen in this country was in thefe very woodlands ; 
 and the marten is yet found there. It feemed the 
 general opinion that this was a true wild cat ; 
 with the writer, however, another alternative found 
 favour that it was a defcendant, perhaps in the 
 fourth or fifth generation, from an efcaped domeftic 
 cat. It is a fmgular fact that efcaped cats and 
 
 1 Mivart, ut fup., pp. 2-6. 
 
 2 "Logbook of a Fifherman " (1875), P- 2 5 2 - Darwin 
 " Plants and Animals under Domcftication," ii. 292.
 
 5 6 Gleanings from the 
 
 their progeny have much tendency to revert in 
 colour and appearance to the type of the true 
 /. catus. Its colour is a dark-grey, or grey-brown 
 ftriped with black. The cat in queftion seemed 
 to the writer too rich in colour, with an under- 
 made of yellow, which was fufpicious. Colour, 
 however, is proverbially deceitful in natural hiftory 
 inveftigations. The head was too round, the legs 
 too {lender, and the tail not fufficiently abrupt; 
 and thefe are important ftructural differences. 
 Adhuc Jub judice Us efl. Two or three other hints, 
 moreover, feem to point to the conclufion that the 
 domeftic cat is a foreign importation. The curious 
 penalty, for inftance, denounced in the old Welfh 
 laws againft him who mould kill the king's cat, 
 "the keeper of the royal granary," appears to 
 fuggeft that a cat was a fomewhat rare and valuable 
 animal. The offender was compelled to pay as 
 much corn as would cover the cat's body when 
 held up by the tip of its tail. Dick Whittington 
 and his cat is another indication of the foreign 
 extraction of the animal. Being fent to Barbary, 
 it fold for a good price, and enriched its mafter. 
 
 All the evidence points to Egypt as the country 
 where cats were originally domefticated in the 
 Weft, though it was known in India 2,000 years 
 ago. They are wrong who derive the cat's appear- 
 ance in Europe from Perfia, and ftate that its name 
 Pufs is a mere diminutive of Perfe. Dr. Brugfch- 
 Bey mews that one of the titles of Ofiris was Bafs, 
 the cat (or leopard), whence, with more proba- 
 bility, comes our word Pufs. His wife, Baft (the
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 57 
 
 " biffat " or tabby cat of the modern Arabians), 
 gave her name to Bubaftis (Pi-Bast, the City of 
 Baft). 1 The parent of our cat is to be fought, 
 either in the felis bubafles or the /. caligata 
 (mamculata}^ found at prefent wild in Egypt. 
 Probably the latter, with an admixture of other 
 (trains, is the original ftock. It is a native of 
 Northern Africa, about a third fmaller than our 
 wild cat, and of a yellowim colour, fomewhat 
 darker on the back and whitim on the belly. 
 Thus Egypt, the granary of the ancient world, 
 naturally was the firft country of the Weftern 
 world to domefticate the cat. It is mentioned in 
 infcriptions as early as 1684 B.C., and was cer- 
 tainly kept as a pet in Egypt 1,300 years B.C. 
 The earlieft known reprefentation of the cat as a 
 domeftic creature is on a tablet of the eighteenth 
 or nineteenth dynafty at Leyden, wherein it appears 
 feated under a chair. It was venerated in certain 
 diftridls of ancient Egypt : 
 
 " Illic eeluros, hie pifcem fluminis, illic 
 Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam." 
 
 (Juv., Sat. 1 5, 7.) 
 
 1 See Burton, " Land of Midian " (Kegan Paul and Co., 
 1879), v l- i-> P- I! 3' The above learned Egyptologift would 
 derive Bacchus and his priefts, the Bacchi and Bacchantes, from 
 the Ofiric term, Bafs. It is at leaft a curious faft that the drefs 
 of theie priefts confifted of a leopard's fkin. 
 
 " According to Lenormant, the cat does not appear on 
 Egyptian fculpture earlier than the thirteenth dynasty (2020, 
 B.C.), and therefore the credit of its domeftication is due to the 
 inhabitants of the Upper Nile. This procefs, remarks Hehn, 
 muft have taken a long time, but it was thoroughly fucceffful 
 in the end." (W. R. S. Ralfton, Nineteenth Century, Jan., 
 1883.)
 
 5 8 Gleanings from the 
 
 The goddefs Pafht or Bubaftis, the goddefs of 
 cats, was under the Roman Empire reprefented 
 with a cat's head, that creature being efteemed an 
 emblem both of the fun and the moon by the 
 ancient Egyptians, partly from its eyes being fup- 
 pofed to vary with the courfe of the fun, partly 
 becaufe they were thought to wax and wane with 
 the moon. Dr. Birch ftates that the earlieft re- 
 prefentation of the cat with which he is acquainted 
 and of whofe date he is certain, is to be found on a 
 tomb in the Berlin Mufeum, apparently of about 
 1600 B.C. It alfo appears in hunting-fcenes of the 
 eighteenth dynafty, and in rituals written under 
 that dynafty, but probably repetitions of a much 
 earlier text. At times it is in a boat with the 
 hunters, but eager to be allowed to fpring into 
 the thickets of aquatic plants ; and again it is re- 
 prefented among the birds {truck down by the 
 fowler, and apparently taught to work either as a 
 fpringer of the game or as a retriever. When the 
 facred cats died, their bodies were always em- 
 balmed, and behind a temple at Beni Haflan, 
 dedicated to Bubaftis, are pits containing a multi- 
 tude of cat mummies. 1 When Herodotus vifited 
 Egypt, he was naturally ftruck with the exaggerated 
 reverence paid to cats, and devotes a quaint chapter 
 to them which is well worth tranfiating. Two 
 facls come out in it ; firft, a certain fcarcity of cats 
 even in Egypt ; and fecondly, the facrednefs of 
 the animal. 
 
 1 Mivart, ut sup.; and Wilkinson, "Ancient Egyptians," i., 
 p. 236.
 
 Natural Hijlory of the Ancients. 59 
 
 " Though the Egyptians have many domeftic 
 animals, there would be many more did not the 
 following circumftances occur. When kittens 
 are born, their mothers are unwilling to confort 
 with the males, fo the Toms have devifed a plan 
 to remedy this. They carry off and kill the 
 kittens ; but though they kill, they do not eat 
 them. Then the mothers, having loft their kittens, 
 naturally long for others (the cat being an animal 
 fond of young ones), and fo again feek the males. 
 When a fire breaks out, a divine impulfe comes 
 over the cats. The Egyptians feparate and keep 
 watch over them, neglecting to put out the con- 
 flagration ; but the cats, flipping under and leap- 
 ing over the men, fpring into the fire. When 
 this happens great grief takes pofleflion of the 
 Egyptians, and wherever cats have thus perimed 
 of their own accord, all the inmates of the houfe 
 fhave off their eyebrows only ; but whenever a 
 dog has died, their whole body and head. After 
 their death, cats are borne off into facred abodes, 
 where, after having been made into mummies, 
 they are buried in the City Bubaftis" (Book ii. 
 66). Diodorus fays that he faw the Egyptians 
 murder a Roman who had accidentally killed a 
 cat. 
 
 Chabas fays that cats are not feen on any of 
 the hieroglyphic tables illuftrating the life of the 
 Egyptians, but are often employed as the equivalent 
 for the found " meou." The cat dates from the 
 moft ancient times in that country, and is mixed 
 up with the oldeft legends. This mews why it was
 
 60 Gleanings from the 
 
 frequently made into a mummy. It probably had a 
 myftical fignificance, for "dans quelques-unes des 
 peintures parvenues jufqu'a nous, les anciens 
 Egyptiens fe montrent accompagnes de leurs 
 chiens et de leurs finges favoris, auxquels ils 
 donnaient des noms comme on le fait aujourd'hui ; 
 le chat n'y figure jamais." The camel, again, is 
 never reprefented on any of the furviving monu- 
 ments, yet it was known to the Egyptians in the 
 time of Abraham (Chabas, " Etudes," pp. 406, 
 408: Paris, 1873). 
 
 Cats and hares mare an equal notoriety in the 
 annals of witchcraft. " When one of us " (fays 
 one of the Culdean witches) " is in the fhape of 
 a cat, and meet with any others of our neighbours, 
 we will fay, ' Devil fpeed thee, go thou with 
 me,' and immediately they will turn to the fhape 
 of a cat and go with us." There was a large 
 aflembly and fight with fuch cats at Scrabfter, in 
 the north of Scotland, 1718. The marvellous 
 recital tells how one Mr. William Montgomery 
 valoroufly ftuck one with his dirk through the 
 hinder quarters to a cheft, " yet after all me 
 efcaped out of the cheft with the dirk in her 
 hinder quarters " (J. H. Burton, " Criminal Trials 
 in Scotland," vol. i., p. 290: London, 1852). 
 Freja, in the " Northern Mythology," rides to the 
 battlefield in a waggon drawn by two cats, this 
 animal being facred to her. Hence it is popularly 
 afligned to hags, witches, etc. When a bride goes 
 to her wedding in fine weather the Germans fay, 
 " She has fed the cat well ;" /'.<?., not offended the
 
 Natural Hijtory of the Ancients. 6 1 
 
 favourites of the love-goddefs (Grimm's "Northern 
 Mythology," tranflated by Stallybrafs, i., p. 305.) 
 In fpite of the proverb : 
 
 " Catus saepe satur cum capto mure jocatur," 
 
 Mr. St. John Mivart is of opinion that the cat, 
 when tormenting a moufe, is not doing fo from 
 native cruelty, but in order to keep her claws in 
 order, juft as her big brother, the tiger, is com- 
 pelled to fcratch the bark of trees, efpecially the 
 Indian fig-tree, in order to cleanfe his claws. 
 Japanefe cats, like thofe of the Ifle of Man, are 
 taillefs. The cat is a favourite on tavern figns ; 
 our own Cat and Fiddle matching the Flemifh 
 " Le Chat qui Fume," and the equally well-known 
 " Chat de St. Jean " with its long tobacco-pipe. 
 
 Cats were not domeftic animals with the 
 Hebrews, any more than dogs. It is not fur- 
 prifing, therefore, that they are pafled over in 
 filence in Holy Scripture. In Baruch vi. 22, 
 indeed, is a curious paflage which occurs in what 
 purports to be a letter of Jeremiah to the captives 
 about to be led into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. 
 In it the prophet tells them of the fenfelefs idols 
 they will there fee, and adds, " upon their bodies 
 and heads fit bats, fwallows, and birds, and the 
 cats alfo ;" but the pafTage is in all probability a 
 forgery of the firft century B.C. 
 
 From Egypt cats feem to have been introduced 
 into Greece, and thence into Rome. A frefco 
 painting of a cat was difcovered at Pompeii. 
 Thefe animals were not much prized, however, 
 by either Greeks or Romans. The only paf-
 
 62 Gleanings frcm the 
 
 fage in the claflics where the word which has 
 patted into our " cat " occurs is in an epigram of 
 Martial (xiii. 69) : 
 
 " Pannonicas nobis nunquam dedit Umbria cattas" 
 
 Phaedrus has a fable of an eagle, a cat, and a fow 
 which inhabited the top, middle, and bafe of an 
 oak, and clearly ufes the word felis of our well- 
 known cat. One line exactly exprefles the cat's 
 nocturnal habits : 
 
 " Evagata noctu suspense pede." (Fab., 2, 4.) 
 
 Compare, too, the proverb, " Felem Minervae." 
 
 The connection of cats and Egypt comes out 
 again in a pafTage of Ovid (" Met.," v. 330). A 
 mufe fings : 
 
 " How the gods fled to Egypt's flimy foil, 
 And hid their heads beneath the banks of Nile, 
 How Typhon from the conquered fkies purfued 
 Their routed godheads to the feven-mouthed flood ; 
 Forced every god, his fury to efcape, 
 Some beaflly form to take or earthly fhape ; 
 Jove (fo me fung) was changed into a ram, 
 From whence the horns of Libyan Ammon came ; 
 Bacchus a goat, Apollo was a crow, 
 Phcebe a cat, the wife of Jove a cow.' 
 
 (Maynwaring's Tranflation.) 
 
 The peculiar roughnefs of the tongue in the 
 feline race generally is pointed out by Pliny 
 (xi. 37, 65). He adds : " With what filence, with 
 what light footfteps do cats creep upon birds ! 
 how fuddenly, when they have fpied them, do 
 they fpring out upon mice!" (x. 73, 202). 
 Arguing from this and fimilar pafTages, the late 
 Prof. Rollefton and others believed that the do-
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 63 
 
 meftic animal of the Greeks and Romans, for 
 which we now ufe the cat, was the white-breafted 
 marten. The word feles, it is true, is commonly 
 ufed for the weafel ; but, on the other hand, its 
 Greek fynonym d'iXou/ooc, according to the beft 
 derivation by Buttemann, applies exactly to the 
 wavy motion of the tail fo peculiar to the cat 
 family. The Englifh term " cat " probably comes 
 from the Latin catus (cunning). In Anglo-Saxon 
 documents it is found with the fpelling " catt." 
 " When Julius Casfar landed here," fays Mivart 
 (utfup., p. 2), " our forefts were plentifully fup- 
 plied with cats, while probably not a fmgle moufer 
 exifted in any Britifh town or village." The wild 
 cat is at prefent reftricled to the extreme north 
 and north-weftern diftricts of Scotland, having 
 become extindt in England, and never feemingly 
 having exifted at all in Ireland. But in the 
 Middle Ages it was common in the wilder parts 
 of England, as its fur was commonly ufed to 
 trim drefles. John, Earl of Morton, in a charter 
 granting immunities to free tenants outfide 
 the Regard of the Foreft of Dartmoor, fays: 
 " Quod capiant capreolam, vulpem, cattum^ lupum, 
 leporem, lutrum ubicunque ilia invenerint extra 
 reguardum forefte mee," 1 as if the wild cat were 
 not uncommon at the end of the twelfth century. 
 Pope Gregory the Great had a tame cat, and cats 
 were often inmates of nunneries in the Middle 
 
 1 See Rowe's " Perambulation of Dartmoor " (1848), p. 263. 
 The Charter is in the poffeffion of the Dean and Chapter of 
 Exeter.
 
 64 Gleanings from the 
 
 Ages. Its flem was interdicted as food, having 
 been a favourite dim with the heathen Northmen. 
 
 A curious parallel to Whittington and his cat 
 occurs in a petition of the year 1621 of one Wil- 
 liam Bragge to " the Company of the Eaft India 
 and Sommer Iflands," claiming ^ 6,875 ^ or divers 
 fervices rendered. 1 Among their recital is found : 
 " Item, more for 20 Dogges and a greate many 
 Catts which, under God, as by your booke written 
 of late, ridd away and devoured all the Ratts in 
 that Hand [Bermuda], which formerly eate up all 
 your corne, and many other blefled fruites which 
 that land afforded. Well, for theis, I will demand 
 of you but 5lb. a piece for the Doggs, and let the 
 Catts goe loolb. os. od." Hone relates that on 
 the Feftival of Corpus Chrifti at Aix in Provence, 
 " The fineft Tom cat of the country, wrapped in 
 fwaddling clothes like a child, was exhibited in a 
 magnificent fhrine to public admiration. But at 
 the Feftival of St. John poor Tom's fate was 
 reverfed. A number of the tabby tribe were put 
 into a wicker-bafket, and thrown alive into the 
 midft of an immenfe fire, kindled in the public 
 fquare by the Bifhop and his clergy. Hymns and 
 anthems were sung, and proceffions made by the 
 people in honour of the facrifice." 2 It is fingular 
 to find thefe traditions of the facrednefs of the 
 animal lingering in Europe in the Middle Ages. 
 
 The cat is a celebrated animal in folk-lore and 
 proverbs. 3 Perhaps Fuller's faying is one of the 
 
 1 N. and Q, 3rd S., 2, 345. 
 
 2 "Every Day Book," vol. i., p. 758. 
 
 3 Darwin, "Origin of Species," p. 9, ed. 6.
 
 Natural Hiflory of the Ancients. 65 
 
 moft ungallant of the latter : " A cat has nine 
 lives, and a woman has nine cats' lives." Almoft 
 equally paradoxical with this proverb appears at 
 firft fight what is neverthelefs regarded as a true 
 law of nature, that cats which are entirely white, 
 and have blue eyes, are generally deaf ; but it has 
 lately been stated that this peculiarity is confined 
 to the males. " Care killed the cat " is another 
 proverb which reflefls upon the eafy lives led by 
 thefe animals. The circumftances of their owners 
 do not affect them, and a cat is a faturnine creature, 
 equally happy and at home whatever befalls her 
 matter. The familiar prefence of the cat on every 
 hearth comes out in "a cat may look at a king." 
 Why Chefhire cats mould always grin is fome- 
 what infcrutable, but fo fays the Scotch proverb. 1 
 Shakefpeare was aware of the cat's weaknefs for 
 fifh, but its unwillingnefs to wet its feet in catching 
 them, and applies it finely. Lady Macbeth taunts 
 her hufband when he hangs back from the murder 
 
 with 
 
 " Letting I dare not wait upon I would, 
 Like the poor cat i' the adage," 
 
 referring to the mediaeval adage, 
 
 " Catus amat pifces fed non vult tingere plantas ;" 
 
 and the fame poet well knew the nature of the true 
 
 wild cat : 
 
 " He fleeps by day 
 More than the wild cat." (Mercb. of Venice, ii. 5.) 
 
 1 In Sicily the cat is facred to St. Martha. He who kills a 
 cat will be unhappy for feven years. Europe has always 
 regarded the cat as a diabolical creature. A Ruffian proverb 
 fays that a black torn cat at the end of feven years turns into 
 a devil. (Ralflon, ut jup.} 
 
 F
 
 66 Gleanings from the 
 
 To mow the manner in which one part of 
 nature influences and acts upon others until the 
 fauna or flora of a diftrict may be changed by 
 what feem, taken feparately, infignificant caufes, 
 it is worth while quoting a fpeculation of Darwin, 
 in which the cat plays a confpicuous part. " The 
 common red clover is only vifited by humble- 
 bees, as hive-bees cannot reach the nectar. The 
 heartfeafe (viola tricolor] is another plant which 
 alib feems to owe its fertilization only to humble- 
 bees. It may be regarded, therefore, as highly 
 probable that if the whole genus of humble-bees 
 became extinct or very rare in England, the 
 heartfeafe and red clover would become either 
 very rare, or would altogether difappear. The 
 number of humble-bees in a diftrict depends in a 
 great meafure on the number of field-mice, which 
 deftroy their combs and nefts. It is eftimated that 
 more than two-thirds of them are thus deftroyed 
 all over England. The number of mice is largely 
 dependent upon the number of cats, and it has 
 been found near villages and fmall towns the nefts 
 of humble-bees are more numerous than el fe where, 
 which is attributed to the number of cats which 
 deftroy the mice. Hence it is quite credible that 
 the prefence of a feline animal in large numbers in 
 a diftrict might determine, through the interven- 
 tion firft of mice and then of bees, the frequency 
 of certain flowers in that diftrict." 1 
 
 " There remains to be told but one more cat 
 ftory of importance. It claims to be of recent 
 1 See "Origin of Species," ut fttp., p. 57.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 67 
 
 date, and it conveys the ufeful moral that they 
 who attempt to benefit their fellow-men muft he 
 prepared for difappointment. A few years ago, 
 if newfpaper reports may be believed, a fhip was 
 fent to the colony of Triftan d'Acunha with a 
 fcore of cats on board. Thefe animals were a 
 prefent from the Lords of the Admiralty, to 
 whom it had been reported that the ifland was 
 moufe-ridden. When the veflel arrived the 
 Governor of the colony begged that the cats 
 might be kept on board. It was quite true, he 
 explained, that the ifland was infefted by mice, 
 but it was alfo overrun by cats. And in Triftan 
 d'Acunha, cats, in confequence of fome ftrange 
 climatic influence, always abandoned moufing, a 
 fact which accounted for the abnormal develop- 
 ment of the moufe population. So that a gift of 
 cats to Triftan d'Acunha was even lefs likely to 
 be welcome than a present of * owls to Athens.' "* 
 The unhappy reader, however, will now turn 
 upon the author with Bertram's words : " I could 
 endure anything before but a cat, and now he's 
 a cat to me!" ("All's Well that Ends Well," 
 iv. 3, 265). 
 
 1 From an admirable article by W. R. S. Ralfton (Nineteenth 
 Century, Jan. 1883) on the folk-lore of cats, called " Pufs in 
 Boots."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OWLS. 
 
 |HE difrepute into which owls have 
 fo largely fallen with the ignorant 
 appears to be due to the Romans, 
 rather than the Greeks. In any dull 
 country, indeed, where the nights are Jong and 
 dark, the nocturnal cries and ftrange activity of 
 the owl after dufk, its glaring eyes and frequently 
 horned ears, will naturally imprefs the superfti- 
 tious ; but what may be called its literary heritage 
 of hatred and infamy comes to it from Italy. The 
 owl in Homer is fimply " a long-winged bird," 
 and appears in company with " falcons and chatter- 
 ing fea-crows, which have their bufinefs in the 
 waters" 1 in the fair wood of alder and fweet- 
 fmelling cyprefs which furrounded the pleafant 
 cave of Calypfo. No ill-fame has yet attached 
 itfelf to the bird. But reference to Pliny at once 
 mows the evil character it poffefled at Rome, and 
 gives the reafon for it. The city was indebted to 
 
 1 " Odyssey," v. 66 (Butcher and Lang).
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 69 
 
 the Etrurians for its fcience of augury, and it had 
 pleafed the Etrurian barufpices that the owl 
 fhould be regarded as a bird of ill-omen. So 
 Pliny fays: "The great horned owl is of mourn- 
 ful import, and more to be dreaded than all other 
 birds in aufpices connected with the ftate. It in- 
 habits wafte places, and thofe not merely deferts, 
 but dreadful and inacceffible localities ; being a 
 prodigy of night, making its voice heard in no 
 manner of fong, but rather in groaning. So when- 
 ever feen in cities or in daylight it is a direful 
 portent. Perchance it is not fo much fraught with 
 horror when feen fitting on private houfes. It 
 never flies where it lifts, but is always borne along 
 in a flanting direction. Having once entered the 
 capitol, the city was purified on account of it in 
 the fame year. There is an unlucky and incen- 
 diary bird, owing to which I find in the ' Annals ' 
 that the city was repeatedly purified, as when 
 Caffius and Marius were confuls, in which year 
 alfo it was cleanfed, as a horned owl had been 
 feen. What this bird is I cannot find out, nor 
 does tradition tell. Some fay that any bird is an 
 incendiary, if it appears bearing a coal from the 
 altars. Others call it a fpinfurnix" (i.e., an 
 abominable bird), " but neither can I find anyone 
 to tell me what kind of bird this is. Another 
 confeflion of general ignorance is that it was called 
 by the ancients ' a bird which forbade things to 
 be done.' Nigidius terms it a thievim bird, be- 
 caufe it breaks the eggs of eagles. There are, 
 befides, feveral kinds, treated of in the Etrurian
 
 70 Gleanings from the 
 
 ritual, which have now, marvelloufly enough, died 
 out, although thofe birds which man's appetite 
 lays wafte increafe. One Hylas wrote very fldl- 
 fully concerning omens, and tells that the owl, 
 with feveral other predatory birds, comes out tail 
 firft from the egg, inafmuch as the eggs are 
 weighed down by the heavy heads of the chicks, 
 and confequently prefent the tails of thefe birds to 
 the cherifhing influence of the mother's body. 
 
 " Crafty is the mode in which owls fight other 
 birds. When furrounded by a great number, they 
 fling themfelves on their backs, and fight with 
 beak and claws, their bodies being clofely con- 
 tracted, and thus protected on all fides. The 
 kite will help them, from a natural kinfhip in 
 robbery, and mares the combat. Nigidius fays 
 that owls fleep for fixty days during winter, and 
 have nine different cries." 1 
 
 It is fmall wonder that if thefe were the kind 
 of popular beliefs at Rome the unlucky owl ob- 
 tained an ill-character in Latin, and tranfmitted 
 the evil heritage to the Romance languages. 
 Virgil, with his ftrong poetic feeling, introduces 
 the bird fitly enough among the portents which 
 prefaged the death of Dido, when abandoned by 
 jEneas. " The lonely owl would frequently 
 lament in funereal {trains from the houfe-tops, 
 and prolong her cries into a wail of woe" ("^neid," 
 iv. 462). Again, the fame poet mews the triumph 
 of good over evil when the return of fettled fine 
 weather difcomforts the owl's melancholy prog- 
 
 1 Pliny, x. 16-19.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 7 1 
 
 noftics ; "in vain at fuch a time does the owl as 
 me watches funfet from fome roof-top ply her 
 ftrains of woe far into the night " (" Georg.," i. 
 402). In another poem he dwells upon the 
 hoarfe notes of the owl as compared with the 
 wild fwan's fonorous, mufical fong, " certent et 
 cygnis ululas " (" EC.," viii. 56) ; the very name 
 which he gives the unlucky bird exprefling its 
 monotonous hootings. A common Greek name 
 for the bird was " fcops," which alfo exprefles its 
 hooting. The ordinary word for an owl in Greek, 
 however, comes from the glaucous, or glaring 
 character of the eyes in this bird. From the 
 gleaming, flaming eyes which the poets attributed 
 to Minerva, the owl became her bird, and is 
 often reprefented in ancient art as her fymbol. 
 The strix pajferina (glaucidium pajjerinum of 
 Linnasus) was thus regarded at Athens as the bird 
 of wifdom, and from the abundance of owls at 
 that city 1 arose the Greek proverb " owls to 
 Athens," of fimilar meaning with our " coals to 
 Newcaftle." The drachma, an Athenian coin, bore 
 Minerva's head on one fide, and on the other an 
 owl, and this device continued throughout the 
 whole hiftory of the Athenian coinage. Naturally 
 enough thefe coins were called " owls." The 
 Greek tetradrachms alfo bore the imprefs of an 
 owl, and, in the palmy days of Athens, had uni- 
 verfal currency. Curioufly enough, Mr. R. F. 
 Barton, among the coins which he discovered at 
 
 1 Athene nottua and Athene glaux alfo owe their names to 
 Athena and her city, Athens.
 
 j2 Gleanings from the 
 
 Maghair Shu'ayb (on the eaft of the Gulf of 
 Akaba), in his exploration of the land of Midian, 
 found that " the gem of his whole collection was a 
 copper coin thickly encrufted with filver, proving 
 that even in thofe days the Midianites produced 
 4 fmafhers ;' fimilarly, the Egyptian miners * did ' 
 the Pharaoh by inferting lead into hollowed gold. 
 The obverfe mews the owl in low relief, an animal 
 rude as any counterfeit prefentment of the Sea 
 yXauKWTric 'ASr/i>j ever found in Troy. It has the 
 normal olive-branch, but without the terminating 
 crefcent (which, however, is not invariably prefent) 
 on the proper right, while the left mews a poor 
 imitation of the legend AOE(NH). The filvering 
 of the reverfe has been fo corroded that no figns 
 of the goddefs' galeated head are vifible. My 
 friend, Mr. W. E. Hayns, of the Numifmatic 
 Society, came to the conclufion that it is a barbaric 
 Midianitim imitation of the Greek tetradrachm." 1 
 The owl became in good truth a meflenger of 
 death to Herod Agrippa, who was fmitten of 
 God for not giving Him the glory, and died at 
 Csefarea (Acls xii. 23). " Prefently his flatterers 
 cried out," fays Jofephus, 2 " one from one place, 
 and another from another ; (though not for his 
 good), that 'He was a god ;'" and they added, 
 " Be thou merciful to us. For although we have 
 hitherto known thee only as a man, yet mail we 
 henceforth own thee as fuperior to mortal nature." 
 
 1 "The Land of Midian" (Kegan Paul and Co., 1879). 
 Vol. i., p. 93. 
 
 2 Whifton's Translation. " dntiq.," Bk. xix. 8, 2.
 
 Natural Hijlory of the Ancients. 73 
 
 Upon this the King did neither rebuke them, nor 
 reje<5t their impious flattery. " But as he prefently 
 afterward looked up, he faw an owl fitting on a 
 certain rope, over his head ; and immediately un- 
 derftood that this bird was the meflenger of ill 
 tidings, as it had once been the meftenger of good 
 tidings to him, and fell into the deepeft forrow." 
 Severe pain at once came upon him, and he 
 acknowledged that Providence was thus reproving 
 the lying words which he had accepted from the 
 people, and died five days afterwards. This 
 paflage is alfo noticeable for a critical battle which 
 has been fought over it ; as if Eufebius, the eccle- 
 fiaftical hiftorian, had falfified thefe words of 
 Jofephus to identify the owl with the angel of the 
 Lord mentioned in the Book of Acls, the word 
 " meflenger " in the above citation being in the 
 original angelus, angel or meffenger. Whifton has 
 a fatisfactory note on the point. 
 
 North America admires, but Arab folk-lore bears 
 hardly upon the owl. Among the Red Indians 
 the bird is believed to lament the golden age 
 when men and animals Jived in perfecl unity until 
 it came to pafs that they began to quarrel, when 
 the Great Spirit in difguft failed acrofs the feas, to 
 return when they had made up their differences. 
 So every night in the great pine forefts the fnowy 
 owl repeats his " Koo, koo fkoos !" " Oh, I am 
 forry !" "Oh, I am forry I" 1 The fine owl of the 
 Sinaitic Peninfula, however, is known by the 
 
 1 Leith Adams's " Field and Forcft Rambles in New Bruns- 
 wick," p. 58.
 
 74 Gleanings from the 
 
 Arabs as " the Mother of Squeaking," and is be- 
 lieved to fuck out children's eyes. The owl and 
 the hyena are ufed by the natives as charms ; the 
 burnt feathers of the former, and the boiled fleih 
 of the latter animal being confidered invaluable 
 fpecifics for numerous diforders. In other parts of 
 Arabia the hooting of the owl portends death, 
 and the cry " Fat, fat " is interpreted " He is gone, 
 gone I" 1 An owl appeared before the battle with 
 the Parthians, in which CrafTus fell, and was fup- 
 pofed by the ancients to prefage his death. Of all 
 thefe beliefs old Sir T. Brown faid well, " which, 
 though decrepit fuperftitions and fuch as had 
 their nativity in times beyond all hiftory, are frem 
 in the obfervation of many heads, and by the 
 credulous and feminine party ftill in fome majefty 
 among us. And therefore the emblem of fuper- 
 ftition was well fet out by Ripa in the picture of 
 an owl, an hare, and an old woman." 2 
 
 The difcuflions which have arifen from Dr. 
 Schliemann's difcoveries of the fo-called owl 
 pottery at Hiflarlik have been so frequently renewed 
 of late that it is only neceflary to allude to them 
 here. People had an opportunity of judging for 
 themfelves in the exhibition of relics from old 
 Troy at South Kenfmgton. Not uninftrudHve is 
 a favourite Arabic apologue, though derived pro- 
 bably from the Perfian. The SafTanian King of 
 Perfia, Bahram, was fo indifferent to the welfare of 
 his fubjecls that half the towns and villages in his 
 
 1 Burton's "Land of Midian," vol. i. 142. 
 
 2 "Vulgar Errors," v. 22.
 
 Natural Hijlory of the Ancients. 75 
 
 kingdom became ruined and deferted. One 
 night, while on a journey accompanied by a 
 Mobed, or Magian prieft, he pafTed through fome 
 depopulated villages, and heard an owl fcreech, 
 and its mate anfwer him. " What do the owls 
 fay?" afked the King. The Mobed anfwered, 
 " The male owl is making a propofal of marriage 
 to the female, and the lady replies : * I mail be 
 moft delighted, if you will give me the dowry 
 I require.' * And what is that ?' fays the male 
 owl. * Twenty villages,' fays me, * ruined in the 
 reign of our moft gracious Sovereign Bahram.' " 
 "And what did the male owl reply?" afked 
 Bahram. " Oh, your Majefty!" anfwered the prieft. 
 " He faid, * That is very eafy ; if his Majefty 
 only lives long enough, I'll give you a thoufand.' " 
 The leflbn, fays hiftory, was not loft upon the 
 King. 
 
 In French folk-lore the owl has acquired an 
 evil name becaufe, when the wren had brought 
 down fire from heaven, while the other birds in 
 their gratitude contributed a feather apiece to 
 replace its fcorched plumage, the owl refufed, 
 alleging that me would require all her feathers 
 during the approaching winter. On this account 
 it has been condemned to eternal feclufion during 
 the warm day, and to perpetual fuffering from 
 cold during the night. This explains why " the 
 owl, for all its feathers, was a' cold " on St. 
 Agnes's Eve, and why the other birds pefter it if 
 it appears in funfhine. An omelette made of 
 owl's eggs is faid to be a cure for drunkennefs.
 
 j6 Gleanings from the 
 
 The poor bird, under its French name 
 carries a continual remembrance of the old belief 
 that it boded misfortune, effraie being a corrup- 
 tion of frefaie, which is connected with the Latin 
 pr*efaga. 1 It is curious that the Hindoos make 
 an owl fit upon the " inviolable tree " of their 
 mythology (as if it were connected with life), 
 near the tree which bears the foma, or drink of 
 immortality. Returning once more to the Weftern 
 world, the legend runs that the eldeft daughters 
 of the Pileck family, in Poland, are transformed 
 into doves if they die unmarried, into owls if 
 married, at their death. The ftudent of language 
 and myths will find much food for thought in 
 thefe notices of Shakefpeare's " clamorous owl." 
 There is a Flemim painter, Henri de Bles, born 
 1480, who always painted an owl in his pictures, 
 and was thus called "Civetta." A picture bought 
 for the National Gallery in 1882, from the 
 Hamilton collection, was faid to be by this painter, 
 but clofer infpection mowed that the fo-called owl 
 was a vulture. 
 
 Until the rife of a fchool of nature-loving poets, 
 beginning with Gilbert White at the end of the 
 eighteenth century, the owl was only treated by the 
 poets as a bird of night and terror. It was a 
 fynonym for all that is moft ill-boding and fear- 
 fome. In the fo-called Chaucer's "Romaunt of 
 the Rofe," the owl "of deth the bode ybringeth." 
 
 1 See the Saturday Review, Feb. 4, 1882, on Holland's 
 " Faune Populaire de la France," and Kelly's " Indo-European 
 Folk Lore," p. 75.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 77 
 
 In Shakefpeare it is " the baker's daughter," by a 
 feeming confufion of folk-lore with the wood- 
 pecker. It is " the fatal bellman, which gives the 
 ftern'ft good-night ;" the " boding fcritch owl ;" 
 the " ominous and fearful owl of death." When 
 it appeared by day (as the barn-owl often does), 
 its charafter only feemed the blacker : 
 
 " The bird of night did fit 
 Even at noonday upon the market-place, 
 Hooting and fhrieking." (Jul. C<es., i. 3.) 
 
 King Lear, when he would fly from men to 
 dwell among the direft and moft cruel of 
 creatures, determines "to be a comrade with the 
 wolf and owl " (ii. 4). Spenier alfo places the 
 poor owl in ill company, when, as Guyon and 
 the Palmer failed together : 
 
 " Suddeinly an innumerable flight 
 Of harmefull fowles about them fluttering cride, 
 And with their wicked wings them ofte did fmight, 
 And fore annoyed, groping in that griefly night. 
 
 " Even all the nations of unfortunate 
 And fatall birds about them flocked were, 
 Such as by nature men abhorre and hate ; 
 The ill-fafte owle, death's dreadfull meflengere ; 
 The hoars night-raven, trump of doleful drere ; 
 The lether-winged batt, dayes enimy ; 
 The ruefull ftrich, ftill waiting on the bere ; 
 The whiftler fhrill, that whofo heares doth dy ; 
 The hellifh harpyes, prophets of fad deftiny ; 
 
 "All thofe, and all that els does horror breed, 
 About them flew, and fil'd their fayles with feare." x 
 
 Another and a different view of the bird is taken 
 by Daniel. This fcene of the little birds flouting 
 
 1 "Faerie Queene," ii. xii. 35.
 
 78 Gleanings from the 
 
 the owl, is one that muft have been noticed by 
 moft lovers of the country : 
 
 " Look how the day-hater, Minerva's bird, 
 Whilft privileged with darknefs and the night, 
 Doth live fecure t' himfelf, of others feared. 
 If but by chance difcovered in the light 
 How doth each little fowl (with envy ftirred), 
 Call him to juftice, urge him with defpite, 
 Summon the feathered flocks of all the wood, 
 To come to fcorn the tyrant of their blood !"' 
 
 Owls had a diftinct medicinal value with the 
 Romans, as indeed had almoft every bird and 
 plant known to them. In this connection folk- 
 lore is feen allying itfelf with fcience, as yet crude 
 and fanciful. " The feet of a fchriche Owle burnt 
 together with the herb Plumbago, is very good 
 againft ferpents. But before I write further of 
 this bird," adds Pliny, " I cannot ouerpafTe the 
 vanitie of Magicians which herein appeareth moft 
 euidently; for ouer and befides many other 
 monftrous lies which they haue deuifed, they giue 
 it out, that if one doe lay the heart of a Scrich- 
 Owle on the left pap of a woman as me lies 
 afleep, me will difclofe and utter all the fecrets of 
 her heart ; alfo, whofoeuer carie about them the fame 
 heart when they go to fight, mal be more hardie, 
 and performe their deuoir the better againft their 
 enemies." Owl's eggs were reported to cure all 
 defects and accidents to which the hair was liable ; 
 but, aiks Pliny indignantly, " I would faine know 
 of them what man euer found a Scrich-Owle's 
 
 1 " Hiftory of the Civil Wars," 99.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 79 
 
 neft and met with any of their egges, confidering 
 that it is holden for an vncouth and ftrange 
 prodigie to haue feen the bird itfelf ? And what 
 might be he that tried fuch conclufions and ex- 
 periments, efpecially in the haire of his head?" 1 
 
 1 Pliny, " Nat. Hift." (Holland), xxix. 4.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PYGMIES. 
 
 [ Do you any ambaflage to the Pigmies ?" 
 
 (" Much Ado," ii. i. 
 
 N the myths of antiquity, and in 
 modern folk-lore, pygmies hold an 
 equally honoured place. Thofe of 
 early Greek legend are own brothers 
 to the trolls and elves of Northern mythology ; 
 while their defcendants, the pixies of to-day, yet 
 dance among the moonlit glades of Devon 
 and Cornwall in the belief of the Weftern 
 peafantry. Pygmies firft appear in the " Iliad," 
 iii. 2-7: "The Trojans advanced with clangour 
 and a war-cry, like birds ; like the clamour of 
 cranes aloft in heaven, when flying from winter 
 and a mighty ftorm, loudly clamouring, they wing 
 their way to the ocean ftreams, bringing {laughter 
 and death to the Pygmies." Ariftotle ("Hift. 
 An.," viii. 14, 2) amplifies this pafTage, which 
 he evidently had in his remembrance: "Cranes
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 8 1 
 
 migrate from the Scythian regions into the 
 marmes of Upper Egypt where the Nile takes 
 its rife. The Pygmies dwell in thefe parts ; the 
 tale told of them is no myth, but in good truth 
 they are a nation of fmall ftature, as the ftory 
 runs, both they and their horfes. They live after 
 the fafhion of Troglodytes." Strabo naturally 
 diflents from the common belief: " The Ethiopians 
 lead a wretched life, and are for the moft part 
 naked, and roamers from place to place. Their 
 flocks confift of fmall fheep, goats, oxen, and dogs. 
 They are morofe, too, and warlike, in confequence 
 of their fmall ftature. Perhaps it was from the 
 fhort ftature of thefe men that the ftory of the 
 Pygmies was devifed and ftruck out. No one 
 worthy of credit relates that he had actually feen 
 them." 
 
 The ordinary ftory appears in Pliny that they 
 fit upon rams and {he-goats, and, armed with 
 arrows, in the fpring-time defcend in a body to 
 the fea, and eat the eggs and young ones of the 
 cranes, an expedition which occupies three whole 
 months. He places the Pygmies among the 
 furtheft nations of India. With him agrees 
 Ctefias, who ftates that in the centre of India 
 are men of a dark hue called Pygmies, ufmg the 
 fame language as the reft of the Indians. They 
 are covered with long hair, and very fmall, the 
 talleft being two cubits in height, but moft of 
 them only one and a half cubit in ftature. Such 
 ftories probably helped Swift to his Lilliputians, 
 who alfo bore bows and quivers full of arrows. 
 G
 
 82 Gleanings from the 
 
 " The nation of the prettie Pygmies," adds Pliny, 1 
 " enjoy a truce and cefTation from armes every 
 yeare, when the cranes, who ufe to wage war 
 with them, be once departed and come into our 
 countries." Vefpafian, at the dedication of the 
 ColofTeum, prefented a fpectacle to the people of 
 a battle between cranes and a number of dwarfs 
 who imitated Pygmies. 
 
 Aulus Gellius gives a fimilar account of Pygmies, 
 placing them in India, and making the tailed of 
 them but two feet and a quarter in height. 2 
 Hanno, in his " Periplus," places them in the Atlas 
 mountain, and ftates that they " run fafter than 
 horfes," and are Troglodytes. MefTrs. Hooker 
 and Ball, during their recent travels in the Great 
 Atlas, obferved several Troglodytic habitations. 
 Juvenal amufingly comprehends all the learning 
 of the ancient world on Pygmies in " Sat." xiii. 
 167-170, and of their army fays, "Tota cohors 
 pede non eft altior uno" (173). 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne has no difficulty in his 
 " Vulgar Errors " (Book iv. 1 1 ) in difpofmg of 
 thefe fables after his own fafhion. Having men- 
 tioned the above pafTages, and feveral others from 
 ancient poets and writers, he concludes that what 
 was "only a pleafant figment in the fountain, 
 became a folemn ftory in the ftream, and current 
 
 1 " Nat. Hift.," x. 24 (Holland). 
 
 2 ix. 4, 10. Pliny aflerts that the Pygmies live among the 
 marfhes where the Nile rifes, curioufly anticipating modern 
 geographical refearch. The Troglodytes, he places on the 
 Arabian Gulf next the Ichthyophagi, " of wonderful fwiftnefs, 
 fwimming like fifh " (vi. 30, 34).
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 83 
 
 ftill among us." Moft of his fcorn is poured out 
 upon Ariftotle, who can afford to fmile at it 
 however, " wherein indeed Ariftotle plays the 
 Ariftotle, that is, the wary and evading affertor ; 
 for though with non eft fabula, he feems at firft to 
 confirm it, yet at the laft he claps in ut aiunt, 
 and makes the belief he put before upon it." 
 Much of his own chapter is taken up with a 
 confederation of Ezekiel xxvii. 12, where, in the 
 Vulgate, the Pygmies appear as a tranflation of 
 "Gammadim," which our verfion tranflates "men 
 of Arvad :" " Et Pygmaei qui erant in turribus 
 tuis pharetras fuas fufpenderunt in muris tuis per 
 gyrum." It is difficult, indeed, to conneft the 
 Pygmies with the city of Tyre, to which thefe 
 words refer ; fome might call it impoflible, were 
 not the commentary of the ingenious Forerius 
 extant. He confiders that "the watchmen of 
 Tyre might well be called Pygmies, the towers of 
 that city being fo high that, unto men below, they 
 appeared in a cubital ftature." But the Pygmies, 
 it will be feen, are to be found in much ftranger 
 places than ancient Phoenicia ; fuffice it now to 
 ftate Sir T. Browne's cautious judgments on them : 
 " Since it is not defined in what dimenfions the 
 foul may exercife her faculties, we mall not con- 
 clude impoflibility ; or that there might not be a 
 race of Pygmies, as there is fometimes of giants ; 
 but to believe they mould be in the ftature of a 
 foot or a fpan requires the preafpeclion of fuch a 
 one as Philetas the poet in Athenaeus, who was 
 fain to faften lead unto his feet, left the wind
 
 84 Gleanings from the 
 
 fhould blow him away." Of courfe Milton, with 
 his claflical lore, has not forgotten 
 
 " That fmall infantry 
 Warr'd on by cranes." (Par. Loft, \. 575.) 
 
 For a later difquifition on Pygmies, the reader 
 may be referred to Ritfon's differtation, publifhed 
 at the end of his "Fairy Tales" (London, 1831). 
 He, too, quotes the chief claflical allufions to 
 them, adding (from Ctefias): "Of thefe Pygmies 
 the King of the Indians has 3,000 in his train, 
 for they are very fkilful archers. They are, how- 
 ever, moft juft, and ufe the fame Jaws as the other 
 Indians." Sir John Maundeville plants them near 
 the "gret ryvere that men clepen Dalay;" calls 
 them three fpans high, " thei lyven not but fix 
 yeer or feven at the mofte, and he that lyvethe 
 eight yeer, men holden him there righte paflynge 
 old. Thefe men be the worcheres of gold, fylver, 
 cotoun, fylk, and of alle fuch thinges of ony other 
 that be in the world," with more marvels. 1 One 
 Mr. Grofe, fays Ritfon, author of "A Voyage to 
 the Eaft Indies" (London, 1772), had heard of 
 Pygmies in Coromandel, but fbon after, to his 
 amazement, he difcovered them in Great Britain. 
 " At the north poynt of Lewis there is a little ile 
 called the Pygmies ile, with ane little kirk in it 
 of their own handey-wark, within this kirk the 
 ancients of that countrey of the Lewis fays, that 
 the faid Pigmies has been eirdit thair. Maney 
 men of divers countreys has delvit upe dieplie the 
 
 1 "Voiage and Travaill " (London, 1727), p. 232.
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 8 5 
 
 flure of the litle kerke, and i myfelve amanges 
 the leaue, and has found in it, deepe under the 
 erthe, certain banes and round heads of wonderful 
 little quantity, allegit to be the banes of the faid 
 Pigmies, quhilk may be lykely, according to 
 fundry hiftorys that we reid of the Pigmies ; but 
 i leave this far of it to the ancients of Lewis." 1 
 
 In the Academy (March 19, 1881) may be 
 found an account of three modern Pygmies from 
 Africa, the only reprefentatives of their race now 
 living in Europe. The two boys are at prefent 
 being brought up under the protection of Count 
 Minifcalchi at Verona, while the girl is lefs for- 
 tunately placed at Triefte. The elder boy, 
 Thibaut, now meafures 1-42 metre (55*9 inches) 
 in height, and is believed to have reached his 
 greateft ftature. He is probably about nineteen 
 years of age. Chairallah, on the other hand, is ftill 
 growing, and at prefent meafures 1-41 metre 
 (55-5 inches) ; he is fuppofed to be about fifteen 
 years of age. Thefe lads have very pronounced 
 dolicocephalic fkulls, with the characleriftic three- 
 lobed form of nofe. Their prognathifm is very 
 ftriking ; the mouth large ; the lips thick ; the 
 teeth ftout, well-feparated, and exceedingly white. 
 Tufts of black woolly hair have appeared upon 
 the cheeks, the chin, and the upper lip of Thibaut. 
 Chairallah, on the contrary, mows no trace of hair 
 upon the face ; his vifage, however, has greatly 
 lengthened with age. They have forgotten both 
 
 1 "Defcription of the Weftern Ifles of Scotland." By 
 Donald Monro (ed. 1784), p. 37. Martin fays of this that 
 the natives call thefe the bones of Luilbirdan (i.e. pygmies).
 
 86 Gleanings from the 
 
 their native Akka and the Arabic which they 
 Jearnt when young, but fpeak, read, and write 
 Italian. The girl can neither read nor write, but 
 can fpeak Italian, and a little German, languages 
 which {he hears daily around her. She is fuppofed 
 to be about fifteen years of age. Her prefent 
 height is 1-34 metre (52*7 inches 1 ). All thefe 
 three Akkas have good health, and are generally 
 well-behaved, but have exceedingly childifh taftes. 
 If thefe different accounts of ancient and 
 modern Pygmies be weighed, it will be found that 
 either monkeys or aboriginal Troglodytic tribes 
 are defcribed under that name. The Book of 
 Job 2 alludes to the Horites and other Troglodytic 
 races of Paleftine, whofe haunts were in the rocks 
 of Edom on one fide of the world. On the 
 other fide, the neolithic Iberian race, the Trog- 
 lodytes of Dordogne, the Pi els, makers of the 
 fo-called Picls' houfes, the primal natives of the 
 Atlas, and the like, have been efteemed Pygmies 
 by the races which fucceeded them. In India the 
 dark fkins and flat Mongol features of many of 
 the aboriginal hill and jungle tribes being diftafte- 
 ful to their Aryan conquerors, led the latter to 
 transform them into goblins, pygmies, or demons. 
 In juft the fame manner the aborigines of Scan- 
 dinavia became the elves and gnomes, the mif- 
 chievous trolls or pygmies of Icelandic and Norfe 
 tradition. Doubtless the fcorn of the conquerors 
 
 1 Cnf. Juvenal, " Satires," vi. 504. " Breviorque videtur 
 Virgine Pygmaea." 
 
 2 Cap. xxx. 6, 7.
 
 Natural Htflory of the Ancients. 87 
 
 as well as their proud fupremacy were thus 
 flattered. In depreciating their forerunners, they 
 exalted themfelves. The procefs by which thefe 
 Indian and Oriental fables pafted into Europe, 
 and what in fome cafes is ftill more important, 
 the Buddhift origin of thefe Oriental fables them- 
 felves, has been pointed out by the late Theodor 
 Benfey. It is curious that the ideas of clamc 
 poets, on the degeneracy of the human race, are 
 being every day contradicted by the difcoveries of 
 fcience. Not leaft among thefe corrections of 
 popular beliefs is the evidence for the gradual 
 amelioration of mankind to which the legends and 
 hiftory of fo-called Pygmy tribes teftify. They 
 corroborate the teftimony of revelation and the in- 
 fight of modern poets, more true in this particular 
 than their brethren in the paft, that there is a 
 golden future for the race, an " increafmg purpofe 
 running through the ages." Material progrefs, in 
 mort, means in moft cafes the moral and mental 
 advancement of man. Civilization is a light 
 whofe radiance is ever piercing further and further 
 into the realms of darkness : 
 
 " Wait ; my faith is large in Time, 
 And that which fhapes it to fome perfect end." 
 
 As for any other theory, " a pygmy's ftraw doth 
 pierce it" ("King Lear," iv. 6).
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ELEPHANTS. 
 
 " Th' unwieldy elephant, 
 
 To make them mirth, uf'd all his might, and wreath'd 
 His lithe probofcis." (P. L. iv. 345.) 
 
 [HE elephant family runs far back into 
 the pliocene age. It attained a large 
 range in poft-pliocene times. At 
 prefent, it is well known, we poflefs 
 two main branches of the ftem in the Indian and 
 African elephants, which are well marked off from 
 each other. The latter kind is not now tamed, 
 but it is fuppofed that the elephants ufed by the 
 Carthaginians were of this fpecies. Singularly 
 enough, the extinct probofcideans alfo fall under 
 two divifions, the elephant proper, of which the 
 mammoth (ekphas primigenius) is the type ; and 
 the maftodon, diftinguifhed by its udder-like teeth, 
 adapted for bruifing coarfer vegetable fubftances, 
 and the prefence of two tufks in the lower jaw 
 of both fexes. Species of the maftodon lived in 
 Europe, Auftralia, and America. Owen's M. 
 Anguftidens has been found in our English Crag,
 
 Natural Hijlory of the Ancients. 89 
 
 and the bones of M. giganteus, from the United 
 States, may be feen fet up at the Britifh Mufeum. 
 This creature is 20 feet 2 inches long, and 9 feet 
 6f- inches high. Dr. Falconer difcovered the re- 
 mains of feveral fpecies alfo in the Sewalik Hills, 
 Eaft India. There, too, he found bones belonging 
 to fix fpecies of true elephant. Reverting to the 
 mammoth, there is no need to dwell upon the dif- 
 covery of the carcafe of one almoft wholly pre- 
 ferved, flefh, {kin, and hair, in 1799 on the banks 
 of Lake Onkoul in Siberia. The mammoth was 
 very widely diftributed over the globe, being a 
 pre-glacial as well as a poft-glacial inhabitant of 
 Great Britain. Numerous remains of it have been 
 found in Norfolk and Suffolk, and dredged out of 
 the German Ocean. It was the lateft form of the 
 extincl elephants. Its tulks have for ages in their 
 foml ftate fupplied almoft all the ivory that Ruflia 
 ufes. Another inftance occurred in 1846 of a 
 frozen mammoth being thawed out of the ice, 
 but it could not be preferved. Lieutenant Ben- 
 kendorf and a party of Coflacks, in that year dif- 
 covered it on the banks of the Indighirka, {landing 
 upright in the ice-bound tundra in the place where 
 it had been bogged, and narrowly efcaped being 
 themfelves fwept out into the Arctic Sea, as the 
 thaw proceeded, together with the mammoth, 
 which actually was fo loft. Several points in the 
 hiftory of the mammoth mow that it probably 
 was the anceftor, geologically fpeaking, of the 
 prefent Indian elephant. The oldeft carving 
 known, found in the Madelaine Cave, in the
 
 90 Gleanings Jrom the 
 
 Dordogne, by M. Lartet, reprefents the mammoth 
 on a piece of its own ivory. 1 
 
 The royal pupil of Ariftotle put him in pofTe- 
 fion of a good deal of knowledge on the elephant. 
 The philofopher fpeaks of it, from fifteen which 
 were captured at Arbela, as the tameft and mildeft- 
 tempered of creatures, full of intelligence, and living 
 to the age of 120 or 200 years; but at its beft 
 when 60 years old. He knew its abhorrence of 
 cold, too. Preconceived notions, however, come 
 in when he ftates that it pafles through rivers, 
 wading in them as far as the end of its trunk 
 allowed, for it breathes through this, and cannot 
 fwim on account of the bulk of its body. On the 
 contrary, the elephant is a capital fwimmer, and 
 delights in nothing fo much as deep water. The 
 Mahouts frequently caufe their charges at the 
 prefent day to fwim over wide rivers, and even 
 the Ganges. He fpeaks alfo of the time of muft 
 in male elephants ; how, at thofe periods, they are 
 in a ftate of madnefs, and knock over houfes as if 
 they were badly conftrudled, and commit all 
 manner of excefles. " They tell that fcantinefs of 
 food renders them tamer, and by bringing up to 
 them other elephants they reftrain them by 
 ordering thefe to beat them." He fpeaks, too, 
 of olive oil being given elephants to expel any 
 piece of iron they may have accidentally eaten ; 
 and has a chapter on their ailments. The food of 
 an elephant is meafured by him almoft with the 
 exadnefs with which the keep of Jumbo was cal- 
 
 1 Wilfon, "Prehiftoric Man," i. p. 107.
 
 Natural Hiflory of the Ancients. 9 1 
 
 culated at 500 per annum, when that much- 
 puffed beaft was fold to Barnum. It can eat, he 
 informs us, nine Macedonian bufhels at a meal, 
 and ere now had been known to drink fourteen 
 Macedonian meafures at once. He notes, alfo, 
 that fome are fiercer and more courageous than 
 others, a fact well known at prefent to all Indian 
 tiger-hunters, and that they pufh over palm-trees 
 with their foreheads, then walk up them and eat 
 what they defire of them. This, too, is a habit 
 confirmed by all modern travellers. His account 
 of elephant-catching comprifes in one mort para- 
 graph the whole of the beft modern books on the 
 fubjecl:, whether Tennant or Sanderfon. " The 
 chafe of elephants is on this famion. Men mount 
 fome of the tame and courageous elephants and 
 purfue the herd. When they have come up with 
 it, they bid their own animals to beat the wild 
 ones with their trunks, until they give in through 
 faintnefs. Then the elephant-taker leaps on one 
 of them and guides it with his weapon. After 
 this it foon becomes mild and fubmiflive. When 
 the elephant-taker has mounted them, all are in 
 fubjection ; but when he has difmounted fome re- 
 main fo, while others return to a wild ftate. 
 While thefe are raging, they fetter with chains 
 their front legs, in order that they may be quiet. 
 Both fmall and great are thus captured." 1 
 
 The firft twelve chapters of Pliny's eighth book 
 of " Natural Hiftory " contain almoft all the facts as 
 well as the fancies known to the ancients about 
 
 1 Ar., "Hift. Anim.," ix. 33 ; vi. 17 ; viii. 25, n ; ix. 2.
 
 92 Gleanings from the 
 
 elephants, folk-lore and fcience not yet being 
 feparated in the cafe of natural productions. 
 Certain tribes of Africa fubfifted by hunting 
 elephants, he tells us, and the city Ptolemais was 
 built by Philadelphus for the fake of enabling him 
 to hunt elephants. 1 Certain of thefe African 
 elephants are faid to aflemble by fours and fives in 
 the maritime diftricts of Ethiopia, and having 
 interlaced their legs and trunks, with erect heads 
 and ears, to commit themfelves to the waves, by 
 which they are floated over to the finer pafturage 
 of Arabia. As for the Indian elephants, life is 
 made a burden to them by the huge ferpents 
 which wrap their coils round them. The 
 elephants, however, undo thefe coils by their 
 trunks, whereupon the ferpents faften round them 
 by the tail, and thrufting their heads into the 
 elephant's noftrils, ftop their breath, and fting 
 them internally to death. Another account tells 
 how the ferpents lie in wait in the water where 
 elephants come to drink, and then, feizing their 
 trunks, fting them in the ear, the only part which 
 they cannot defend by their trunks. The Tro- 
 glodytes, too, lie in wait up trees till the laft of. 
 the herd is parting underneath. Upon this they 
 drop, and feizing its tail with the left hand, ham- 
 ftring it with a marp weapon in their right. A 
 fimilar mode of ftealing on elephants and ham- 
 ftringing them is ftill purfued in the Eaft. Their 
 battles with Pyrrhus mowed the Romans that an 
 elephant's trunk could eafily be cut off; and the 
 1 " Nat. Hift.," vi. 34.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 9 3 
 
 celebrated combat of a Roman captive with a 
 Carthaginian elephant in the arena before Hannibal 
 on the Jatter's promife that the flave's life mould be 
 fpared did he prove victor, conclufively proved 
 that thefe creatures need not be greatly dreaded in 
 war. The Romans were never fair to Hannibal, 
 and Pliny cannot refrain from adding that Hannibal 
 was fo chagrined at this difcovery that he sent 
 horfemen, when the man had departed, to waylay 
 and flay him. For accounts of Pompey and 
 Casfar exhibiting mews of elephant-combats in the 
 circus, and a multitude of curious particulars, we 
 muft be content to refer the reader to the above 
 citation, only warning him that many of the 
 ftories told by Pliny require qualifying with the 
 warning of the mowman in a modern menagerie, 
 who pointed out the porcupine, and obferved: 
 " Buffon fays that he moots his quills ; Buffon's a 
 liar !" jiEJian, Strabo, and Arrian are full of de- 
 tails on elephant-catching and taming. Cicero 
 was prefent at a venatio given by Pompey, B.C. 55, 
 when twenty elephants were exhibited in the 
 circus, and killed by darts. He adds that " a 
 great admiration for the huge beafts fell on the 
 fpectators, and no delight was taken in their 
 death. Moreover, a certain feeling of pity 
 followed the fpectacle, the populace not being 
 able to withftand the opinion that there was a 
 kinfhip to man in the fagacious creature." 1 
 
 Elephants were firft feen in Italy at the invafion 
 
 1 See Lord Cockburn on " The Chafe," Nineteenth Century, 
 Dec. 1880 ; and cnf. Juvenal, "Satires," xii. 101-114.
 
 94 Gleanings from the 
 
 of Pyrrhus, B.C. 280. He defeated the Romans 
 at the Siris in that year by their aid. Indeed, the 
 Roman army was only faved from annihilation in 
 that combat by one of the elephants, whofe trunk 
 had been cut off by a Roman foldier, turning 
 back upon and throwing his own party into con- 
 fufion. Ere long the Romans learnt to ufe them 
 in war, while exhibitions of their fagacity in time 
 of peace frequently amufed the populace at Rome. 
 It is curious that the elephant is never reprefented 
 among the Egyptian hieroglyphics, although it 
 was perhaps an inhabitant of Upper Egypt in 
 early times, where the ifland Elephantine remained 
 as an evidence of the fact. 1 Rawlinfon fuppofes 
 that elephants were firft ufed in the hiftory of 
 military fcience at the battle of Arbela, 2 " to which 
 they added an unwonted element of grotefquenefs 
 and favagery." They do not feem to have been 
 of much fervice in the actual ftruggle. Macaulay 
 has remembered the elephants of Pyrrhus in his 
 " Prophecy of Capys" : 
 
 "The Greek fhall come againft thee, 
 
 The conqueror of the Eaft. 
 Befide him {talks to battle 
 
 The huge earth-fhaking beaft, 
 The beaft on whom the caftle 
 
 With all its guards doth ftand, 
 The beaft who hath between his eyes 
 
 The ferpent for a hand." 
 
 1 See Rawlinfon, "Ancient Monarchies," iii., p. 148. In 
 the fourth century before our era the elephant withdrew to 
 India (" Chabas," p. 576). 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 387.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 95 
 
 Thefe latter lines allude to the Lucretian epithet 
 for the elephant, anguimanus 1 
 
 The recent excitement about the elephant 
 Jumbo, which the Zoological Society fold to 
 Barnum, called forth many interefting notices of 
 the elephant in the Middle Ages in the public 
 prints. From thefe the following facts may be 
 culled. In the year 1229 an elephant was fent 
 by the Soldan of Babylon as a rare prefent to the 
 Emperor Frederick II. But it was not untili 1255 
 that the firft elephant was feen for the lapfe of 
 1 200 years in Britain. This was prefented by the 
 King of France, as we learn from the chronicles 
 of John of Oxenedes and others. It was houfed in 
 the Tower, and lived on till the forty-firft year of 
 Henry III., A.D. 1257, when it feems to have 
 died, aged only twelve years. The charges of 
 itfelf and keeper may be feen in the " Chancellor's 
 Roll." Juft as Jumbo has immortalized his 
 keeper, Scott, fo this royal elephant-keeper ftill 
 lives as John Gouch. The fherifF of Kent was 
 commanded together with him " to provide for 
 bringing the King's elephant from Whitfand to 
 Dover." 2 
 
 It feems that white elephants have an actual 
 exiftence apart from proverbs and eflays. Mr. 
 
 1 Compare Lucretius, ii. 538 : 
 
 " Elephantos India quorum 
 Millibus e multeis vallo munitur eburno 
 Ut penitus nequeat penetrari." 
 
 They were known alfo to Lucretius as " boves Lucas " (v. 1 301). 
 
 2 Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 385.
 
 9 6 Gleanings from the 
 
 Bock, a recent traveller, was in 1880 very kindly 
 received by the King of Siam, and witnefled the 
 proceflion of the facred white elephants. The 
 {kin of thefe fo-called white elephants he defcribes 
 as being rather a pinkifh-grey. He made a 
 coloured drawing of the lateft addition to the 
 royal ftables, with which the King was much 
 pleafed. 
 
 A much-lauded white elephant arrived in London 
 in Jan., 1884, but greatly difappointed moft people. 
 It was light-coloured, and fpotted on the root of the 
 trunk and over the ears. One authority looked 
 upon thefe markings as being the refult of 
 albinifm, another as being due to a difeafe known 
 as leucoderma (Prof. Flowers and Mr. B. Squires's 
 letters to the Times of that date). Confiderable 
 fanctity is attached to white elephants in the Eaft. 
 The Hindoos perhaps connedl them with Airawata, 
 the elephant of India, from whom the great river 
 Irawadi, or Iravati, derives its name, like the 
 Hydraotes, or Ravee, of the Punjaub. After a 
 fhort time this fo-called white elephant left us for 
 the Americans, a people more appreciative of fuch 
 marvels. 
 
 The elephant does not appear in the Homeric 
 poems, but ivory is often mentioned. A celebrated 
 paflage ("Iliad," iv. 141) compares the blood on 
 Menelaus, when wounded by an arrow, to a 
 Masonian or Carian woman ftaining ivory with 
 crimfon to be an ornament for horfes' heads, " and 
 it lies in her chamber, and many horfemen defire 
 to wear it, but it ftays as an ornament for a
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 97 
 
 king." 1 The Trojan reins were ornamented with 
 ivory ftuds (" Iliad," v. 583). In the " Odyfley" 
 more ufe is made of it. Athene makes Penelope 
 "whiter than new-fawn ivory " (xviii. 196). Her 
 chair was deftly wrought with ivory and filver 
 (xix. 56), and the key of her chamber had an 
 ivory handle (xxi. 7). We hear, too, of a bronze 
 fword with filver handle and meath of frefh-fawn 
 ivory (viii. 404) ; while in the palace of Menelaus 
 at Sparta were bronze, gold, amber and ivory, like 
 the halls of Olympus (iv. 73). Perhaps the mod 
 celebrated allufion to this fubftance, however, 
 occurs in Penelope's account of the twin gate of 
 dreams, " the one of which has been fafhioned of 
 horn, and the other of ivory. The dreams which 
 pafs through the fawn ivory are deceptive, bring- 
 ing words which have no fulfilment, but thofe 
 which proceed through the polifhed horn bring 
 true iflues, whenever a mortal fees them" (xix. 
 564). 2 Virgil often touches on ivory in much the 
 fame connection as the above. " India mittit 
 ebur," he tells us (" Georg.," i. 57) ; and at Caefar's 
 death, among the dread portents, " Masftum illa- 
 chrymat templis ebur " (" Georg.," i. 480). He 
 fpeaks, too, of " dona auro gravia fectoque 
 elephanto " (" ^Eneid," iii. 464). The Aflyrians 
 carried on a great traffic in ivory with the Eaft, 
 
 1 Compare Virgil, " ^Eneid," xii. 68 : 
 
 " Indum fanguineo veluti violaverh oftro 
 
 Si quis ebur." 
 
 * Homer here indulges in a play on words. The ivory is 
 !>. ag ; the word for " deceptive " is \~>.i^dipovrat. Virgil imi- 
 tates the whole pafTage at the end of the nxth "^Eneid," (893). 
 H
 
 9 8 Gleanings from the 
 
 and dirTeminated it through the Weftern countries 
 and Europe. The native country of the Eaftern 
 elephant is the peninfula of India. Egyptian 
 ivory was largely brought from Ethiopia, though 
 their elephants were originally from Afia. 1 
 
 Sir Thos. Browne has a fenfible chapter in the 
 main on elephants, in his " Vulgar Errors," con- 
 demning feveral " old and gray-headed errors " 
 on it. His own credulity, however, is amufing 
 to the prefent generation, efpecially when he deems 
 it ftrange that the curiofity of man, which had 
 tried to induce many beafts to fpeak, had never 
 attempted to tutor an elephant, for " the ferpent 
 that fpake unto Eve, the dogs and cats that 
 ufually fpeak unto witches, might afford fome 
 encouragement." 
 
 The elephant occafionally appears upon coins ; 
 as on one of Tarentum, probably connected with 
 the invafion of Pyrrhus ; alfo on one of Vefpafian. 
 It is found, too, on the coins of Metellus, who 
 brought many Carthaginian elephants to Rome in 
 the Firft Punic War ; alfo on thofe of Csfar, 
 from the legend that that name was the Car- 
 thaginian word for an elephant, and was originally 
 applied to the firft of the Julian gens who had 
 flain one of thefe creatures. It meant, as a fymbol 
 on a coin, eternity ; and fometimes munificence in 
 giving games to the populace. Cacfar is amufingly 
 connected, by the Rev. J. Coleridge, a man of 
 
 1 See " Dift. of Bible," sub voe. " ivory." Polydore Vergil 
 has a proverb alluding to the flow geftation of elephants 
 " citius clcphanti paricnt."
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 99 
 
 fome learning for his day, and rather of the poet, 
 with elephants. It feems that, about the middle 
 of laft century, much curiofity was mown with 
 regard to the foflil elephant bones and ivory fo 
 often found in South Eaftern England, and there 
 were many fpeculations about the manner in 
 which elephants could have reached our mores. 
 In July, 1757, that clergyman (who was Vicar of 
 Ottery St. Mary, Devon) wrote his views to the 
 "Gentleman's Magazine." A previous corre- 
 fpondent had hazarded the notion that the 
 Romans had brought over thefe huge creatures to 
 intimidate the Britons ; but, he adds, " we have 
 not the leaft account of any fuch thing." Mr. 
 Coleridge, however, points out that a pafTage in 
 the " Stratagems " of Polyasnus expreflly mentions 
 that an elephant was brought over by Casfar and 
 ufed in forcing the paflage of the Thames when 
 the Romans were oppofed by Caffivelaunus. The 
 Romans then caufed their elephant to advance, 
 wearing an iron coat of mail, and carrying bow- 
 men and {lingers in a little caftle on its back, 
 whereupon the Britons at once fled. Casfar, he 
 adds, probably omitted this account in his 
 " Commentaries," thinking that the mention of it 
 would detract from the honour of his victories. 
 But the clofing fentences of the letter are fo in- 
 terefting from the ftandpoint of the geologift in 
 the nineteenth century, that it is worth while 
 quoting them : " It is reafonable to fuppofe that 
 as the Romans reaped fuch advantages from one 
 elephant, they would bring over more of thefe
 
 i oo Gleanings Jrcrn the 
 
 animals with them, and, as the Roman conquefts 
 were chiefly about Suflex, Eflex, and Kent, it is 
 moft likely that the bones of thefe creatures fhould 
 be found in thofe counties. It cannot be proved, 
 indeed, that thefe bones have not Jain ever fince 
 the general flood ; but an hiftorical truth is, in my 
 opinion, preferable to any hypothefis whatfoever." 
 Modern fcience can well afford a fmile at the 
 amufing candour of thefe conclusions. 
 
 In the Eaft, as is only natural, the elephant 
 being regarded as poflefTed of more than mere 
 brute wifdom, is often deemed facred. Thus the 
 Hindoo Ganefha (god of wifdom) is reprefented 
 with an elephant's head, and the creature itfelf 
 frequently appears in the art of Hindoftan. It 
 is very rarely feen in Englim architecture; but 
 an elephant's head and trunk are fculptured on 
 one of the pillars of the North or Dorfet Chapel 
 of the Church of Ottery St. Mary, Devon. On 
 the fummit, too, of Gofberton Church, Lincoln- 
 mire, appears an elephant with a huge fpiral trunk. 
 In the fo-called Piclim ornamentation on ancient 
 Scottifh fculptured ftones, a good many obfervers 
 have fancied that they could detect the elephant's 
 form, and efpecially the fpiral of its trunk. 
 Doubtlefs much of this is due to imagination. 
 In fome cafes there may be a faint remembrance 
 of the mammoth. Elaborate fchemes of mythical 
 orientalizing have been founded on this fpiral line, 
 which, after all, is fimply a characleriftic mark 
 of early Scottifh ornamentation. The late Dr. 
 Burton fays, " It is pretty evident, when we in-
 
 Natural Hiflory of the Ancients. I o i 
 
 fpedt him clofely, that the animal fo often fuppofed 
 to be figured on ancient Scottim fculptured ftones, 
 though a ftrange beaft of fome peculiar conventional 
 type, is no elephant. That fpiral winding-up of his 
 fnout, which parted for a trunk, is a characteriftic 
 refuge of embryo art, repeated upon other parts 
 of the animal. It is neceflitated by the difficulty 
 which a primitive artift feels in bringing out the 
 form of an extremity, whatever it may be fnout, 
 horn, or hoof. He finds that the eafieft termina- 
 tion he can make is a whirl, and he makes it 
 accordingly. Thus the nofes, the tails, the feet 
 of the characteristic monfter of the fculptured 
 ftones all end in a whirl. The fame difficulty is 
 met in repeated inftances in thefe ftones by another 
 ingenious refource. Animals are united or twined 
 together by nofes or tails, to enable the artift to 
 efcape the difficulty of executing the extremities of 
 each feparately." 1 Thefe remarks are perhaps more 
 ingenious than convincing when we remember 
 the extreme love for the fpiral and for convoluted 
 and parallel ornamentation which extended into 
 the Saxon and Norman decoration of churches. 
 There was doubtlefs a myftic fignification attached 
 to the many curious fpiral lines of early North- 
 Britifh fculptures. 
 
 Much information has recently appeared refpect- 
 ing the mammoth, which will here be condenfed. 
 The Arabs in the ninth and two fucceeding cen- 
 turies mowed immenfe enterprife and energy, their 
 
 1 "The Bookhunter," p. 399; and fee "The Ancient 
 Sculptured Stones of Scotland " (Spalding Society, 2 vols. fol.).
 
 102 Natural Htftory of the Ancients. 
 
 traders frequenting the borderlands of Siberia, 
 and probably firft initiating the trade in foffil 
 ivory throughout the Weft. There is every pro- 
 bability that the very name " mammoth," as well 
 as " mammoth ivory " itfelf, were firft brought 
 to the Weftern world by the Arabs. "Mam- 
 moth" is merely a form of "behemoth." Witzen, 
 who firft defcribed the creature in 1694, ufes the 
 two names as fynonymous; and Father Avril, a 
 Jefuit who travelled in China in 1685, calls the 
 mammoth " Behemot." The Turkifh dialects 
 habitually interchange b and m, and there feems 
 no doubt that Job's " behemoth," which the 
 Arabs pronounce " mehemot," filtered through 
 the Ruffian and Tartar tongues into our " mam- 
 moth," the word " behemoth " being ufed of any 
 monftrous beaft originally, and then confined in 
 the North to the great foffil elephant. 1 The 
 creature itfelf was firft defcribed by Witzen 
 (whofe book, written in Dutch, has never been 
 tranflated) in 1686. The firft mammoth tuik was 
 brought to England by Jofias Logan in 1 6 1 1 , and 
 had been purchafed near the Petfchora river. A 
 mammoth mummy was firft difmterred about 
 1692; another was found near the river AJafej 
 in 1787; next comes the one above defcribed in 
 1699 on the Tamut Peninfula ; another was 
 opened out on the Yenifej in 1839, an< ^ again 
 others were found in 1846 and i866. 2 
 
 1 See an excellent paper on the name " Mammoth " by 
 H. H. Howorth, F.S.A., in The Field Naturalijt, July, 1882, 
 p. 30. 
 
 2 "Voyage of the Vega," by Nordenfkiold (1881). See 
 vol. i., p. 400 feq.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE HORSE. 
 
 " Ripa nutritus in ilia, 
 Ad quam Gorgonei dclapfa eft penna caballi.' 
 
 (Juv. Sat., iii. 117.) 
 
 lEMAINS of the horfe in a domefti- 
 cated ftate have been found in Swifs 
 lake -dwellings of the Neolithic 
 period, but ProfefTor Huxley deems 
 that the anchitheres of the upper Eocene times 
 were the true anceftors of the horfe. Thefe foffil 
 creatures were about the fize of Shetland ponies, 
 and poflefled three diftinct hoofs on each foot. 1 
 Without committing ourfelves to a belief in the 
 Darwinian doctrines of defcent, we may well be 
 grateful to fcience for pointing out the different 
 ftages in which creative Wifdom was pleafed 
 to fafhion fmiilar extinct animals, before giving 
 man fo ufeful a creature as the horfe. A very 
 early fpecimen of ant reprefents the foflil horfe 
 
 1 Dawkins, "Early Man in Britain," p. 32, and Sir J. 
 Lubbock, "Addrcfs to the Britifh Aifociation," Sept. 1881 ; 
 fee, too, his " Fifty Years of Science," p. 9 (Macmillan, 1882).
 
 1 04 Gleanings from the 
 
 carved on a rib by the cave-men of Dordogne, 
 apparently with a flint graver. 1 The manner in 
 which one horfe is reprefented as biting the tail 
 of another at the fame time that it deprefles and 
 puts back its own ears, is remarkably true to 
 nature, and feems the (ketch of an artift (killed in 
 the ufe of the pencil, rather than the fcratching 
 of a favage. The equid^e, as a family, only date 
 from Pliocene times. The foffil horfe of our 
 iflands was the fize of a fmall horfe at prefent, 
 and had a larger head than the domefticated races, 
 as may be well feen in the engraving of the carved 
 rib from Dordogne in Mr. Wilfon's book. Two 
 or three fkeletons of horfes have been found in 
 Scotland buried along with their owners, chiefs in 
 the iron period, and the bridle-bits of thefe horfes 
 are frequently very beautiful. 2 But with regard to 
 horfe furniture, two moft fmgular horfe-collars of 
 ftone were found near the parallel roads of Glenroy 
 in Scotland. 3 Thefe are models rather than the 
 actual collars which were ufed in the ftone period, 
 and are finely polifhed. Of courfe their difcovery 
 led to much wild fpeculation about the parallel 
 roads having once been the fcene of public games 
 and chariot races, after the old-fafhioned type 
 of archaeology. Careful breeding has given the 
 domefticated horfe both fize and fymmetry. We 
 have feen Roman horfe-fhoes, found in Devon, 
 which are very fmall compared with thofe ufed 
 
 1 Wilfon, "Prehiftoric Man," i., p. 106 (1876). 
 
 2 Wilfon, "Prehiftoric Annals of Scotland," 1851, p. 458 
 (feveral figures). 
 
 3 Ibid., P . I 56.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 105 
 
 for our prefent horfes ; and Wilfon ftates 1 that 
 horfe-fhoes found on the field of Bannockburn 
 and at Nifbetmuir are remarkable for their very 
 diminutive fize. As for horfe-moeing, the art was 
 known in the time of Casfar both to Britons and 
 Saxons, although it is generally afTerted to have 
 been introduced into England by William the 
 Norman. The Greeks, were accuftomed to nail a 
 rim of iron on a horfe's hoof, as may be gathered 
 from a Greek coin, now in the Britim Mufeum, 
 found at Tarentum, and fuppofed to date from 
 B.C. 200. The later Roman horfe-fhoe, made of 
 gold, which horfes wore and kicked off in triumphs, 
 proceffions and the like, were probably not nailed 
 on the foot. 
 
 Faffing from the animal's derivation to that of 
 its name, as being a common domeftic animal of 
 the Indo-European races, it is not furprifing to 
 find the word "horfe" fubftantially one and the 
 fame in all the Aryan dialects. Thus it is ajva in 
 Sanfcrit, iWoc in Greek, and (connected by the 
 dialectical i'/ococ) equus in Latin; "hors" (the 
 Anglo-Saxon name), or " ors," by a ufual 
 metathefis became "ros" or "rofs" in German. 
 The horfe was not ufed by the Jews until the 
 times of David and Solomon, in confequence of 
 the hilly nature of their country, and becaufe of 
 the direct prohibition (Deut. xvii. 16). It came 
 to Paleftine from Egypt, where it had been pro- 
 bably introduced by the Hykfos. Thus it is not 
 found reprefented on the monuments before the 
 1 Wilfon, "Annals," p. 437.
 
 1 06 Gleanings from the 
 
 eighteenth dynafty, and the agreement between its 
 name in Egyptian and in Hebrew points to a 
 Semitic origin. 1 With the Greeks it was facred 
 to Pofeidon, and the well-known legend of his 
 creation of the animal may either point to its in- 
 troduction into Hellas by fea, or be an inftance 
 of Greek poetic fancy (juft as we talk of "white 
 horfes " when the waves ruffle the fea in fummer), 
 and be connected with the horfes of the fun, fo 
 frequent a myth in Oriental mythologies, which 
 feem every morning to rife from the fea. 2 So the 
 Rhodians ufed yearly to caft into the fea a four- 
 horfe chariot which had been dedicated to the fun, 
 and every ninth year in Illyricum four chariot 
 horfes were fimilarly caft into the fea. Sophocles 
 fpeaks of day dawning with its white horfes 
 ("Ajax," 672). 
 
 Among the Perfians Mithra was the fun-god, 
 and was perfonified, as alfo among the Greeks 
 and Romans, as driving a team of horfes in his 
 chariot. There are numberlefs allufions in ancient 
 literature to the horfe as being an animal facred 
 to the fun. "Perfia," fays Ovid, "appeafes the 
 fun with a horfe that a flow victim may not be 
 given to a fwift god." 3 Xenophon fpeaks of the 
 fame facrifice. The Scythian Maflagetas followed 
 the fame cuftom, " facrificing the fwifteft of all 
 mortal creatures to the fwifteft of the gods." 4 In 
 
 1 Wilkinfon, " Ancient Egyptians " (Abridgment, vol. i., 
 P. 386). 
 
 2 To Neptune was attributed the invention of reins. Soph. 
 "(Ed. Col.," 713-15, Dind. 
 
 3 "Faft.,"i. 385. 4 L i b . ;. 2 ,6.
 
 Natural Hiftory tf the Ancients. 1 07 
 
 the Vedas the chariot of the fun is drawn by 
 two, feven, or ten horfes called "haritas," which 
 is always a feminine noun. Profeflbr Miiller has 
 traced the connection between thefe and the Greek 
 "charites" or "Graces," and the Greek god of 
 love, Eros, with the Sanfcrit conception of Dawn. 1 
 The team of the fun's chariot with the Greeks 
 and Romans was four in number. No ancient 
 fculptor ever carved thefe prancing fire-breathing 
 fteeds more nobly than has our own Gibfon in the 
 wonderful baf-relief to be feen at Wentworth 
 Houfe, the divine youth retraining his plunging 
 fteeds without an effort, as it were, as the "wild 
 team" arife 
 
 " And (hake the darknefs from their loofened manes, 
 And beat the twilight into flakes of fire." 2 
 
 The Greek Hours who lead forth the chariot 
 become in Sanfcrit oxen, from the notion of oxen 
 going forth at morning to pafture, and returning 
 with evening ; and fo, remarks ProfefTor Max 
 Muller, we can underftand the inner meaning of 
 the old Homeric myth refpedling the companions 
 of OdyfTeus who killed the oxen of the fun and 
 never again faw their native land. They wafted 
 their hours elfewhere, literally killed the time in 
 idlenefs and voluptuous living. So, too, we can 
 underftand the force of the Homeric epithets 
 applied to the fun's horfes, " fwift-flying," "fwift- 
 
 r Max Miiller, " Selefted Eflays," i., p. 439. 
 2 Compare the horfes of the Sun in Virgil, " ^Eneid," xii. 
 113: 
 
 " From the deep gulf the Sun's proud courfers rife 
 And, rearing, from their noftrils breathe forth flame."
 
 io8 Gleanings from the 
 
 footed/' and the like, which Virgil follows in his 
 "wing-footed" horfes. 
 
 It was probably due to fome connection with 
 the fwift-flowing ftreams of rivers that the ancients 
 were often wont to facrifice horfes on their banks. 
 Thus Xerxes, on crofling the Strymon, when 
 about to invade Greece with his enormous hoft, 
 facrificed white horfes to propitiate it. 1 And in 
 much later times, while Vitellius offered the 
 cuftomary Roman facrifices by the Euphrates, its 
 ftream was appeafed by Tiridates with the facrifice 
 of a horfe. 2 Ten facred horfes of the celebrated 
 Nyfean breed were Jed, gorgeoufly caparifoned, 
 before the chariot of Mithra on the march of 
 Xerxes, while after it the royal chariot in which 
 the King himfelf fat in ftate was alfo drawn by 
 Nyfasan horfes. The Nyfasan plain, whence came 
 the moft prized horfes of the Perfians, was fituated 
 to the fouth-weft of Ecbatana, on the high uplands 
 weft of Mount Zagros. The Perfians have always 
 been fond of horfes; indeed, their education, 
 according to Herodotus, confifted in three things 
 learning to ride, to moot, and to fpeak the 
 truth. 3 The pre-eminence of the Nyfasan horfes 
 has now pafTed to the Arabian horfes of the 
 Nedjd. 
 
 Ariftotle ends a chapter about the age and 
 dentition of the horfe, which might pafs mufter in 
 a modern manual of farriery, with an account of a 
 
 1 Herod., vii. 113. 2 Tac. "Ann.," vi. 37. 
 
 s Herod., vii. 40 and i. 136 ; and Rawlinfon, "Five Great 
 Monarchies," p. 145 and ii. p. 261.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 09 
 
 celebrated fuperftition among the ancients, the 
 hippomanes. " When a foal is born," he fays, 
 " the mother immediately bites off a growth upon 
 its forehead, which is a little lefs than a fig in fize, 
 and is broad, circular, and black. If anyone is 
 beforehand in obtaining this, and the mare mould 
 fmell it, me is befide herfelf and maddened with 
 its odour. Hence forcerefles feek for and collect 
 it as a charm." 1 And he adds, " The horfe feems 
 to be eminently an animal fond of its young ; thus, 
 when mares have lived together, if one dies the 
 reft cherim its foal, and often the barren ones 
 themfelves cherim theie foals, but by reafon of 
 having no milk kill them." Pliny evidently had 
 Ariftotle's book before him, but adds a multitude 
 of fables, as his wont is, to the Stagyrite's common- 
 fenfe. Thus Casfar's horfe would fuffer no one 
 but its mafter to mount it, and was notable for its 
 forelegs ending in human feet. It was honoured 
 with a gorgeous tomb, while at Agrigentum 
 pyramids were erected as memorials of many 
 horfes. The great Semiramis was in love with a 
 horfe. The Scythian cavalry was famous; and 
 on one occafion, when a chieftain was killed, his 
 horfe fell with tooth and hoof upon the victor and 
 flew him. Such is the docility of the horfe, that 
 all the cavalry of Sybaris was taught to dance to 
 the found of a meafure. It fnuffs the battle afar 
 off, and mourns its loft lord, fometimes even with 
 tears. Nay, when King Nicomedes died his horfe 
 ftarved itfelf to death. When Dionyfius left his 
 1 Arift., " Hift. Animalium," vi. 22, 6 and ix. 5.
 
 1 1 o Gleanings from the 
 
 horfe foundered in a bog in order himfelf to 
 efcape, the animal followed its matter's footfteps 
 with a fwarm of bees hanging on its mane; and in 
 confequence of this portent Dionyfius feized upon 
 the throne. The fiercer the horfe, the deeper does 
 he plunge his nofe into water when he drinks. 
 Thefe and other ftill more wonderful myths, which 
 are fcarcely to be told in the vulgar tongue, parted 
 current with the Roman encyclopaedift for natural 
 hiftory. 1 He follows Ariftotle, too, in the mar- 
 vellous ftory of the hippomanes. 
 
 Like moft of our domeftic animals, the horfe 
 probably came into Europe from the vaft fteppes 
 of Turkeftan and the Oxus. Thence they formed 
 the Spanim ftock, which was fo celebrated amongft 
 the Romans, and which Pliny commends for its 
 well-ordered paces and high action. The fame of 
 Spanim horfes, however, yet furvives ; and at the 
 official entry of the Princefs Stephanie into Vienna 
 on May 9, 1881, the day before her marriage, her 
 carriage was drawn by milk-white fteeds of the 
 pureft Spanim blood. Both the black and white 
 varieties of the drain are fcrupuloufly kept pure in 
 the Imperial ftud ; and, with the exception perhaps 
 of the cream-coloured Hanoverians, are the only 
 pure reprefentatives of the breed in exiftence. The 
 fwifteft African horfes alfo came of Spanim blood. 
 In Poland, buffaloes and wild horfes abounded in 
 early times. Full accounts of the Scythians on the 
 fteppes of Southern Ruflia, and their nomadic mode 
 of life with horfes and flocks, are given in Hero- 
 
 1 Pliny, "Hift. Nat.," viii. 42.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 1 1 
 
 dotus. The Parthians, much farther to the Eaft, 
 were, if poflible, ftill more diftinctively equeftrian 
 in their habits. " They are at all times carried on 
 horfes. On them they fight, take their meals, 
 perform all public and private duties, make their 
 journeys, reft, barter, converfe. The chief differ- 
 ence between flaves and freemen with them is, that 
 flaves walk on foot, while freemen always ride." 1 
 A Roman poet, too, fpeaks of " learning how 
 many miles the Parthian horfeman can ride with- 
 out water." Many mares of this ftock were fent 
 into Macedonia by Philip, the father of Alexander 
 the Great, to improve the native race. The 
 cavalry of Thrace 2 and Theflaly was famous with 
 the ancients, and the mares, as in Arabia at prefent, 
 were more highly valued than the horfes. 
 
 What the ancient ideal of a good horfe was may 
 be gathered from Virgil : 3 
 
 " Upright he walks, on patterns firm and ftraight, 
 His motions eafy, prancing in his gait. 
 The firft to lead the way, to tempt the flood, 
 To pafs the bridge unknown, nor fear the trembling wood. 
 Dauntlefs at empty noifes, lofty-necked, 
 Sharp-headed, barrel-bellied, broadly-backed, 
 Brawny his chert and deep, his colour gray, 
 For beauty dappled, or the brighteft bay, 
 Faint white and dun will fcarce the rearing pay." 
 
 Yet the pofTeflion of thefe points are of little 
 avail without a long anceftry ; " let him trace 
 
 1 See Juftin, xli. 3; and Propertius, iv. 3, 35, quoted in Viftor 
 Hehn's "Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere " (Berlin, 1877)^.24. 
 
 2 So Turnus, 
 
 " Maculis quern Thracius albis 
 Portat equus." (" JEn." ix. 49.) 
 
 3 " Georg.," iii. 79, 121.
 
 1 1 2 Gleanings from the 
 
 his breed to Epirus and warlike Mycenae, and 
 even deduce his pedigree from Neptune himfelf," 
 then the refult is unmiftakable : 
 
 " The fiery courfer, when he hears from far 
 The fprightly trumpets and the fhouts of war, 
 Pricks up his ears and trembling with delight, 
 Shifts place, and paws, and hopes the promifed fight. 
 On his right moulder his thick mane reclined, 
 Ruffles at fpeed and dances in the wind. 
 His horny hoofs are jetty black and round, 
 His chine is double ; darting with a bound 
 He turns the turf and makes the folid ground. 
 Fire from his eyes, clouds from his noftrils flow, 
 He bears his rider headlong on the foe." 1 
 
 The line in which the Latin poet imitates the 
 galloping of horfes, is well known to all lovers 
 of the "j^Eneid." Another ftriking piclure of the 
 horfe when perifhing by an epidemic, merits quota- 
 tion: 
 
 " The vidor horfe, forgetful of his food, 
 The palm renounces and abhors the flood. 
 He paws the ground and on his hanging cars 
 A doubtful fweat in clammy drops appears ; 
 Parched is his hide and rugged are his hairs. 
 Such are the fymptoms of the young difeafe, 
 But in time's proccfs, when his pains increafe, 
 He rolls his mournful eyes, he deeply groans 
 With patient fobbing and with manly moans. 
 He heaves for breath, which from his lungs fuoplied 
 And fetched from far diftends his labouring fide." 
 
 A drench of wine adminiftered through a horn 
 has fometimes proved fuccefsful in arrefting the 
 difeafe, but as often as not merely fupplied fuel 
 for the flames : 
 
 " For the too vigorous dofe too fiercely wrought 
 And added fury to the llrcngth it brought ; 
 
 1 Dryden.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 113 
 
 Recruited into rage he grinds his teeth 
 In his own flefh and feels approaching death. 
 Ye gods, to better fate good men difpofe, 
 And turn that impious error on our foes !" 
 
 Turning once more to the Eaft, we find the 
 Aflyrian horfes highly prized at prefent as they 
 were of old. They are fmall of ftature, but of 
 exquifite fymmetry and wonderful endurance. Mr. 
 Layard mentions a cafe where a Sheikh refufed no 
 lefs afum than 1,200 for a favourite mare. 1 The 
 Median horfes now belong to two diftinct breeds, 
 the Turkoman, a large powerful animal with long 
 legs and a big head, and the true Arabian, much 
 fmaller and more perfectly maped. Of the Nyfaean 
 horfes we have already fpoken. Babylonia bred 
 vaft numbers of horfes under the Perfian rule. 
 Thus one fatrap porTeiTed 800 ftallions and 10,000 
 mares. The breed is thought to have been ftrong 
 and large-limbed rather than handfome, the head 
 being too large and the legs too mort for 
 fymmetry. The Huns, like the Parthians and 
 Scythians, pafled all their lives on horfeback. 
 Cilicia alfo pofleffed a breed of white horfes. It 
 brought 360 of thefe one a day for all the days 
 of the Perfian year year by year to Darius. 2 
 The horfes belonging to the lake-dwellers of the 
 Paeonians were fed with fifli from the Jakes below 
 the pile-dwellings, according to Herodotus. 3 The 
 Sigynnas, a Thracian tribe in the extreme North, 
 he alfo tells us, pofTefied horfes fo fmall that they 
 
 1 Rawlinfon's "Five Empires,' i. 232; ii. 302; iii. 404; 
 and Herod., i. 192. 
 
 2 Herod., iii. 90. 3 Ibid , v. 16.
 
 1 1 4 Gleanings from the 
 
 muft have refembled our Shetland ponies, with 
 hair as thick as five fingers. Thefe Lilliputian 
 animals were not ridden, but yoked to carts. It 
 is curious to find the father of hiftory meafuring 
 the depth of horfes' hair by fingers, when our 
 ftandard meafure for their height confifts of 
 hands. 
 
 The Goths and Cimbri were anciently, like the 
 Scythians, nomads, and Jived alfo like them off" 
 their herds and flocks ; for drink they had pure 
 water and mead, with mares' milk. 1 This milk, 
 however, they did not drink unlefs it had firft 
 been confecrated, the horfe being an animal facred 
 to the god of war. Sometimes they drank till 
 drunkennefs overcame them of the milk and blood 
 of their beafts of burden. They had horfes of 
 two colours, black and white, and efteeming one 
 or the other facred, did not ride on both alike. 2 
 The beafts of the ancient Germans, according to 
 Caefar, were fmall and ill-maped, and Tacitus fays 
 their horfes were neither confpicuous for beauty 
 nor fpeed, nor were they trained to circle round 
 at the will of their riders, as were the Roman 
 cavalry horfes. 3 The Britons attacked in a de- 
 fultory way with chariots, now charging their 
 
 1 Cnf. Virgil, " Georg.," iii. 463 : 
 
 " Et lac concretum cum fanguine potat equino." 
 
 Camilla, the heroine of the later books of the " ^Eneid," was 
 fed as an infant on mare's milk. One of the few babies pre- 
 ferved by the French through the horrors of the retreat from 
 Mofcow was kept alive by feeding it on a pafte made of horfe's 
 blood. 
 
 2 See V. Hehn, ut fup. * Tac., " Germ.," vi.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 1 5 
 
 enemies, now wheeling round their horfes, and 
 again feizing an opportunity when it offered. This 
 was peculiarly annoying to the heavy-armed Roman 
 foldiers, and when the Roman cavalry followed, 
 the chariotmen leapt out and confronted them on 
 foot. 1 
 
 Here the manner in which the horfe was em- 
 ployed in war naturally deferves a word or two. 
 This feems to have been its ufe everywhere before 
 it was utilized for agricultural 'work, juft as the 
 paftoral ftate of life naturally preceded a more 
 fettled mode of exiftence. So in the Hebrew 
 Scriptures the horfe is exclusively confidered as an 
 animal ufeful in war. Oxen invariably precede it 
 as beafts of draught, juft as we are now feeing it 
 in its turn fuperfeded by fteam. But with regard 
 to the employment of the horfe in war, Lucretius 
 in a celebrated pafTage (v. 1296) feems to have 
 mifapprehended its true fequence. " The cuftom 
 of a warrior mounting on horfeback," he fays, 
 " and guiding his fteed with reins and the right 
 hand, is antecedent in time to tempting the dangers 
 of war in a two-horfe chariot ; and this, again, to 
 the ufe of four-horfe chariots and chariots armed 
 with fcythes." As a matter of fadt, chariots feem 
 to have been ufed before the art of riding on 
 horfeback had been learnt. The Lapithas were 
 the firft to invent breaking-in of horfes and the 
 ufe of the bridle, while Ericthonius firft introduced 
 the yoking of four horfes to a chariot. The heroes 
 before Troy always fought from chariots, and never 
 1 C<efar, "Bell. Gall.," v. 16.
 
 1 1 6 Gleanings from the 
 
 on horfeback. Grecian and Trojan civilization 
 as well were juft efcaping, in the ten years' war 
 before Troy, from thofe facrifices of horfes which, 
 as we have feen, were wide-fpread in the ancient 
 world. It now did not fo much wormip as 
 reverence the animal. " The horfe in Homer 
 generally has not only a poetical grandeur," fays 
 Mr. Gladftone, " but a near relation to deity, 
 which I am unable fufficiently to explain; but 
 which, it feems poffible, may be the reflection or 
 analogue of the place affigned to the ox in the 
 Eaft. Several circumftances, and among them the 
 practice of defcribing a champaign country as one 
 fuited to feeding the horfe, combine to mow how 
 completely for the Greek this noble creature flood at 
 the head of the animal creation." * While agreeing 
 in the main with this lover of Homer, we believe 
 that the femi-divine honour paid to the horfe was 
 no reflection of ox-worfhip from the Eaft, but an 
 independent phafe of religious thought. How 
 clofely Homer deemed the horfe connected with 
 the gods, may be feen in the curious narrative of 
 Hera giving Xanthus, one of the immortal chariot- 
 horfes of Achilles, powers of fpeech, which the 
 animal forthwith ufed to foretell its matter's 
 fpeedy death. 2 
 
 The ancients chiefly knew of herds of wild 
 horfes about the river Hypanis 3 and in the vaft 
 tract which they termed Scythia, which anfwers to 
 the South of Ruffia, Turkeftan, and the deferts 
 
 1 Gladftone, "Juventus Mundi," p. 360. 
 
 2 "Iliad," xix. qoo feq. 3 Herod., iv. 52.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 1 7 
 
 ftretching into Mid Afia. Palaeontology {hews 
 that horfes once abounded in the New World, 
 but thofe which are now found there in a wild 
 ftate are all of them the defendants of the horfes 
 imported by the Spanim conquerors, the original 
 horfes of the country having everywhere died out 
 before the introduction of man into the Continent. 
 The aborigines, whom theSpani'fh found dwelling in 
 Mexico and Peru, had no tradition or hieroglyphic 
 indicative of fuch a quadruped, and the horfes 
 brought acrofs the Atlantic by the invaders were 
 viewed with aftonimment and alarm. 1 
 
 At the fiege of Troy, Priam's horfes had been 
 reared at Abydos, which was famous for them. 
 Homer calls Ilios " blefled with good horfes," 
 and fpeaks of the " horfe-fubdui ng Trojans" as 
 if they were an equeftrian people. Myths con- 
 nected Troy with horfes from the beginning, in- 
 dicative, perhaps, of a Phoenician founder (juft as 
 the emblem of Carthage was a horfe 2 ), and thefe 
 legends have been very ufeful to the poets. Thus 
 Zeus gave Tros, the eponymus of Troy, divine 
 horfes in payment for his fon Ganymede, carried 
 off to be a celeftial cupbearer; and Hercules 
 refcued the daughter of Laomedon, Hefione, 
 from a fea-monfter fent by Pofeidon, on the faith 
 
 1 Owen, "Hiftory of Britifh Foffil Mammals," p. 398 : " The 
 horfe in its ancient diftribution over both hemifpheres of the 
 globe refembled the maftodon, and appears to have become 
 extinfl in North America at the fame time with the m. , 
 and in South America with the megatherium." 
 
 2 " Signum quod regia Juno 
 Monflrarat, caput acris equi." (" JEn.," i. 443.)
 
 1 1 8 Gleanings from the 
 
 of a promife that the King would give him fome 
 fteeds of this divine ftock. Laomedon, however, 
 broke his word, and the hero befieged and took 
 Troy. During the fecond and more celebrated 
 ten years' fiege of the city, jEneas poffefTed horfes 
 of this celeftial drain, " the beft of all horfes feen 
 by the dawn and the fun" ("Iliad," v. 265). 
 Circe craftily ftole this ftock, and fo their de- 
 fcendants are faid to " breathe fire from their 
 noftrils" ("jEneid," vii. 281). Very fitly, too, 
 was the deftruction of Troy accomplifhed by the 
 aid of the wooden horfe, " inftar mentis equum " 
 ("JEneid," ii. 15). Laocoon's advice, fo ill-ftarred 
 for himfelf, deferves quotation in the original, as 
 fifty are familiar with the proverb, for one who 
 knows whence it comes: 
 
 " Equo ne credite, Teucri, 
 Quicquid id eft timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." 1 
 
 The poetic inftinct of Homer compares Paris, 
 one of the leading champions of Troy, going 
 forth to battle, to an exulting horfe: 
 
 " As when fome ftall-fed horfe his barley leaves 
 And breaks his bonds and clatters o'er the plain, 
 Wont there to bathe within the fair-glowing ftream, 
 Exulting ; high he bears his head, his mane 
 Tofles athwart his neck, and winged with pride, 
 Welcomes with lofty fteps the well-known meads." 2 
 
 When Zeus goes forth from Olympus his 
 horfes are " fwift-flying " in the " Iliad " (viii. 
 41-43), "their flowing manes tied up with gold." 
 Milton, on the other hand, when " the chariot of 
 
 ii. 49. 2 "Iliad," vi. 506-511.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 1 9 
 
 Paternal Deity" proceeds to war, is filent (feeing 
 how little fpace in Hebrew hiftory the horfe filled) 
 about fteeds to draw it, but incorporates the grandeft 
 imagery of the prophets into one of his nobleft 
 defcriptions. 1 The two horfes of Achilles's chariot, 
 Xanthus and Balius, flew, fays Homer, like the 
 wind, and (in accordance with a fuperftition com- 
 mon throughout the ancient world) were begotten 
 of the weft wind, he adds, on Podarga, as me 
 was feeding in a meadow by the ocean ftream. 2 
 Similarly Mars has two horfes in his chariot in 
 the " Iliad," named Fear and Terror, though at 
 other times thefe are called his fons. Homer 
 reprefents Erichthonius as poffeffing 3,000 horfes, 
 and 12 foals of marvellous properties, able to 
 run over the ears of corn or the waves without 
 injuring or finking in them, were born of thefe 
 by Boreas ("Iliad," xx. 219). Four horfes were 
 {lain at the pyre of Patroclus, and the reft of the 
 warriors' chargers were led round the dead body 
 in a rite called by the Romans " decurfio " 
 ("Iliad," xxiii. 10). Horfes were caft alive into 
 the Scamander to propitiate the river (" Iliad," 
 xx. 1 30). Bochart in his " Hierozoicon " treats 
 of ancient horfes at large. 
 
 Among the Anglo-Saxons no heathen prieft was 
 allowed to ride on a male horfe (Bede's " Eccl. 
 Hift.," ii. 13). None of the moft ancient gods 
 of Greece were imagined as riding on horfeback. 
 Zeus, Apollo, and the reft have two-horfe chariots. 
 It is Dionyfos, belonging to a different order of 
 
 1 "Paradifc Loft," book vi. 2 "Iliad," xvi. 149.
 
 1 20 Gleanings from the 
 
 deities, who firft rides a panther, as Silenus, an afs. 
 Heroes, fuch as Perfeus, Thefeus, and the Diofcuri, 
 are mounted on horfes. Okeanus beftrides a winged 
 fteed (" Prom. Vin6L," 395). The northern gods 
 generally ride ; Odin on Sleipnir. He faddles it 
 for himfelf. Night had a fteed Hrimfaxi (rimy- 
 mane), as Day had Skinfaxi (mining-mane). 1 In 
 the earlieft period of Teutonic mythology the 
 horfe feems to have been the favourite animal for 
 facrifice. There is no doubt that before the intro- 
 duction of Chriftianity its flefh was conftantly 
 eaten. Nothing in the ways of the heathen was 
 fo offenfive to the new converts as the not giving 
 up the killing of horfes and eating of their flem. 2 
 Cascina, on approaching the fcene of the over- 
 throw of Varus, faw horfes' heads faftened to 
 the ftems of trees. Thefe were the Roman horfes 
 which had been offered up to the German gods. 3 
 
 The Roman "horfey" man ufed to fwear by 
 Hippona, a goddefs of horfes. His Greek equiva- 
 lent appears at the beginning of the " Clouds " of 
 Ariftophanes. The horfe, like the camel, is not 
 found on the moft ancient Egyptian monuments : 
 " Tout ce qu'il eft prudent d'en conclure, c'eft que 
 ces animaux n'etaient ni Tun ni 1'autre abondants 
 en Egypte du temps de 1'ancien empire, et qu'ils 
 n'etaient point encore comptes alors en nombre des 
 animaux domeftiques " (Chabas, p. 423). 
 
 Such are fome of the great affociations connected 
 with horfes in heroic days. Argos, Epidaurus, 
 
 1 Grimm's "Northern Mythol.," ed. Stallybrafs, i. 328. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 47. 3 T ac>> "Ann.," i. 61.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 2 1 
 
 and Epirus were noted among the Greeks for good 
 horfes. Hence the allufions, " aptum Argos equis " 
 (Horace's " Odes," i. 7, 9) ; " domitrix Epidaurus 
 equarum " (" Georg.," iii. 44) ; " Eliadum palmas 
 Epirus equarum " (" Georg.," i. 59). Wonderful 
 ftories are told by the ancients of Bucephalus, the 
 horfe of Alexander the Great how he would 
 allow no one elfe to mount him when harnefled 
 for war, and when he received his death-ftroke 
 in a fkirmifh in the Indian War, he bore his mailer 
 fafely out of the battle, and then, and not till 
 then, expired, and the like. 1 A few more notices 
 of famous mythical horfes may be fubjoined, fuch 
 as the brazen-footed, fire-fnorting horfes of ^Eetes, 
 which it was needful that he who would bear off 
 the Golden Fleece mould yoke to a plough, and 
 compel to work. Pegafus need only be named. 
 Caftor and Pollux had a celebrated horfe called 
 Cyllarus. On a coin of Rhegium they are both 
 reprefented mounted on him, much like the Knights 
 Templars of later times. The chariot-horfes of 
 Glaucus were a caufe of fhuddering to the ancients, 
 as they had -gone mad, and torn their mafter limb 
 from limb. 2 Cn. Seius poflefled a horfe of remark- 
 able beauty, faid to have fprung from the fteeds of 
 Diomedes, whom -Hercules had flain and brought 
 his horfes from Thrace to Argos, far fur patting 
 all other horfes in good qualities. Unluckily 
 fate had decreed that everyone who mould own 
 it, together with all his houfe, family, and fortune, 
 would be irretrievably ruined. Seius himfelf was 
 1 Aul. Cell., v. 2 ; Pliny, viii. 42. 2 " Georg.," IS. 267.
 
 122 Gleanings from the 
 
 capitally punifhed by Antony the triumvir. Dola- 
 bella then fell in love with the horfe, and bought 
 it for a large fum, but was (lain in civil war in 
 Syria. Caflius was its next owner, and he, on the 
 rout of his party, put an end to himfelf. Antony 
 then became pofTefTed of it, and his miferable end 
 it is needlefs to mention. Hence, fays Aulus 
 Gellius, arofe a proverb of men noted for their 
 misfortunes " He owns a Seian horfe." 1 Moralifts 
 might apply this ftory to the ruin which fo often 
 overtakes men in modern times who devote them- 
 felves to racing, more efpecially as the horfe of 
 Seius is defcribed as having been of a dark colour ; 
 and in the perfon of Pheidippides, the horfe-lover 
 portrayed in the beginning of the " Clouds " of 
 Ariftophanes, might defcry the type of many a 
 " hoHey" man of our own times. If horfes were 
 facred to Neptune, none might ever be brought 
 near a temple or grove facred to Diana, becaufe 
 horfes had caufed the death of her favourite, Hip- 
 poly tus. 2 
 
 In our own land the horfe is found on a coin 
 of Verulamium, the capital of Caflivelaunus. In- 
 deed, it has been noticed that the horfe was a 
 favourite animal with the Kelts, and that both on 
 the famous White Horfe of the Berkfhire Downs 
 and on coins the animal is reprefented with the 
 wrong leg foremoft in an impoflible attitude. It 
 was the enfign alfo of the Saxons ; but with them 
 the leg is always corredlly drawn (see Blackwood's 
 Magazine, September, 1883, p. 321). A curious 
 1 Aul. Cell., iii. 9. 2 " JEn.," vii. 778.
 
 Natural Hijiory of the Ancients. 123 
 
 inftance of the ufe to which its teeth might be put 
 may be feen in the Gibbs's bequeft at the South 
 Kenfington Mufeum, where a fet of forty-three 
 draught-men occurs, which date from Anglo-Saxon 
 times. Turning to the fatherland of thefe Teutonic 
 invaders, it is impomble to forget Odin's celebrated 
 eight-footed horfe, Sleipnir. The horfe was much 
 offered in facrifice, and alfo eaten among the 
 northern nations, before the introduction of Chrif- 
 tianity, and there are many indications that the 
 early converts could not wholly give up the eating 
 of horfe-flefh. The ancient Germans, after the 
 facrifice of horfes, commonly cut off their heads, 
 and fixed them in fome facred grove as acceptable 
 offerings to their gods. 
 
 At the New Year's feftival horfes were fpecially 
 facrificed. We have feen in the more retired dif- 
 tricls of Glamorganfhire the head of a horfe carried 
 round the country at Chriftmas-time with ringing 
 and merriment, which is without doubt a relic of 
 thefe heathenifh fuperftitions. Pope Gregory III. 
 wrote to St. Boniface fo late as A.D. 751, "Among 
 other things, you add that fome are wont to eat 
 wild horfes, and very many domeftic horfes : this 
 you mould never fuffer to be done. Some fowls 
 alfo, fuch as jackdaws, rooks, and ftorks, are to be 
 wholly interdicted from the meals of Chriftians; 
 beavers alfo, and hares, and much more wild horfes, 
 are to be avoided." 1 Horfe-flefh and that of cats 
 
 1 " Inter cetera agreftem caballum aliquantos comedere 
 adjunxifti, plerofque et domefticum ; hoc nequaquam fieri 
 deinceps finas. Imprimis de volatilibus, id eft graculis et
 
 1 24 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 
 
 are more than once named as the food of heathens 
 and witches in northern literature. A curious 
 verfe, which is part of the grace before meat of 
 the monks of St. Gall, points to the ufe of horfe- 
 flefh fo late as A.D. 1000 
 
 " Sit feralis equi caro dulcis in hac cruce Chrifti," 
 
 while ProfefTor R. Smith has furmifed that " our 
 own prejudice againft horfe-flefh is a relic of an 
 old ecclefiaftical prohibition framed at the time 
 when the eating of fuch food was an a6l of wor- 
 mip to Odin." 1 Hippophagy has aftumed con- 
 fiderable proportions in Paris of late years, and 
 the following advertifement from the Times of 
 Sept. 1 6, 1 88 1, mews that the northern nations 
 are ftill true to their old attachment : " Horfe- 
 Flefh for Exportation. Wanted, found prime 
 Salted Meat in large pieces, fuitable for fmoking. 
 Deliveries monthly of about 25 barrels of 200 Ib. 
 to 300 Jb. each. State price, including packages. 
 
 f. o. b. London, Liverpool, or Hull. J. C. S , 
 
 Landemarket, Copenhagen." 
 
 Having thus brought ancient and modern times 
 into juxtapofition, it is well to remember the poet's 
 line 
 
 " Et jam tempus equfim fumantia folvere colla." 3 
 
 corniculis atque ciconiis quae omnino cavendae funt ab efu 
 Chriftianorum ; etiam et fibri, et lepores, et equi filvatici 
 multo amplius vitandi." See Viftor Hehn, ut fuj>., p. 24, and 
 Grimm's " Teutonic Mythology," ed. Stallybrafs, vol. i., p. 47, 
 1880. 
 
 1 "Le&ures on the Old Teftament," p. 366. 
 
 2 " Georg.," ii. 542.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 GARDENS. 
 
 |OD ALMIGHTY firft planted a 
 garden, and, indeed, it is the pureft 
 of human pleafures; it is the greateft 
 refremment to the fpirits of man, 
 without which buildings and palaces are but grofs 
 handyworks ; and a man mall ever fee, that when 
 ages grow to civility and elegancy, men come to 
 build ftately, fooner than to garden finely, as if 
 gardening were the greater perfection." Thus 
 Lord Bacon begins the fweeteft of his efTays, from 
 every line of which breathe wafts of herbs and 
 flowers. It would be unpardonable, in treating of 
 antiquity, to forget its gardens. Of the original 
 " happy garden," the cradle of mankind, Milton 
 has glorioufly amplified the few outlines traced in 
 the Book of Genefis. Flowers and trees touched 
 his mind almoft as much as mufic, and he never 
 wearies of dwelling on their beauties. Paradife 
 itfelf is twice defcribed in the great Englifh epic: 
 once in Book iv. 237-268 ; and again in Book ix. 
 424-443.
 
 126 Gleanings from the 
 
 " Eve feparate he fpies, 
 
 Veiled in a cloud of fragrance, where me ftood, 
 Half fpied, fo thick the rofes bluming round 
 About her glow'd, oft ftooping to fupport 
 Each flower of tender ftalk, whofe head, though gay 
 Carnation, purple, azure, or fpeck'd with gold, 
 Hung drooping, unfuftain'd ; them fhe upftays 
 Gently with myrtle band, mindlefs the while 
 Herfelf, though faireft unfupported flower, 
 From her beft prop fo far, and ftorm fo nigh ! 
 Nearer he drew, and many a walk traverfed 
 Of ftatelieft covert, cedar, pine, or palm ; 
 Then voluble and bold, now hid, now feen, 
 Among thick-woven arborets, and flow'rs 
 Imbordered on each bank, the hand of Eve ! 
 Spot more delicious than thofe gardens feigned, 
 Or of revived Adonis, or renowned 
 Alcinous, hoft of old Laertes' fon ; 
 Or that, not myftic, where the fapient king 
 Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian fpoufe." 
 
 ProfefTor Heer has refcued fome of the plants 
 and trees which flourifhed in prehiftoric gardens 
 from the buried flora of Switzerland. Such were 
 the following cereals fmall lake-dwelling wheat, 
 Egyptian wheat, two-rowed wheat, one-rowed 
 wheat, compact fix-rowed barley, fmall fix-rowed 
 barley, common millet and Italian (fetaria) ; peas, 
 poppies, flax, caraway feeds, apples, pears, and 
 bullaces. 1 The gardens themfelves were probably 
 mere patches of land adjoining caves or lake- 
 dwellings, ufeful for producing corn and a few 
 fruits. 
 
 " Retired Leifure, 
 " That in trim gardens takes his pleafure," 2 
 
 certainly did not haunt neolithic gardens. 
 
 1 See Dawkins, " Early Man in Britain " (Macmillan, 1880), 
 PP- 301-2- 
 
 2 " Penferofo," 49.
 
 Natural Hijiory of the Ancients. 1 27 
 
 The AfTyrians were very fond of formal gardens 
 fet with trees planted in rows at equal diftances 
 from each other, and with walks geometrically 
 regular, efpecially around temples. Canals or 
 aqueducts frequently fupplied thefe gardens with 
 water. What Rawlinfon calls " the monftrous 
 invention of Hanging Gardens," 1 were known in 
 AiTyria as early as the time of Sennacherib. It was 
 not till a much later date, however, that they were 
 introduced into Babylonia, where the celebrated 
 Hanging Gardens of Babylon were efteemed one 
 of the wonders of the ancient world. To us thefe 
 gardens feem rather a laudable attempt to make 
 the defert rejoice and blorTom as the rofe. They 
 were conftrucled by Nebuchadnezzar to gratify 
 the home-fick longings of his favourite wife, 
 Amyitis, and were in the form of " a fquare, each 
 fide of which meafured 400 Greek feet. It was 
 fupported upon feveral tiers of open arches, built 
 one over the other like the walls of a claffic theatre, 
 and fuftaining at each ftage or ftory a folid plat- 
 form, from which the piers of the next tier of 
 arches rofe. The building towered into the air to 
 the height of at leaft feventy-five feet, and was 
 covered at the top with a great mafs of earth, in 
 which there grew not merely flowers and fhrubs, 
 but trees alfo of the largeft fize. Water was 
 fupplied from the Euphrates through pipes, and 
 was raifed, it is faid, by a fcrew, working on the 
 principle of Archimedes." It was built of bricks, 
 ftrongly cemented with bitumen, and protected by 
 
 1 Rawlinfon, "Ancient Monarchies," i. 585, and ii. 517.
 
 128 Gleanings from the 
 
 a layer of fheet lead from the moifture above. 
 " The afcent to the garden was by fteps. On the 
 way up among the arches which fuftained the 
 building were {lately apartments, which muft have 
 been pleafant from their coolnefs. There was alfo 
 a chamber within the ftructure containing the 
 machinery by which the water was raifed." Pro- 
 feflbr Rawlinfon has put together in thefe few 
 fentences a mafs of information from different 
 claflical authorities. 
 
 Turning to fome of the celebrated gardens of 
 the ancients, partly mythical, partly proverbial, we 
 come nrft to the Gardens of Adonis, which partook 
 of both thefe characters. The myth belongs 
 originally to Phoenicia ; and the ftory of Adonis, 
 the favourite of Venus, killed while hunting, and 
 allowed to fpend fix months alternately with 
 Proferpine and Venus, points not obfcurely to the 
 return of fummer after winter. Hence " the 
 Gardens of A donis " is only a poetical expreffion 
 for fummer flowers, and foon paffed into a proverb 
 intimating fhort-lived pleafures. At Athens, the 
 term was ufed of fmall pots in which crefs and 
 fuch-like quick-growing herbs were raifed. So 
 Plato makes Socrates aik whether any hufbandman 
 of fenfe would wifh to fee his feeds fpring up and 
 flourim with a brief eight-day life in Gardens of 
 Adonis, or would leave them to children and the 
 decoration of feafts, and would fow at the fitting 
 time and be contented if, at the end of eight 
 months, he received his harveft. 1 The Gardens of 
 
 1 " Phzedrus," 276 B.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 129 
 
 the Hefperides were almoft equally celebrated. 
 Turner has painted them, and Milton fpread the 
 appropriate mift of poetry over thefe Ma/capon* 
 
 Vljaroi, 
 
 " Happy ifles, 
 
 Like thofe Hefperian gardens famed of old, 
 Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales, 
 Thrice happy ifles !" * 
 
 and amplified them in the beautiful imagery of 
 " Comus," 980-1011. 
 
 The Gardens of Alcinous are another proverbial 
 Paradife. Alcinous was the juft and rich King of 
 the Phasacians in Corcyra, devoted to gardening. 
 "Quid bifera Alcinoi laudem pomaria?" fays 
 Statius ; 2 while " to give apples to Alcinous " was 
 much like fending coals to Newcaftle with us. 
 Virgil ufes thefe gardens as a fynonym for 
 orchards on account of the fruit which Alcinous 
 grew, " pomaque et Alcinoi filvas " (" Georg.," ii. 
 87). All the Latin poets drew their allufions to 
 thefe gardens from Homer. We extract his 
 account of them from the excellent tranflation of 
 the " Odyffey " by Butcher and Lang ("Odyffey," 
 vii. 112-131). Thus the reader obtains a literal 
 rendering free from fuch verbiage as Pope flings 
 over the paflage : " The reddening apple ripens 
 here to gold ;" or " Here the blue fig with lufcious 
 juice o'erflows ;" and the like. " Without the 
 courtyard, hard by the door, is a great garden of 
 four plough-gates, and a hedge runs round on 
 either fide. And there grow tall trees blorTbming, 
 pear-trees and pomegranates, and apple-trees with 
 
 1 "Par. Loft," iii. 567. 2 Silv.," i. 3, 81. 
 
 K
 
 1 30 Gleanings from the 
 
 bright fruit, and fweet figs, and olives in their 
 bloom. The fruit of thefe trees never perimeth, 
 winter or fummer, enduring all the year through. 
 Evermore the weft wind blowing brings fome 
 fruits to birth and ripens others. Pear upon pear 
 waxes old, and apple on apple yea, and clufter 
 ripens upon clufter of the grape, and fig upon fig. 
 There, too, hath he a fruitful vineyard planted, 
 whereof the one part is being dried by the heat, a 
 funny fpot on level ground, while other grapes 
 men are gathering, and yet others they are tread- 
 ing in the wine-prefs. In the foremoft row are 
 unripe grapes that caft the bloflbm, and others 
 there be that are growing black to vintageing. 
 There, too, fkirting the furtheft line, are all manner 
 of garden-beds, planted trimly, that are frem con- 
 tinually ; and therein are two fountains of water, 
 whereof one fcatters his ftreams all about the 
 garden, and the other runs over againft it, beneath 
 the thremold of the courtyard, and iflues by the 
 lofty houfe, and thence did the townsfolk draw 
 water." 
 
 Penelope had a " garden of trees " (" OdyfTey," 
 iv. 737). Onions, as a relim for wine, and 
 poppies were alfo grown in the Homeric gardens 
 (" Iliad," xi. 629 and viii. 306). But early Greek 
 gardens, as a rule, held little but vines and trees, 
 and were formal in arrangement (" Iliad," v. 90). 
 The Tf/uepoe, or facred enclofure, often round a 
 temple, furnifhed a model. It was planted with 
 fhrubs, vines, and herbs, and was fometimes termed 
 , whence comes our " orchard " " Iliad,"
 
 Natural Hijiory of the Ancients. \ 3 1 
 
 vi. 195 ; " Odyfley," xx. 278), if that word be not 
 rather derived from the A.S. ortegeard, or garden of 
 herbs. 1 Laertes, in the " Odyfley," is reprefented 
 as a gardener, and Ulyfles on his return finds him 
 " alone in the terraced vineyard, digging about 
 a plant." The fon addreffes him, " Old man, thou 
 haft no lack of {kill in tending a garden ; lo, thou 
 careft well for all, nor is there aught whatfbever, 
 either plant, or fig-tree, or vine, or olive, or pear, 
 or garden-bed in all the clofe that is not well feen 
 to." Thefe words give fome idea of a Homeric 
 garden. The pathetic lines of Ulyffes when dif- 
 covering himfelf to his aftonifhed father will fill 
 up fome of the outlines : " Come, and I will tell 
 thee the trees through all the terraced garden, 
 which thou gaveft me once for mine own ; and I 
 was afking thee this and that, being but a little 
 child, and following thee through the garden. 
 Through thefe very trees we were going, and thou 
 didft tell me the names of each of them. Pear- 
 trees thirteen thou gaveft me, and ten apple-trees, 
 and figs two fcore, and as we went thou didft name 
 the fifty rows of vines thou wouldeft give me, 
 whereof each one ripened at divers times, with all 
 manner of clufters on their boughs, when the 
 feafons of Zeus wrought mightily on them from 
 on high. 2 
 
 Roman gardens, again, were for the moft part 
 formal pleafure-grounds planted with fruits and 
 
 1 For Greek gardens, fee Becker's "Charicles," p. 203, note 
 (ed. 1880). 
 
 2 "Odyfley," xxiv. 244 and 335 (Butcher and Lang's 
 tranflation).
 
 132 Gleanings from the 
 
 flowers, efpecially fuch flowers as were ufeful for 
 garlands. Both Romans and Greeks too, it mould 
 be remembered, porTefled but a limited flora. Our 
 own garden-treafures have been lovingly brought 
 together, carefully cultivated and improved from 
 every clime. What our natural poverty herein 
 would be, may be imagined by mentally excluding 
 all fave native fpecies from our parterres. Lines 
 of trees in a Roman garden bordered ftraight 
 walks laid out for exercife ; while fhrubs were cut 
 and trimmed to improve upon nature. Rofes and 
 violets, narcifTus, poppy, and a few others furnimed 
 the borders with flowers. The fecondary pleafures 
 of beauty and natural adaptivenefs of form and 
 growth, which we dwell upon fo largely in our 
 eftimation of a garden, were nearly unknown to 
 the ancients. So Rufkin fuggeftively writes: "I 
 do not know that of the expreflions of affection 
 towards external Nature to be found among heathen 
 writers, there are any of which the leading thought 
 leans not towards the fenfual parts of her. Her 
 beneficence they fought, and her power they 
 fhunned ; her teaching through both they under- 
 ftood never. The pleafant influences of foft winds 
 and ringing ftreamlets, and fhady coverts of the 
 violet-couch and plane-tree made, they received, 
 perhaps, in a more noble way than we ; but they 
 found not anything except fear upon the bare 
 mountain. The Hybla heather they loved more 
 for its fweet hives than its purple hues." 1 Virgil 
 often dwells upon gardens: " Plant now thy pears, 
 
 1 " Modern Painters," vol. ii., p. 17.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. I 3 3 
 
 Melibasus, plant thy vines in order." " Come 
 hither ; lo, the Nymphs bear thee lilies in brim- 
 ming bafkets ; for thee a fair Naiad, plucking 
 violets and poppy-heads, twines together the nar- 
 ciflus and fweet-fmelling dill, and twifting them 
 up with mezereon and other fragrant herbs, varies 
 the delicate hyacinths with yellow marm-marigold. 
 I myfelf will gather hoary quinces with tender 
 down, and cheftnuts fuch as my Amaryllis loved ; 
 I will add waxen plums, honour mail alfo be paid 
 to this apple ; you, too, laurels, will I pluck, and 
 you, neighbouring myrtle, fince thus arranged ye 
 mingle pleafant odours." 1 Again, he fays in the 
 " Georgics," " Let gardens breathing with crocus- 
 flowers invite bees, and the protection of Priapus, 
 that guard of thieves and birds, with his willow 
 cudgel protect them." The claffic reader will re- 
 call many a ribald ode to Priapus, whofe image 
 was generally fet up in gardens. Three lines in 
 the fame poem aptly defcribe a Roman garden : 
 
 " HJBC circum cafias virides, et olentia late 
 Serpylla, et graviter fpirantis copia thymbrae 
 Floreat, irriguumque bibant violaria fontem." 
 
 Dryden muft tranflate the moft celebrated 
 paflages on ancient flowers (" Georg.," iv. 116-146). 
 He revels in the rofes of Pteftum, " and their 
 double fpring," in fuccory, parfley, cucumbers, 
 narcifTus, bears'-foot, myrtles and ivy, apples, 
 limes, pines and vines, and then defcribes. the old 
 Corycian gardener : 
 
 1 "Eels.," i. 73 and ii. 45-58 ; " Georg,," iv. 109, 30-32., 
 efpecially 116-146. A good deal about Roman gardens may 
 be found in Becker's " Callus."
 
 134 Gleanings from the 
 
 " Lord of few acres, and thofe barren too, 
 Yet labouring well his little fpot of ground, 
 Some Scattering pot-herbs here and there he found ; 
 Which cultivated with his daily care, 
 And bruifed with vervain, were his daily fare. 
 For every bloom his trees in fpring afford, 
 An autumn apple was by tale reftored. 
 He knew to rank his elms in even rows, 
 For fruit the grafted pear-tree to difpofe, 
 And tame to plums the fournefs of the floes. 
 With Spreading planes he made a cool retreat 
 To made good fellows from the Summer's heat. 
 Sometimes white lilies did their leaves afford, 
 With wholefome poppy-flow'rs to mend his homely board. 
 For late returning home he fupped at eafe, 
 And wifely deemed the wealth of monarchs lefs ; 
 The little of his own, becaufe his own, did pleafe." 
 
 Another enumeration of garden flowers, as 
 prettily arranged as any nofegay, will be found in 
 the laft twenty lines of Virgil's " Culex," if that 
 poem be his, and not merely a monkifh cento. 
 
 Having fpoken of prehiftoric gardens, it would 
 be unpardonable to forget the Egyptian kitchen- 
 gardens, wherein grew the leeks, onions, and 
 cucumbers for which the Ifraelites longed. The 
 fertility of thefe gardens was due then, as now, to 
 their proximity to the beneficent waters of the 
 Nile and the alluvial foil of which they were com- 
 pofed. The celebrated Perfian paradifes were not 
 gardens at all, but rather parks planted with knots 
 of trees, wherein meltered wild beafts until it 
 pleafed their owners to chafe them. The " terai " 
 on the flopes of the Himalayas at prefent forms a 
 good natural example of a paradife. We have men- 
 tioned the Saxon " wort-yard," and it is worth re- 
 marking that the South of England poflefled many 
 vineyards before the Conqueft, though their
 
 Natural Hijlory of the Ancients. 135 
 
 grapes would not probably be highly prized at 
 prefent. 1 Every monaftery and convent would 
 have its own patch of garden ground, and horti- 
 cultural fcience in England is largely indebted to 
 the culture and improved varieties of plants intro- 
 duced by the monks. The celebrated liqueur which 
 was recently made by the monks at the Grande 
 Chartreufe mows their {kill lingering to our own 
 day, as admirably exprefTed by Matthew Arnold : 
 
 " The garden, overgrown yet mild, 
 Thofe fragrant herbs are flowering there ! 
 Strong children of the Alpine wild 
 Whofe culture is the brethren's care ; 
 Of human talks their only one, 
 And cheerful works beneath the fun." 
 
 There is a Paradyfs (Paradife) mead near the 
 Priory of Selborne, Hants, which was probably en- 
 clofed ground, planted like an orchard with fruit- 
 trees, and pleafantly laid out. 2 Jedburgh, in old 
 days, was greatly renowned for pears ; while Buck- 
 faftleigh is faid to have firft introduced the apple 
 to Devon, owing to the monks at thefe religious 
 houfes having originally planted orchards. 
 
 Burton 3 does not forget to eulogize the delights 
 of gardens: " To walk amongft orchards, gardens, 
 bowers, mounds, and arbours, artificial wilder- 
 neffes, green thickets, arches, groves, lawns, 
 rivulets, fountains, and fuch-like pleafant places, 
 like that Antiochan Daphne, brooks, pools, fifh- 
 ponds, betwixt wood and water, in a fair meadow, 
 
 1 See Lappenburg, " Hiflory of England," ii. 359. 
 
 2 White, "Antiquities of Selborne," Letter 25. 
 
 3 " Anatomy of Melancholy," ed. 1826, vol. i., p. 407.
 
 136 Gleanings from the 
 
 by ai river-fide, muft needs be a deleclable recrea- 
 tion." And he names the prince's garden at 
 Ferrara, Fontainebleau, " the Pope's Belvedere in 
 Rome, as pleafmg as thofe horti pen/ties in Babylon, 
 or that Indian king's delightfome gardens in ./Elian, 
 or thofe famous gardens of the Lord Cantelow in 
 France." Many of thefe wonders have been 
 eclipfed by modern marvels of greenery ; and fuch 
 lordly gardens as thofe at Trentham, Chatfworth, 
 Alton, and others, need fear no comparifon with 
 any predeceflbrs. And as for botanical gardens, 
 our own at Oxford may be worthily matched with 
 thofe at Nuremberg, Montpellier, or Leyden. 
 
 From Saxondom to Chaucer is a long leap, but 
 the fcantinefs of chronicles, and the little leifure 
 granted men for gardening in the intermediate 
 ages, compel us to take it. With his pure love 
 for flowers and the country, Chaucer delights to 
 dwell upon the gardens of his time. Thus, in 
 the " Romaunt of the Rofe," is a garden, lying 
 four-fquare, enclofed within walls " inftede of 
 hegge": ( 
 
 " The gardin was not daungerous 
 To herborowe birdes many one ; 
 So riche a yere was nevir none 
 Of birdis fong and branchis grene, 
 Therin were birdis mo, I wcnc, 
 Than ben in all the relme of Fraunce." 
 
 It is worth while recounting the ordinary 
 furniture of this garden, as may be gathered 
 further on in the poem. Ordinary trees were 
 " laureres, pine-trees, cedres, oliveres, elmis grete 
 and ftrong, maplis, afhe, oke, afpe, planis long,"
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 137 
 
 " Fine ewe, popler, and lindis faire, 
 And othir trees full many a paire." 
 
 Of fruit-trees appear " pomgranetts a full grete 
 dele," " nutmeggis," " almandris," " figgis, and 
 many a date tre." 
 
 To fay nothing of the cedars, the nutmegs here 
 mow that, poet-like, Chaucer was drawing on 
 his imagination, and that the lift cannot be 
 accepted implicitly as being the contents of a four- 
 teenth-century garden. The next lines, the fpices 
 it contained, prove this more conclufively "clowe, 
 gilofre, licorice, gingeber, grein de Paris " (grains 
 of Paradise), " canell " (cinnamon), " fetewale of 
 pris " (valerian). 
 
 " And many homely trees there were 
 That peches, coines " (quinces), " and apples here, 
 Medlers, plommis, peris, chefteinis, 
 Cherife, of whiche many one faine is, 
 Notis and aleis " (alife), " and bolas, 
 That for to fene it was folas, 
 With many high laurer and pine, 
 Was rengid clene all that gardine 
 With cipris and with oliveris, 
 Of which that nigh no plenty here is." 
 
 If this garden had no exiftence in the outer 
 world, it at all events mows what the ideal of a 
 garden was in Chaucer's time " the platform of a 
 princely garden," as Bacon fays. In " The 
 Pardonere and Tapftere," however, we do get 
 fome idea of what a garden of herbs was like in 
 the poet's day. Therein, he fays : 
 
 " Many a herb grewe for fewe and furgery, 
 And all the aleys feir, and parid, and raylid, and ymakid, 
 The favige and the ifope yfrethid and yftakid, 
 And other beddis by and by frefh ydight."
 
 138 Gleanings from the 
 
 In the " AfTemble of Foules " the poet paints 
 another delightful garden : 
 
 " A gardein fawe I full of bloflbmed bowis 
 Upon a rivir in a grene mede, 
 There as fweteneffe evirmore inough is 
 With flowris white and blewe, yelowe and rede. 
 And colde and clere welleftremis nothyng dcde, 
 That fwommin full of fmale fifhis light, 
 With finnis rede and fcalis filvir bright." 
 
 Yet a third exquifitely drawn garden will be 
 found in " The Frankleine's Tale," " of fwiche 
 pris," as if it were " the veray Paradis ;" and one 
 more in " The Merchant's Second Tale " : 
 
 " This gardeyn is evir grene and full of May flowris, 
 Of rede, white, and blew, and other frefh colouris, 
 The wich ben fo redolent and fentyn fo about, 
 That he muft be right lewde thcrin fhuld route." 
 
 The beginning of the " Complaint of the 
 Blacke Knight " mould alfo be read by all defirous 
 of realizing what the gardens of the time refem- 
 bled. This account of the garden's greenery 
 contains at leaft one touch that mould be remem- 
 bered by lovers of the country : 
 
 " There fawe I growing eke the frefhe hauthorne 
 In white motley, that fo fote doth yfmell." 
 
 The gardens attached to many of the Middle- 
 Age caftles are of great intereft. A good example 
 may be feen at Stirling, of which the charac- 
 teriftics are the frowning walls of the caftle fur- 
 rounding it, the little peep at the iky which it 
 afforded, the fmall fcope there was for a few 
 bufhes and perhaps a low tree or two to be culti-
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 139 
 
 vated in it. In the " Knighte's Tale " Palaemon 
 fees his Emilia for the firft time in fuch a garden : 
 
 " Thurgh a window thikke of many a barre 
 Of yren gret, and fquare as any fparre." 
 
 The ftory of the Earl of Surrey and the fair 
 Geraldine may illuftrate how frequently, in the 
 immured life which many noble damfels muft 
 necefTarily have led in troublous times, fuch ex- 
 amples of love at firft fight muft have occurred. 
 
 A change has come over the Englim garden in 
 Elizabeth's reign. It contains more herbs and 
 flowers, and is more daintily laid out, until it 
 refembles 
 
 " A paradife of delight, to which compared 
 Theffalian Tempe, or that garden where 
 Venus with her revived Adonis fpend 
 Their pleafant hours." 1 
 
 The poets now begin to lavifh fentiment upon 
 it ; as, for inftance, Shakefpeare, from whofe plays 
 a charming Old Englim garden can be con- 
 ftrucled. Richard Barnfield thus enumerates in 
 1 594 the contents of a garden : 
 
 " Nay, more than this, I have a garden plot 
 
 Wherein there wants nor hearbs, nor roots, nor flowers, 
 Flowers to fmell, roots to eate, hearbs for the pot, 
 
 And dainty flickers when the welkin lowers : 
 Sweet-fmelling beds of lillies and of rofes, 
 Which rofemary banks and lavender enclofes. 
 
 " There growes the gillifloure, the mynt, the dayzie, 
 
 Both red and white, the blue-eyed violet, 
 The purple hyacinth, the fpyke to pleafe thee, 
 
 The fcarlet-dyde carnation bleeding yet. 
 The fage, the favery, and fweet margerum, 
 Ifop, tyme, and eye-bright, good for the blinde and dumbe. 
 
 1 Maffingcr, " Believe as You Lilt."
 
 1 40 Gleanings from the 
 
 " The pinke, the primrofe, cowflip, and daffadilly, 
 
 The hare-bell blue, the crimfon cullumbine, 
 Sage, lettis, parfley, and the milke-white lilly, 
 
 The rofe and fpeckled flower cald fops-in-wine : 
 Fine pretie king-cups and the yellow bootes 
 That growes by rivers and by fliallow brookes. 
 
 " And many thoufand moe I cannot name 
 
 Of hearbs and flowers that in garden grow." 1 
 
 The ars topiaria, which cuts box, yews, hollies, 
 and the like into the femblance of peacocks or 
 grotefque monfters, is ufually regarded as the 
 main feature of the love for gardening which fet 
 in after the Reftoration, but in truth it was but 
 the revival of a Roman cuftom. Topiarius is the 
 only name by which an ornamental gardener was 
 known in good Latin authors. 2 Pliny fays that 
 the cyprefs, with its fmall tender evergreen leaf, 
 readily lent itfelf to the defigns of this functionary, 
 whether it was required to reprefent hunting- 
 fcenes or fleets. The periwinkle's evergreen trailers 
 were alfo preffed into his fervice. Similarly the 
 acanthus was a " topiaria et urbana berba" Thefe 
 citations mow that we have adopted a part for the 
 whole of what was anciently the topiarian's duty, 
 viz., the cutting and trimming of fhrubs ; and to 
 this the topiarian art is now confined. Pope's 
 paper in the Guardian, Sept. 29, iyi3, 3 at once 
 fwept away the artificial greeneries then in vogue 
 
 1 "The AfFeaionate Shepherd" (Percy Society, vol. xx., 
 1846, p. 12). 
 
 2 See " Didl. of Greek and Roman Antiq.," fub vcc, y 
 " Hortus," and references there. 
 
 3 "On the Art of Gardening," p. 61, by Mrs. Fofter 
 (Satchell, 1881).
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 4 1 
 
 in gardening, and a more natural tafte revived. 
 Then came the era of the Jandfcape gardeners 
 " Capability " Brown and his followers. It is un- 
 neceflary to follow further the fortunes of the 
 art. Rapin has fung the garden in Latin and 
 Cowper in Englim verfe ; while Sir Thomas 
 Browne, in his " Garden of Cyrus," and Evelyn 
 in his "Acetaria" and " Sylva," have left claflical 
 treatifes which no lover of a garden can afford to 
 neglect. At prefent we fee a decided revolt from 
 the tyranny of ribbon-beds, zones of colour, and 
 the frigid artificial ftyle which has for fome years 
 found favour with fociety, to a more natural and 
 lefs laborious character, in which Simplicity far 
 tranfcends art, in the eyes of all who have ftudied 
 the relations between thefe two principles of 
 gardening. The effects of geometrical gardening 
 and lines of bedding-plants can be feen with more 
 permanence in a brilliant carpet ; for the delight- 
 ful refults of improving Nature and prefling her 
 wildings into a decent conformity with man's 
 needs and his fenfe of beauty, we muft refort to 
 fome fuch charming piece of tutored negligence as 
 was fo daintily depicted by Lord Beaconsfield in 
 the garden of Corifande.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HUNTING AMONG THE ANCIENTS. 
 
 Kai Sijpuiv itypiinv 
 dvfjp. 
 
 (SOPH. Antig., 344.) 
 
 ITH man, as among the lower animals, 
 neceffity Jed to the practice of hunt- 
 ing. Inftincl bids them each purfue 
 what it can ftrike down, kill, and eat. 
 
 " Say, will the falcon ftooping from above, 
 Smit with her varied plumage, fpare the dove ? 
 Admires the jay the infeft's gilded wings ? 
 Or hears the hawk when Philomela fmgs ?" l 
 
 Hunting is a wide word, and embraces many 
 different quarries. Nimrod was the firft hunter, 
 and his prey was man. But here hunting will be 
 narrowed to the chafe of quadrupeds. And Izaak 
 Walton's huntfman mall eulogize his favourite 
 fport : " Hunting is a game for princes and noble 
 perfons ; it hath been greatly prized in all ages ; 
 it was one of the qualifications that Xenophon 
 1 Pope, " Effay on Man," Ep. 3.
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 143 
 
 beftowed on his Cyrus, that he was a hunter of 
 wild beafts. Hunting trains up the younger 
 nobility to the ufe of manly exercifes in their 
 riper age. What more manly exercife than hunt- 
 ing the wild boar, the flag, the buck, the fox, or 
 the hare ? How doth it preferve health and in- 
 creafe ftrength and activity !" And once more : 
 " What mufic doth a pack of dogs then make to 
 any man, whofe heart and ears are fo happy as to 
 be fet to the tune of fuch inftruments I" 1 When 
 Jupiter implanted an evil nature in beafts which 
 were at firft harmlefs, fays the Latin poet : 
 
 " Tarn laqueis captare feras et fallere vifco 
 Inventum, et magnos canibus circumdare faltus." 2 
 
 In the golden age men had no knowledge of 
 agriculture ; nor were they careful to heap up 
 riches or to be thrifty in the ufe of what they 
 poflefled : 
 
 " Sed rami atque afper vidlu venatus alebat." 3 
 
 When civilization began, the hunting exiftence 
 gave way to the paftoral ftate, and that to the 
 fettled mode of living implied by the cultivation 
 of land. And when pleafure and luxury abound 
 in a ftate, men revert for amufement to what their 
 anceftors had been compelled to practise from 
 neceffity. In old days man hunted for his dinner ; 
 now he hunts in order to gain an appetite for it. 
 
 Horace held in high eftimation hunting, and the 
 
 1 "The Compleat Angler," i. I. 
 
 2 Virgil, "Georg.," i. 139, 140. 
 
 3 "^En.," viii. 318.
 
 1 44. Gleanings from the 
 
 leading out of mules laden with ,/Etolian toils 
 and dogs into the country was " a work of fpecial 
 importance to Romans, ufeful for their reputation, 
 their health, their morals, and the more fo if 
 you have ftrength enough either to furpafs the 
 hound in running, or conquer the boar by thews 
 and {mews." 1 Plato, too, looks with much fond- 
 nefs on the chafe. His model legiflator is to 
 frame enactments concerning it, "commending 
 that kind of hunting which will make the fouls 
 of young men better, and blaming the contrary 
 kinds." Fifhing and fowling may be all very well 
 for their profeflbrs, but hunting quadrupeds with 
 horfes and dogs, and fighting them hand to hand 
 with mifliles, as in a Homeric hunting-piece, is the 
 only fpecies of hunting which mould be fuffered 
 among high-born youths. Any kind of fetting of 
 traps or nets, and deceiving the quarry in the dark, 
 is hateful ; 2 but let no one flop thofe who are in 
 fober earneft facred huntfmen, wherever and in 
 whatfoever guife they choofe to hunt. Fowling 
 and fiming are not very noble taftes for any young 
 man ; they mould be left to thofe who are com- 
 pelled to pradtife thefe crafts in order to earn their 
 fubfiftence. With the whole oriental world, 
 hunting was held in fpecial favour. Hunting- 
 pieces conftantly appear in Egyptian imagery. 
 The Parthians were devoted to the chafe. The 
 Aflyrian and Babylonian monarchs constructed 
 large " paradifes," as the Greeks called them, 
 
 * E P .,"i. 18,49. 
 
 2 Plato, "Laws," bk. vii. 823-4.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 45 
 
 where wild beafts found fafe harbour until it 
 pleafed their matters to hold a grand hunting- 
 party and flay them. They are defcribed as 
 having confifted of fpacious tracts of grazing- 
 land, with plantations, and woods, and cool 
 ftreams within them, fomething like the Terai 
 of Nepaul at the prefent day. Cyrus's whole 
 army, in which Xenophon was ferving, was re- 
 viewed in one of thefe. 1 The latter wrote a 
 treatife on hunting. Varro, Arrian and Julius 
 Pollux give much information on the fame fub- 
 jed. Three treatifes on hunting, fifhing, and fowl- 
 ing are alfo afcribed to Oppian. The epitaph on 
 the tomb of Darius mews the keennefs of the 
 Perfians for the chafe : "I was a friend to friends ; 
 I became the moft ikilful of horfemen and archers ; 
 I was a mafter in the art of hunting ; I could do 
 all things." 2 When Paulus ^Emilius fubdued 
 Macedonia, he is faid to have brought away the 
 hounds and hunting-eftablimment of Perfeus, the 
 conquered king, to Rome, and given them to his 
 fon Scipio ^Emilianus. With the Germans, again, 
 " their whole life was fpent in hunting and the 
 ftudies of warfare," fays Casfar. 3 In our own 
 time thefe have been the only refources of the 
 North American Indians. Fighting and hunting 
 all over the world form the amufements of every 
 vigorous race in the infancy of civilization. 
 
 1 See Lord Cockburn's article on "Ancient Hunting," 
 in the Nineteenth Century, Oftober, 1880; and for ancient 
 authorities, Kreyfig G. C., "Bibliotheca Scriptorum Venati- 
 corum." 1750, 8vo, Altenburgi. 
 
 2 Strabo, xv. 3, 8. 3 "De Bell. Gall.," vi. 21. 
 
 L
 
 146 Gleanings from the 
 
 Homer celebrates Scamandrius as an early 
 hunter, " for Artemis herfelf taught him to hurl 
 his darts at all the wild monfters which the wood on 
 the mountains nourimes." So Virgil's Laufus was 
 "equum domitor debellatorque ferarum." 1 Many 
 beautiful hunting-pictures may be found in Homer, 
 and from no fubject fo frequently as the chafe, 
 are the fimiles in the " Iliad " drawn. Lion and 
 wild-boar hunting are fpecially d;ar to Homer. 
 Here is a fpecimen : "As when among dogs and 
 hunters a wild boar or lion turns hither and 
 thither, rejoicing in his ftrength, and they, having 
 drawn themfelves up tower-wife, ftand oppofite it 
 and hurl from their hands many javelins, but its 
 ftout heart never quails or dreads, and its own 
 nobility proves its death." 2 The dogs were taught 
 to feize thefe animals from behind, and " trufted 
 in their fwift feet." The hunters cheered on their 
 hounds. Here is another picture which reminds 
 us of Snyders's hunting-pieces: "As when hounds 
 and impetuous youths purfue a wild boar, and he 
 breaks covert from the thick brufhwood, fharpen- 
 ing his gleaming tufk with crooked jaws ; around 
 him they prefs, but low down comes the gnafhing 
 of his tufks, and they await his charge, dreadful 
 though he be, fo," etc. Again: "But they, as 
 when dogs and ruftics have chafed a ftag with 
 large antlers, or a boar, and it fteep rock and 
 thick coverts have meltered, nor is it fated for 
 them to light upon it, but at their fhouting a lion 
 
 1 "Iliad," v. 51. 
 
 2 Ibid., xii. 41 ; viii. 338 ; xi. 293 ; xi. 414 ; xv. 271.
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 1 47 
 
 with patriarchal mane appears on the road and 
 quickly puts them to flight, eager as they are, fo," 
 etc. Once more: "But they ru/hed forth and 
 fought before the gates, like wild fwine which 
 have awaited in the mountains the advancing 
 uproar of men and dogs, and ruming fideways, 
 break up the thicket around them, cutting it up 
 by the roots, and from beneath rifes a gnafhing 
 of tufks, until fome one is fmitten and lofes his 
 life." 1 
 
 The moft lifelike of all Homer's hunting-pieces, 
 however, is found in the "Odyfley." It feems to 
 have been ftudied from an aclual occurrence, fo 
 frefh and animated are the verfes which embalm 
 it. They relate how, in his youth, the hero re- 
 ceived the wound on the leg by which, on his 
 return from his twenty years' wandering, his old 
 nurfe Euryclea difcovered him. " They fared up 
 the fteep hill of wood-clad ParnafTus, and quickly 
 they came to the windy hollows. Now the fun 
 was but juft ftriking on the fields, and was come 
 forth from the foft flowing ftream of deep Oceanus. 
 Then the beaters reached a glade of woodland, 
 and before them the hounds ran tracking a fcent, 
 but behind came the fons of Autolycus, and 
 among them goodly Odyfleus followed clofe on 
 the hounds, fwaying a long fpear. Thereby in a 
 
 1 "Iliad," xii. 14.6. Xenophon in his " Treatife on Hunt- 
 ing" fpealcs but little of hunting ferocious animals. Hare- 
 hunting is his delight. He defcribes all the knots, flips, fnares, 
 etc., neceflary for it, with all the detail of accomplifhments and 
 tools fuited to the mediaeval angler. (See Muir's "Literature 
 of Ancient Greece," vol. v., p. 477, etc.)
 
 1 48 Gleanings from the 
 
 thick lair was a great boar lying, and through 
 the coppice the force of the wet winds blew never, 
 neither did the bright fun light on it with his rays, 
 nor could the rain pierce through, fo thick it was, 
 and of fallen leaves there was great plenty therein. 
 Then the noife of the men's feet, and of the dogs 
 came upon the boar, as they preffed on in their hunt- 
 ing, and forth from his lair he fprang towards them, 
 with his back well briftled and fire mining in his 
 eyes, and flood at bay before them all. Then 
 Odyfieus was the firft to rum in, holding his fpear 
 aloft in his ftrong hand, moft keen to fmite ; but 
 the boar was too quick for him, and flruck him 
 above the knee, ripping through much flefh as he 
 charged fideways, but he reached not to the bone 
 of the man. But Odyffeus fmote at his right 
 moulder and hit it, fo that the point of the bright 
 fpear went clean through, and the boar fell in the 
 duft with a cry, and his life pafTed from him." 1 
 This is exactly the place where the "pigfticker" 
 on the plains of India ftill endeavours to transfix 
 a wild boar, another proof that the lines may 
 have been infpired by fome perfonal adventure of 
 Homer. The woes of the hunter, "as he ranges 
 over the peaks of the mountains," are feelingly 
 dwelt upon by Homer, 2 recalling Horace's " venator 
 fub Jove frigido." 
 
 A common mode of hunting- large animals was 
 by enclosing them with a ring of men and dogs, 
 through which it was difficult to break. " As a 
 
 1 "Odyfley," xix. 431-454 (Butcher and Lang). 
 
 2 Ibid., ix. 121.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 49 
 
 lion deeply ponders among a crowd of men, in 
 fear when they draw round him the crafty circle," 
 fays Homer. 1 The cuftom lafted till recent times 
 in Scotland, and the ring thus formed was known 
 as the Tinchel : 
 
 "We'll quell the favage mountaineer 
 As their Tinchel cows the game." 2 
 
 A peep at the implements of ancient foreft-craft 
 is allowed us in Virgil's celebrated hunting-fcene, 
 when ^Eneas and Dido went forth together on 
 a fateful morn, " wide-mefhed nets, toils, and 
 boar-fpears with broad fteel heads." 3 Along with 
 thefe were the al<e coloured feathers faftened on 
 ropes, which were fufpended fo as to allow them 
 to flutter in the wind and terrify the wild creatures 
 till they darned into the feries of toils 4 which were 
 fet for their capture : 
 
 "Dum trepidant alae faltufque indagine cingunt." 5 
 
 In another fplendid pafTage, defcribing the 
 manner in which during winter the Northern 
 nations capture deer, the poet again introduces 
 thefe " alas." The ftags are found in herds, half 
 fmothered in fnow, which their horns can hardly 
 furmount (fomething in the fafhion of moofe in a 
 Canadian " yard ") ; " thefe they flay with fteel at 
 
 1 "Odyffey," iv. 791. 2 "Lady of the Lake," vi. 17. 
 
 3 " Jineid," iv. 131. 
 
 4 For the manner in which the toils were fet, compare 
 
 " The toils are pitched and the Hakes are fet, 
 Ever fmg merrily, merrily." 
 
 (" Lady of the Lake," iv. 25.) 
 
 5 " ^ncid," iv. 121.
 
 1 50 Gleanings from the 
 
 clofe quarters, without flipping hounds at them, 
 without any toils, nor do they terrify the timo- 
 rous creatures by the fear of the fluttering crimfon 
 feather, as they vainly thruft at the mafs of fnow 
 oppofmg efcape, and bellow hoarfely." 1 Our 
 Englifh Bible, in Ifa. xxiv. 17, reproduces the 
 hunting terms of the Vulgate, " formido et fovea 
 et laqueus," " fear and the pit and the fnare ;" 
 but the Hebrew word for " fear " does not feem 
 to have the technical meaning of " formido " as a 
 hunting term. To return to Dido's hunting ; 
 Dryden here rifes to the occafion : 
 
 " Now had they reached the hills and ftormed the feat 
 Of favage hearts in dens, their laft retreat ; 
 The cry purfues the mountain goats, they bound 
 From rock to rock and keep the craggy ground. 
 Quite otherwife the flags, a trembling train 
 In herds unfmgled, fcour the dufty plain, 
 And a long chafe in open view maintain. 
 The glad Afcanius, as his courfer guides, 
 Spurs through the vale, and thefe and thofe outrides, 
 His horfe's flanks and fides are forced to feel 
 The clanking lam and goring of the fteel. 
 Impatiently he views the feeble prey, 
 Wifhing fome nobler beaft to crofs his way ; 
 And rather would the tufky boar attend, 
 Or fee the tawny lion downward bend." 2 
 
 Somerville is diftinctively the poet of the chafe, 
 but his wordy blank verfe does not compare 
 favourably with the vigorous, fwift rhymes of 
 Dryden. Hear the latter, when untrammeled by 
 
 1 "Georg.," iii. 372 : "Puniceaeve agitant pavidos formidine 
 penns." " Formido " is a technical hunting term fignifying any 
 terror tricked up with feathers. 
 
 2 " .^Encid," iv. 151-159.
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 1 5 1 
 
 the needs of tranflation, on the chafe of the king 
 of beafts : 
 
 " So Libyan huntfraen on fome fandy plain, 
 From mady coverts roufcd the lion chafe ; 
 The kingly beaft roars out with loud difdain, 
 And flowly moves, unknowing to give place. 
 
 " But if fome one approach to dare his force, 
 He fwings his tail and fwiftly turns him round, 
 With one paw feizes on his trembling horfe, 
 And with the other tears him to the ground." 1 
 
 One or two hunting pictures will fhow the feli- 
 citous touch of Virgil. To begin with the wild 
 boar, "animal propter convivia natum" (Juvenal, 
 i. 141) ; no finer and more lifelike fcene could 
 be painted than that in "^?Eneid," x. 708-16: 
 " And as that wild boar, driven from the lofty 
 mountains by the grip of hounds whom pine- 
 bearing Vefulus has fheltered for many a year, 
 and many years alfo the Laurentian marfh, having 
 battened on the tall reeds, after it has come to. 
 the nets, is wont to ftand ftill, and fiercely gnam 
 his tufks and fet up his bridling flanks, nor has 
 anyone the courage to dare his rage or draw near, 
 but from afar men ply him with darts and fafe 
 clamours. He then, fearlefs, delays his charge, 
 firft on one fide, then on another, champing his 
 teeth, and making off the javelins from his hide, 
 fo," etc. In contradiftinction to the timidity of 
 thefe hunters, a coin of Nero mows a man boldly 
 confronting a wild boar with a fhort fteel fpear. 
 In another paffage the chafe of a flag by an 
 
 1 "Annus Mir.," 381.
 
 1 5 2 Gleanings from the 
 
 Umbrian hound, a variety much valued by ancient 
 hunters, is beautifully defcribed r 1 
 
 " Thus, when a fearful flag is clofed around 
 With crimfon toils, or in a river found, 
 High on the bank the deep-mouthed hound appears 
 Still opening, following ftill, where'er he fleers ; 
 The perfecuted creature, to and fro, 
 Turns here and there to 'fcape his Umbrian foe ; 
 Steep is th' afcent, and if he gains the land 
 The purple death is pitched along the flrand ; 
 His eager foe, determined to the chafe, 
 Stretched at his length, gains ground at every pace ; 
 Now to his beamy head he makes his way, 
 And now he holds, or thinks he holds, his prey ; 
 Juft at the pinch the flag fprings out with fear, 
 He bites the wind, and fills his founding jaws with air. 
 The rocks, the lakes, the mountains, ring with cries, 
 The mortal tumult mounts and thunders in the fkies." 
 
 DRYDEN. 
 
 The Englifh poet amplifies the original into 
 twice the number of lines, without augmenting 
 in any fenfible degree his Roman brother's 
 imagery ; and careful, and in fome of the lines 
 excellent, as is the tranflation, to feel the more 
 chaftened beauty of the Latin tongue the reader 
 mould confult the original, which is terfe, vivid, 
 and cumulative in intereft in the higheft degree. 
 Indeed, without reference to Virgil, moft Englifh 
 readers will be hopeleffly confufed about the mean- 
 ing of Dryden's line : 
 
 " The purple death is pitched along the flrand." 
 
 Another characterise defcription, replete with 
 Virgil's ornate tendernefs, might be quoted the 
 chafe of Silvia's pet ftag by Afcanius and his 
 
 1 " ^Eneid," xii. 749-757. For"punicea: feptum formidine 
 pcnnx," fee note I, p. 150.
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 1 5 3 
 
 hounds (" ^Eneid," vii. 483^.) ; but a ftill more 
 pathetic image the companion of the love-fick 
 Dido to a flricken hind claims precedence : 
 " The flame of love devours her unrefifting heart, 
 and the filent wound lives and glows beneath her 
 breaft. Unhappy Dido is confumed by its fires, 
 and wanders demented through the whole city, as 
 a hind fmitten by the arrow which from afar, as 
 me incautioufly roamed the Cretan groves, a 
 fhepherd has transfixed while mooting, and unwit- 
 tingly left his winged fteel rankling in the wound. 
 She, in flight, rufhes through the Diclasan woods 
 and lawns in vain ; the deadly arrow clings to her 
 fide" ("^neid," iv. 66). 
 
 Hunting chiefly went on in the wintry months 
 with the Romans, as it does with us. " Then," 
 fays Virgil, " is the time to Jay fnares for cranes, 
 and fet nets for flags, and purfue the long-eared 
 hares ; then, too, mould a man whirl round his 
 head the thongs of the Balearic fling and flay the 
 hinds, when the fnow lies deep, when the rivers 
 fweep along mafles of ice " (" Georg.," i. 307). 
 And fo the love-fick Gallus fings : " Meanwhile, 
 together with the Nymphs, I will wander over 
 Masnalus or chafe fierce boars ; no cold fhall 
 prevent my furrounding the Parthenian groves 
 with my hounds. I feem to be hurrying through 
 rocks and refounding thickets, my delight to 
 wing Cretan {hafts from a bow tipped with Par- 
 thian horn as if thefe things could avail agamil 
 my madnefs!" ("Eclogues," x. 56). The Romans 
 of later days poflefled at their villas vivaria or
 
 154 Gleanings from the 
 
 leporaria, which were enclofures holding not 
 merely hares for the purpofe of hunting, but even 
 wild boars. Thefe enclofures (refembling the 
 Perfian paradifes), were also called roboraria^ from 
 their ftrong oak palings. 1 
 
 Such was the enthufiafm for hunting under the 
 early Casfars that Juvenal fatirizes the noble 
 matron who with naked breaft like an Amazon 
 meets the rum of a wild boar and transfixes him 
 with her fpear (i. 22). Nets and enclofures for 
 deer were frequent in England fo early as the 
 Conqueft. Roe-deer were thus taken in Lan- 
 camire, as we learn from " Domefday Book," 
 where a certain Roger had a " haia capreolis 
 capiendis." 2 Mr. Harting explains this pafiage 
 thus : " The ' haia,' ' have,' or * haie,' as it is 
 varioufly fpelled, properly fignified the hedge or 
 fence enclofing a foreft or park, but by an eafy 
 metonymy the word was transferred from the en- 
 clofing fence to the area enclofed by it. In the 
 cafe of the roe-deer it doubtlefs implied an en- 
 clofed area, into which the animals were driven, 
 and having outlets here and there acrofs which 
 nets were hung for their entanglement and cap- 
 ture." In the Middle Ages thefe enclofures were 
 called parci or Jaltatoria. A ftrong infufion of 
 the hunting element came into England with the 
 Northmen, whofe two chief amufements were 
 fighting and hunting. Everyone will remember 
 
 1 See a difcuffion on thefe terms in Aulus Gellius, ii. 20. 
 ~ See a good paper on the " Roe Deer," Pop. Science Reriew, 
 April, 1 88 1, p. 138.
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 155 
 
 the famous wild boar of Northern Mythology, 
 Sarhimner, who was hunted every day by the 
 heroes in Walhalla, and feafted upon every night, 
 and then miraculoufly came to life again next day 
 for another chafe, thus affording eternal amuie- 
 ment to his purfuers. 
 
 Time would fail to recount the different modes 
 of hunting which fucceeded the ufe of nets and 
 toils, of the crofsbow-fhooting and flipping of 
 dogs at deer praclifed in and after the Norman 
 period of Englifh hiftory. Our purpofe is but to 
 touch upon the early phafes of the fport. He 
 who would know fomething of hunting in the 
 Middle Ages mould confult the quaint treatife on 
 it earlieft in the language in the " Boke of St. 
 Albans," 1486, or the fuller pages of Jacques de 
 Fouilloux, 1650. Beckford and Surtees bring the 
 art of fox-hunting to which moft Englifh hunting 
 has fhrunk down to our own days. Vaniere, 
 the Jefuit poet, well defcribes the moral ufes of 
 hunting : 
 
 " Nobilium labor ille virum eft, bellique cruenti 
 Dulce rudimentum ; juvenes exercita curfu 
 Corpora vcnando durant ad frigus et aeftum, 
 Corda fibi generofa parant, animamque capaccm 
 Mortis, et expertem media inter tela pavoris ; 
 Exercent et ad arma manus ; aftuque ferarum 
 Ac nemorum infidiis et bellica furta docentur 
 Hoftilefque dolos." * 
 
 1 " Praed. Rufticum," lib. xvi.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE ROMANS AS ACCLIMATISERS IN BRITAIN. 
 
 LJCH as Great Britain owes to Rome 
 for her gifts of literature and law, 
 civilization was even more largely 
 aided by her in the ordinary con- 
 veniences of daily life. The arts of building and 
 road-making among us retain monuments which 
 at the prefent day and for many ages to come will 
 mow the eminence of the Romans in thefe necef- 
 fary arts. Even ftone buildings with windows 
 and chimneys were firft erected by them. It was 
 not probable that Rome, having fucceeded in 
 pacifying the country, mould not introduce along 
 with improved procefles of agriculture, and in 
 villas rivalling thofe of Italy or the fouth of 
 France, plants and animals to fill the farmyards 
 and gardens. Indeed, an involuntary introduc- 
 tion of them neceflarily attends any invafion on a 
 large fcale. Weeds and wayfide flowers hitherto 
 unknown to France followed, during the war of 
 1870-71, the invading footfieps of the Germans.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 57 
 
 The lapfe of time, too, during which plants and 
 animals could be brought by the Romans to a 
 friendly population in Britain mould be noted. 
 The country was fubdued and fettled by Suetonius, 
 Paulinus and Agricola before the end of the firft 
 century after Chrift, and, in fpite of many vicifli- 
 tudes, the Romans did not finally withdraw from 
 Britain until the beginning of the fifth century, 
 when the afTaults of the Goths and the calamities 
 engendered by inteftine wars were rapidly breaking 
 up the Empire. The independence of Britain 
 was declared by Honorius, the Jav/ful Emperor of 
 the Weft, in 410, by his celebrated letter bidding 
 the Britons provide for their own fafety againft 
 the marauding Saxons, Picls, and Scots. But it 
 was not only during this period of Britain's ex- 
 iftence as a province for fome 400 years that inter- 
 courfe with Rome continued. The moral 
 fupremacy of that ancient centre of both mental 
 and material civilization was fully recognifed 
 during the reigns of Saxon and Danifh kings. 
 Save in the mountainous faftneffes, the country 
 was ftudded with temples, bafilicas, baths, and 
 bridges, for which it was indebted to Rome. And 
 yet, however {killed the Romans were in hufbandry, 
 it is noticeable that all the agricultural implements 
 ufed among the Saxons, which have come down to 
 our days, bear German names. The fame is the 
 cafe with the names of the meafures of land 
 rood, acre, and the like. 1 The arts and fciences, 
 however, regarded Rome as the centre of infpira- 
 1 Lappenberg, "Hiftory of England," vol. ii., p. 359.
 
 1^8 Gleanings from the 
 
 tion, until the hordes of Saxon invaders almoft 
 deftroyed the old civilization. Thule, according 
 to the fatirift, had engaged her rhetorician in the 
 firft century, and Britifh eloquence was not un- 
 known to the capital of the Weftern world before 
 the fifth century. Britifh Chriftianity more than 
 any other caufe contributed, after the Romans had 
 left Britain, to the influences of the imperial city 
 being ftill cherifhed. Britifh faints and Britifh 
 heretics alike fwelled the fame of their country, 
 and promoted direct intercourfe with Rome. The 
 waves of Teutonic deluge fwept over the land, 
 and well-nigh obliterated all traces of Roman 
 civilization, fave thofe which were too maflive to 
 be readily overthrown. With the coming of 
 Auguftine, Rome again, and more powerfully 
 than before, becaufe me now fubjugated the fouls 
 of the people, refumed her fway in humanifmg 
 Britain, and introducing frefh elements of civiliza- 
 tion. It becomes an interefting queftion, in con- 
 fidering the evidences which yet remain of the 
 material conveniences of life which Rome con- 
 tributed to our land, to determine what plants 
 and animals me brought to our ifland. 
 
 The queftion is complicated by the fact of there 
 having been two other epochs, fmce Roman in- 
 fluences worked, to which the introduction of 
 many plants and animals, now fairly domefticated 
 among us, may be referred : the return of Weftern 
 chivalry from the Crufades and the influx of 
 monks which overfpread Britain during the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries. The latter of thefe
 
 Natural Hiflory of the Ancients. 159 
 
 caufes was undoubtedly the more confiderable, and 
 to the Ciftercians and Benedictine monafteries, 
 which gradually fprang up over the country, modern 
 England owes moft of her (mailer cultivated plants 
 and fruits. Devonmire yet recognifes the parent 
 of her modern cider orchards in Buckland Mona- 
 chorum, while the pears of Jedburgh are famous 
 in the Border diftricts. Ages before the coming 
 of the Romans, neolithic man on the Continent, 
 according to Profeflbr Heer, cultivated eight 
 cereals, together with peas, poppies, flax, caraway- 
 feeds, apples, pears, and bullaces ; but it is probable 
 that few of thefe latter plants had found their 
 way to Britain until the Roman invasions. Italy 
 herfelf was very hofpitable to the animals and 
 trees of the Eaft, when me fubjugated one by one 
 its different countries ; and as me fwept into her 
 own bofom all their gems and works of art, fo 
 was me forward to accept and fofter animals or 
 vegetables which were likely to minifter to her 
 profit or convenience. Virgil ("Georg.," ii. 
 64-71) enumerates a few of the latter, Paphian 
 myrtles, the huge am, the poplar for making 
 garlands in honour of Hercules ; the Grecian oaks, 
 pines, hazels, planes, horfe-cheftnuts, mountain- 
 afhes, pears, and cherries even palms, though 
 thefe would not bear fruit in Italy, and were ufeful 
 only for their leaves. In fhort, Italy was a nurfery 
 in which the plants and fruits of the world were 
 domefticated. 1 Nothing was more natural than 
 
 1 Columella, iii. 9, 5, " His tamen exemplis nimirum ad- 
 monemur curae mortalium obfequentiffimam efle Italiam, quae
 
 1 60 Gleanings from the' 
 
 that me mould beftow on the Weft a few of the 
 comforts of life which fhe herfelf had received 
 from the Eaft. 
 
 To take thefe in order, we may begin with 
 quadrupeds. In the few touches with which 
 Caefar paints the fauna and flora of Britain, he 
 fays ("De Bell. Gall.," v. 12), "pecorum magnus 
 numerus ;" and further on, "lacte et carne vivunt." 
 Thefe domefticated oxen and fheep were legacies 
 from neolithic man. The oxen in all probability 
 were the anceftors of the few wild cattle at prefent 
 living inChillingham Park and a few other localities, 
 the bos taurus of Linnaeus. Another fpecies, the 
 mort-horned Celtic ox (b. longifrons\ although 
 its remains have been found in Britain aflbciated 
 with thofe of the elephant and rhinoceros, was 
 domefticated in England during the Roman period, 
 and fupplied the legionaries with food. It feems 
 likely that ou/ Welfh and Highland cattle, and 
 alfo the red Devon breed, are defcended from it ; 
 and that the Romans were either the firft to 
 domefticate it in Britain, or elfe that they intro- 
 duced a better breed than that already in fubjec- 
 tion to the Britons. Owing to the numerous 
 divergent breeds of oxen, at prefent it is difficult 
 to afcertain the original fpecies. 
 
 The afs, the mule, and the goat were alfo in- 
 troduced from Rome. Foflil forms of the afs 
 and goat have been found in Britain, but moft 
 naturalifts now believe that our afs is defcended 
 
 psene totius orbis fruges adhibito ftudio colonorum ferre 
 didiccrit."
 
 Natural Hijiory of the Ancients. 1 6 1 
 
 from the equus tteniopus of Abyflinia, and our goats 
 from the capra <egagrus of the mountains of Afia, 
 poflibly mingled with the allied Indian fpecies 
 c . falconieri. 1 They filtered to us through Roman 
 influences. The cat alfo came from Rome, as has 
 been fhewn in another chapter. The fallow-deer 
 had exifted in Great Britain in prehiftoric times, 
 but feems to have become extinct before the 
 Roman period, and modern fo-called " wild " 
 fallow-deer in Scotland are all defcended from 
 efcaped fpecimens, defendants of thofe brought 
 to our ifland from Rome. 2 This deer is originally 
 an inhabitant of the diftricts bordering on the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 The rabbit, although often deemed indigenous 
 to Britain, is another native of the Cifalpine 
 countries of the Mediterranean bafm, and is plenti- 
 ful in Greece and parts of Italy. 3 Casfar fays that 
 the ancient Britons did not deem it lawful to tafte 
 the flefh of the hare, the hen, and the goofe, but 
 fays nothing of the rabbit. 4 Martial has a well- 
 known couplet on the animal : 
 
 " Gaudct in effbflis habitare cuniculus antris, 
 Monftravit tacitas hoftibus ille vias." 5 
 
 This ufeful (or deftructive) animal, as the cafe 
 may be, alfo came to us from Rome. When 
 John, Earl of Morton (Mortain in Normandy), 
 
 1 Darwin, " Domeftication of Plants and Animals," vol. i., 
 pp. 65 and 105. 
 
 2 Alfton, "Fauna of Scotland," 1880, p. 24; and Bell, 
 " Brit. Quads.," ed. 2, p. 358. 
 
 3 Bell, tit/up., p. 343. " 4 "Bell. Gall," v. 12. 
 5 Martial, xiii. 60.
 
 162 Gleanings from the 
 
 gave by grant immunities to his tenants outride 
 the regard of Dartmoor Foreft, he expreffly allows 
 them to take the roe, fox, wild-cat, wolf, hare, and 
 otter, but no mention is made of the rabbit, which, 
 perhaps, was not common yet' in that diftridt. So 
 in the accounts of Exeter College, Oxford, for 
 1361, I2d. is charged for four ducks, nd. for 
 two fucking-pigs, id. for onions, and 8d. for 
 rabbits. 1 They were probably 4d. or 5d. each, as 
 they were then fcarce. From us this animal has 
 found its way with difaftrous confequences to 
 Auftralafia. 
 
 Turning next to birds, we will begin with what 
 Lucretius beautifully calls 
 
 "Aurea pavonum ridenti imbuta lepore 
 Sscla." 2 
 
 Peacocks are natives of the Indian jungles; and 
 fo Curtius, fpeaking of Alexander the Great's ex- 
 pedition, fays: "Thence they marched through a 
 defert to the river Hydraotes" (now the Ravee in 
 the Punjaub). "Adjoining it was a wood, gloomy 
 with trees elfewhere unknown, and filled with a 
 multitude of wild peacocks." Solomon imported 
 peacocks from the Indian Ocean. It was a bird 
 unknown to Homer, and was received by the 
 Greeks from the Perfians ; the Greek, Perfian, 
 and Hebrew names for the bird being very much 
 alike. Its feathers were ufed for luxury in Greece 
 and Rome, and the bird itfelf formed a celebrated 
 plat at banquets. For this purpofe thofe which 
 
 1 "Regifter of Exeter College," 1879, p. ix (note). 
 
 2 Lucretius, ii. 502.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 163 
 
 came from the Ifle of Samos were moft valued. 1 
 Horace does not forget the peacock at his feafts, 
 and Juvenal fatirizes the indigeftion of the glutton 
 who " carries a whole peacock infide him when he 
 goes to the bath" (i. 143). This proud bird 
 was facred to Juno, and is often found on the 
 coins of the Casfars as a fign of the " confecratio " 
 of their female relatives, juft as the eagle pointed 
 to the apotheofis of the males of that family. 
 There can be no doubt that our lordly terraces are 
 indebted to the Romans for their peacocks. 2 The 
 pheafant is another bird of brilliant plumage 
 which alfo came to us from Rome. Its home is 
 Colchis; fo Statius fays to gluttons: "Ah, 
 miferable men who delight to know how far the 
 bird of Phafis furpafTes the wintry crane of 
 Rhodope" ("Sylv.," iv. 7). Ariftophanes alfo 
 tells us that pheafants were dear to gluttons. 
 Pliny notices that in Colchis the pheafant could 
 raife and deprefs two earlike feathers. Both 
 peacock and pheafant were probably brought to 
 Britain to grace the villas of its Roman con- 
 querors. 3 Guinea-fowls alfo arrived in Britain at 
 the fame time. They were known as Numidian 
 or African fowls to the Roman poets, from their 
 
 1 Aulus Cell., vii. 16. 
 
 2 The peacock is mentioned in Chaucer, " Romaunt of the 
 Rofe ;" and Profeflbr Rogers thinks it was not introduced until 
 the thirteenth century (Greenwell and Rollellon's "Britim 
 Barrows," 1877, p. 744). 
 
 3 In 1 199 a certain W. Brewer was licenfed to have "free- 
 warren throughout all his own lands for hares, pbeafants, and 
 partridges " (Dugdale) ; fo the pheafant was at that time accli- 
 matized in Englifh woodlands.
 
 1 64 Gleanings from the 
 
 native home. Martial calls them "Numidian 
 fpotted fowls," which exactly defcribes their beauti- 
 ful plumage. Varro, writing fome thirty years B.C., 
 fays that they were the moft recent addition to the 
 glutton's menu. Geefe and ducks would naturally be 
 domefticated by the Britons, as foon as they fettled 
 down into an agricultural life, from the wild 
 fpecies, but improved varieties were brought over 
 by the Romans. The turtle-dove, a native of 
 India, is faid to be another introduction. The 
 jungle-cock of the Indian forefts had already made 
 its appearance together with the neolithic man in 
 Britain. The ufe of the falcon, too, in fowling 
 has with fome probability, feeing how popular is 
 falconry in Perfia and the Eaft, been afcribed to the 
 Romans, from whom our anceftors would learn it, 
 and then excel their teachers with native birds. 
 
 The trees and vegetables which have been 
 introduced from the Miftrefs of the World open 
 a much larger queftion. When the curtain rifes 
 upon our ifland and hiftory begins, Caefar obferves 
 upon its vegetation : " Materia cujufque generis, 
 ut in Gallia eft, praster fagum atque abietem " 
 ("Bello Gallico," v. 12). The meaning of this is 
 uncertain, and has been the fubjecl: of much com- 
 ment. We take it to mean that, befides the 
 ordinary trees of France, there grew beech and 
 Scotch fir as well in Britain. Geologically con- 
 nected as our ifland had been with Holland and 
 the neighbouring countries, it is inconceivable 
 that the beech mould not have been an indigenous 
 tree, as it certainly is at prefent in Bucks, con-
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 165 
 
 fidering the vaft woods of beech which now wave 
 in Denmark. Our modern Scotch firs were un- 
 doubtedly introduced into England from Scotland 
 in the reign of James I. ; but many facts lead to 
 the conclufion that the tree had exifted in early 
 times in our country and then become extinct. 
 Another interpretation regards the pafTage as 
 meaning that Britifh vegetation was fimilar to 
 that of France, except in pofTeffing the beech and 
 fir. At any rate, the fmall-leaved elm is of 
 Roman introduction, though the wych-elm is as 
 diftinctively indigenous as are our two fpecies 
 of Britifh oak. The cyprefs and Oriental plane, 
 laurel and myrtle, ilex, fumach and arbutus, are all 
 of them gifts from Rome. The true rhododendron 
 or oleander (nerium of Pliny) alfo came to us 
 from Rome, as the Romans had themfelves 
 received it from Greece. It is poifonous, fays the 
 old natural hiftorian, to goats and fheep, but a 
 remedy to man againft the bites of ferpents. 
 
 Many of our fruit-trees have an Eaftern origin, 
 and came to us through Rome. The walnut 
 (Slnglice, " ftrange nut ") is an Eaftern tree. 
 Thofe of Perfia were regarded by the Romans as 
 being beft, and were called " royal." 1 Like the 
 rice at prefent in fafhion at our marriages, 
 the walnut was highly efteemed at nuptial cere- 
 monies of the ancients. The peach was alfo a 
 Perfian tree, hence called -perfica by the Romans, 
 the French pec 'he ', our peach. The apricot alfo 
 by its name teftifies to the funny lands of its 
 1 Pliny, "Hift. Nat.," xv. 22.
 
 1 66 Gleanings from the 
 
 original home. Filberts have become fo common 
 in our copfes that they might be regarded as indi- 
 genous did we not know that the nut originally 
 came from Pontus to Rome, and was thus fome- 
 times called the nux Pontica. Thofe of Thafos 
 were celebrated. It abounded in the diftrict round 
 Avellano in Campania, whence comes the botani- 
 cal name of the hazel, corylus Avellana^ Lin. 1 
 Quinces, mulberries, cheftnuts, and plums are 
 more benefactions of Rome, and of courfe vines 
 and figs. There were no cherries in Italy before 
 the victories of Lucullus. He brought them to 
 Rome, and in 120 years the tree penetrated 
 beyond the fea, fays Pliny, 2 into Britain. Befides 
 the five fpecies of rofes which Bentham deems in- 
 digenous, the R. Gallic -a, Ayrmire, and China 
 rofes are alfo due to Roman commerce. Of other 
 flowers, the lily, crocus vernus, tulip, lilac, ranun- 
 culus, hyacinth, dianthus caryophyllus (clove- 
 pink), fweet-william, came from Rome. 3 Flax 
 and hemp, thofe moft ufeful allies of civilization, 
 came from the Eaft to Rome and thence to us. 
 
 Patting from the flower to the kitchen-garden, 
 our peas and cucumbers came acrofs with the 
 Roman conquerors. Who does not remember 
 Virgil's Corycian old man, and his well-ordered 
 garden ? and how 
 
 " Tortus per herbam 
 Crefccrct in ventrem cucumis." 4 
 
 1 Pliny ; and Daubeny, " Trees and Shrubs of the Ancients," 
 p. 6. 
 
 2 Pliny, "Hift. Nat.," xv. 25. 
 
 3 Sec Viftor Hehn. 4 " Gcorg.," iv. 121.
 
 Natural Htflory of the Ancients. 1 67 
 
 Leeks, onions, and garlic reached England alfo 
 from Rome, as they came there from the Eaft. In 
 Egypt they were efteemed facred, and even gods, 
 fo that oaths were taken upon them. Hence 
 Juvenal lames the Egyptians (xv. 9) : 
 
 " Porrum et cajpe nefas violare ac frangere morfu ; 
 O fanftas gentes, quibus hasc nafcuntur in hortis 
 Nuraina." 
 
 It will be remembered how the Jews on leaving 
 Egypt grumbled at miffing " the fifh, which we 
 did eat in Egypt freely ; the cucumbers, and the 
 melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the 
 garlic " (Numbers xi. 5). Their fondnefs for 
 thefe latter dainties gave them that " foetor 
 Judaicus " which was popularly afcribed to them 
 by the ancients, and which the garlic-eating 
 natives of Italy and Spain have now inherited. 
 When Marcus Aurelius was travelling through 
 Paleftine into Egypt, he was much difgufted at the 
 crowds of ftrongly-fmelling Jews which flocked 
 around him, and is faid to have exclaimed : " O 
 Marcomanni, O Quadi, O Sarmatas, tandem alios 
 vobis inertiores inveni I" 1 Mr. Darwin in his 
 laft book mews that the earthworm's greateft 
 vegetable dainty is an onion. Herodotus faw en- 
 graved on one of the pyramids the exacl: amount 
 which had been expended during its building on 
 radifhes, onions, and garlic for the workmen, and 
 was told by his interpreter that the fum was 
 1,600 talents of filver. 2 The ftrip of land 
 
 1 Amm. Marcel, xxii. 5, 5 (quoted by Vidor Hehn). 
 
 2 Herod., ii. 125.
 
 1 68 Gleanings from the 
 
 bordering the Nile on each fide of its courfe which 
 forms Egypt is nothing but a natural garden of 
 the greateft fertility ; hence its ftore of grateful 
 and appetizing vegetables. 
 
 The art of grafting and of confining fermenting 
 liquors in jars with corks alfo came to Britain 
 from Rome. Whether beer, the national drink 
 of Wales and England, was firft brewed here by 
 the Romans admits of a doubt. In Egypt, where 
 there were no vines, the natives drank a wine 
 made from barley, to which ./Efchylus feems to 
 allude when he makes his King of the Argives 
 fay : " You will not find the men of this country 
 drinking wine made of barley." 1 But it is more 
 than probable, judging from what we know of 
 favage races in Africa, that the Britons ftruck out 
 the procefs of fermentation, whereby a certain 
 kind of beer was produced, for themfelves. 
 Virgil's words imply this in his beautiful piclure 
 of life in the North of Europe, which is yet true 
 there in many points of Chriftmas revellings : 
 
 "Advolvere focis ulmos, ignique dedere, 
 Hie nodem ludo ducunt, et pocula laeti 
 Fermento atque acidis imitantur vitea forbis." 
 
 Although a popular couplet afcribes the coming 
 of hops to England to a much later date, 
 probably they, too, were firft imported by the 
 Romans. The art of making butter has alfo 
 been fometimes attributed to Rome ; but from 
 the analogy of the Scythians and other paftoral 
 
 1 Herod., ii. 77; JEfch., " Supp.," 953; Virg., " Georg.," 
 iii. 376 (Viftor Helm).
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 1 69 
 
 nations, it is moft likely to have been pradifed in 
 England long before the Roman invafion. 
 
 Ordinary wayfide plants and weeds, again, have 
 been largely reinforced by recruits from Rome. 
 Here, again, it is impoflible clearly to fettle which 
 plants entered England with the Romans, and 
 which came in after-days along with monkifh 
 contributions to Britim gardens ; but one fpecies 
 (if not three) of nettles is certainly to be attributed 
 to the earlier gardeners. Our red poppies, too, 
 and a vaft number of cornfield feeds, feem to have 
 immigrated from the Italian farms. That rare 
 Englim plant, the aftrantia major^ has been 
 afTerted to be another Roman immigrant. It is 
 only found at prefent about Ludlow and Malvern. 
 Laftly may be added to the long lift of Italian 
 benefactions the knowledge of keeping bees in 
 hives. Wild man everywhere feeds on honey, but 
 to preferve the ftock near habitations, and at 
 ftated times to procure the produce of the fwarms, 
 is the teaching of civilization. Inftruction in bee- 
 keeping was a fitting gift from the nation which 
 has produced the beft poem on bees as yet known 
 to the world. 
 
 There are no allufions, either in Homer or the 
 Bible, to the invention of hives. Meflrs. Greenwell 
 and Rollefton 1 " learn from Profeflbr Weft wood 
 that, according to Spinola, our domeftic fpecies 
 apis me I lift c a rarely occurs in Liguria ; and he 
 fuggefts that this mews either that the Ligures 
 
 1 " Britifh Barrows " (Appendix on the Flora and Fauna of 
 the Neolithic Period), Oxford, 1877, P- 7 I 9f e 4-
 
 I jo Gleanings from the 
 
 were not the colonizers of Wales, as has been 
 affirmed, or that they did not bring their bee 
 a. liguftica with them." 
 
 A few more notes may be added from the fame 
 authors' excellent Appendix, explanatory of fome 
 of our ftatements. The am and beech are not 
 indigenous in Scotland, though common now in 
 fome of the northern diftricls. They controvert 
 Daubeny's ftatement that the beech was not known 
 in England until the Norman Conqueft, and con- 
 fider that by the tree mentioned by Csefar as abies^ 
 he meant the " filver fir." We regard it, however, 
 as meaning the Scotch fir. The yew and the 
 juniper were for ages the only other reprefentatives 
 of the Coniferas in the ifland. The fmall-leaved 
 lime they confider as probably indigenous, if not 
 the tilia Europ^ea. It was ufeful for matting, 
 which is an invention older than weaving. In the 
 " Romaunt of the Rofe," " The Aflembly of 
 Foules," and " The Complaint of the Blacke 
 Knight," Chaucer gives three lifts of trees which 
 may be taken as the reprefentatives of Englifh 
 woodlands in the fourteenth century. We will 
 name fome of thefe : laurels, pines, cedars, olives, 
 pomegranates, nutmegs, almonds, figs, dates, in a 
 " gardin " which feems a fanciful aflemblage ; for 
 he adds " many homely trees," peches, coines 
 (quinces), apples, medlers, plommis, peris, chefteinis, 
 cherife, nottes, aleis (alise, Fr., the lote-tree), bolas 
 (bullace), maplis, afhe, oke, afpe, planis, ewe, 
 popler, lindis (limes), boxe, cypres, and 
 
 " the frefhe hauthorne 
 In white motley that fo fote doeth yfmell."
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 7 1 
 
 It is eafy from this lift to fancy the park and 
 garden fcenery of Chaucer's times. 
 
 With regard to the common fowl, there is no 
 evidence, they fay, of it in neolithic interments in 
 this country. They hold that it probably came 
 with the peacock by the way of Babylon to 
 Greece and Rome rather than by the Red Sea. It 
 is known from Buddhift writings that the ancient 
 Indian merchants took peacocks to Babylon. As 
 a pendant to Chaucer's vegetation the following 
 pre-Roman landfcape may be cited : " The con- 
 templation of a herd of dark-coloured mountain 
 cattle in the north of this country, of fmall fize, 
 and yet with ragged ' ill-filled ' out contours, 
 {landing on a wintry day in a landfcape filled 
 with birch, oak, alder, heath and bracken, has 
 often ftruck me as giving a picture which I might 
 take as being very probably not wholly unlike 
 that which the eyes of the ancient Britifh herdf- 
 man were familiar with" (p. 744).
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 VIRGIL AS AN ORNITHOLOGIST. 
 
 [T is not furprifmg that Virgil, with 
 his keen fenfe of natural beauty and 
 exquifite play of fancy, loved to 
 lighten his verfe with the fwift 
 wings and happy fongs of birds. All poets turn 
 naturally to thefe artlefs fongfters. But Virgil's 
 lines betray here and there that he loved and 
 ftudied the ways of his native birds in a manner 
 very unufual in his time. Birds are introduced, 
 indeed, in his pictures of country life, or as illuf- 
 trations of human pathos in the conventional 
 manner of ordinary poets, as he had inherited the 
 cuftom from Homer, and as Pope did in the laft 
 century ; J but the felicitous images and wording 
 of many paflages mew that he had clofely ftudied 
 bird-life, and feized upon new and ftriking traits 
 in it for the embellimment of his poems. Born 
 at Andes, now Pietola, a hamlet near Mantua, 
 
 1 See Pope's celebrated lines, for inftance, on a pheafant in 
 the "Windfor Forcft," and the "lonely woodcock," "clamorous 
 lapwing," and " mounting lark " of the fame palloral.
 
 Natural Hijiory of the Ancients. 173 
 
 and fpending much of his manhood as well as all 
 his impreffionable youth in that diftridl of marm 
 and hill, while the Po, Father of waters, rolled 
 along but a few miles from his father's houfe ; 
 with glimpfes of diftant mountains, now mrouded 
 in mifts, now painted with the flying tints of 
 morn and evening, while murmurs of pines and 
 running waters were everywhere around him, it 
 was only natural that the birds which haunted his 
 native fields mould become dear to Virgil. In fpite 
 of more than one attempt of the lawlefs foldiers, 
 whom the chances of civil war had planted in his 
 neighbourhood, to difpoflefs him, he feems to have 
 dwelt, more or lefs, on his father's eftate till he died. 
 In footh, it was a fit home for a poet, a realization 
 of an Englifh brother's dream centuries afterwards: 
 
 " Happy the man whofe wifh and care 
 
 A few paternal acres bound, 
 Content to breathe his native air 
 In his own ground. 
 
 " Sleep found by night ; ftudy and eafe 
 Together mix'd ; fwcet recreation, 
 And innocence, which moft does pleafe 
 With meditation." 
 
 The ancients, aided by hints from his own 
 writings, depicl for us Virgil's home as having been 
 about three miles from the city Mantua, on high 
 ground, running down towards it ; and the eftate 
 that "angle of ground which had charms beyond 
 all others for him " as fpreading over the roots 
 of the hilly diftricl: between the Mincio and Po ; 
 on the upper part fcant of herbage and ftony, on 
 the lower fomewhat marfhy and low-lying :
 
 1 74 Gleanings from the 
 
 " Qua fe fubducere colles 
 Incipiunt, mollique jugum demittere clivo, 
 Ufque ad aquam et veteres jam frafta cacumina, fagos." 1 
 
 Thus it combined for the great Latin poet thofe 
 ftriking features of mountain and marfhland which 
 in our own days have refpectively nurtured a 
 Wordfworth and a Tennyfon. Many pafTages 
 from Virgil's poetry could be pointed out in which 
 he has felicitoufly depicted the fcenery of both 
 diftricts ; and in thofe of the marfh country fome 
 touches remind us at times of a kindred art, as 
 feen in Mr. Millais's beautiful picture of "Chill 
 October." For inftance ("Eel.," i. 48): 
 
 " Quamvis lapis omnia nudus, 
 Limofoque palus obducat pafcua junco ;" 
 
 and (ibid., 56) the boundary hedge: 
 
 " Vicino ab limite fepes 
 Hyblaeis apibus florem depafta falifti ;" 
 
 and more clofely ftill ("Eel.," vii. 12): 
 
 "Hie virides tenera praetexit arundine ripas 
 Mincius, eque facra refonant examina quercu." 
 
 Among all his defcriptions of bird-life it is fmall 
 wonder that he loved moft ardently the birds of 
 marfh and river-fide, fwans, cranes, halcyons, and 
 the like on the one hand ; and thofe of the cliff 
 and bare hillfide on the other, eagles and hawks ; 
 but the former clafs decidedly predominates. As 
 for the fmaller tribes of twittering fongfters in- 
 habiting the ordinary bufhes and brakes, he feems 
 not to have beftowed a thought on them. A 
 1 " Eel.," ix. 7.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 175 
 
 bird to deferve his notice, and win an endlefs life 
 in his melodious verfe, muft not only be of a 
 marked and fine fpecies, but alfo, in moft cafes, 
 one which has obtained fame from Homer and 
 other poets and writers dear to Virgil. If our own 
 Milton had one favourite bird, the nightingale, 
 whofe praifes he fings with an iteration as beauti- 
 ful as the fongfter's own {trains, Virgil's favourite 
 was unquestionably the eagle. But his eagle does 
 not fit tamely by the throne of Jupiter while the 
 queen of heaven carefTes its neck ; it is efTentially 
 a bird of daring and rapine and folitude. Like 
 Tennyfon's eagle 
 
 " He clafps the crag with hooked hands, 
 Clofe to the fun in lonely lands, 
 Ring'd with the azure world he ftands ;" 
 
 or like Shelley's eagle, "foaring and fcreaming 
 round her empty neft," me 
 
 " Could fcalc 
 
 Heaven, and could nourifli in the fun's domain 
 Her mighty youth with morning ;" 
 
 or it refembles, in another mood, Mrs. Brown- 
 ing's 
 
 " Eagle with both grappling feet ftill hot 
 From Zeus 's thunder." 
 
 All the power and rum of Virgil's fineft verfe is 
 fpent in picturing the eagle to his hearers, as he 
 muft have often feen it fweeping down from the 
 fpurs of the Alps round Lago di Garda, and 
 carrying off its haplefs victim, fwan or marfh- 
 fnake, over the wide valley to the diftant crefts of 
 the Apennines. Perhaps the very vigour and
 
 176 Gleanings from the 
 
 fublimity of the king of birds endeared it to him 
 who muft have been confcious that, however mufical 
 and polifhed were his verfes, they feldom foared 
 into the empyrean of poetry. 
 
 If the influences of the fcenery amidft which 
 his home-life was fpent were twofold, fo the 
 landfcapes and the figures with which he peoples 
 them in his poems partake alfo of a double cha- 
 racter. They are at once natural and conven- 
 tional ; natural fb far as they reflected the low-lying 
 paftoral country in the bafm of the Po ; conventional 
 when coloured with reminifcences of Theocritus, 
 and planted in a Sicilian entourage. Befides thefe 
 characteriftics of his verfe, it is frequently fet with 
 fanciful or "otiofe" epithets and animals. Thus 
 lynxes, lions, and lionefles, wild affes, fcaly dragons, 
 painted birds, and the like, frequently adorn its 
 flow. Over and above this poetical furplufage, 
 however, the ftudent of Nature will detect much 
 clofe obfervation, efpecially of birds, in Virgil's 
 lines. Like his own Helenus ("^neid," iii. 361), 
 "he knows the voices of the birds and the omens 
 to be derived from their fwift flight," and we 
 {hall paufe before accufmg him in any of his 
 delineations of bird-life as drawing only upon his 
 imagination, or adding merely conventional touches, 
 left our fancied wifdom fhould incur the charge of 
 foolim cenforioufnefs which Aulus Gellius brings 
 againft one Higinus, who ventured ramly to criti- 
 cize Virgil's ornithology. 1 Wider reading, and more 
 careful ftudy, will, on the contrary, point out more 
 1 Aulus Cell., vi. 6, 5.
 
 Natural Hijlory of the Ancients. 1 77 
 
 beauties in Virgil's ornithological pictures. The 
 exacl: manner in which he defcribes, often in a 
 line, the chief characters of a bird, and adds a 
 new delight to its traits by fome play of fancy 
 fome lively touch of imagination' becomes very 
 apparent on a furvey of his poems. Scientific 
 ornithology, of courfe, no one would look for in 
 a poet, efpecially a poet of Virgil's age. Has the 
 " fea-blue bird of March " been ever fatisfac- 
 torily identified in the Laureate's poetry ? Virgil 
 alludes to the migration of birds, for inftance, 
 once or twice, but never troubles himfelf to 
 enunciate a theory upon their departure or return. 
 They bring back fpring on their wings, and return 
 to their fweet nefts and dear offspring, and that 
 is enough for him. In a fimilar manner we mall 
 content ourfelves with pointing out the nice ob- 
 fervation and the poetic mind with which fome of 
 the birds of North Italy are defcribed in his verfe. 
 The furvey will mew how eminently naturalistic 
 is his poetry in the midft of fo much that is 
 imitative and conventional. 
 
 It may be faid generally that the "Eclogues" 
 and "Georgics" exhibit a more genial fancy, and 
 more ftriking images of bird-life, but that the 
 "^neid," as befits a work of mature years, is 
 ftudded with more carefully finimed workmanmip. 
 That the poet was continually improving, and adding 
 frefh touches to it, is proved by his folicitude 
 concerning the poem at his death, and his wifh 
 that it mould be burnt after his deceafe, as not 
 fatisfying his own ideal. With thefe preliminary
 
 178 Gleanings from the 
 
 remarks, we mall now difplay to lovers of a poet 
 dear to every cultivated mind, the contents of the 
 Virgilian aviary. 
 
 To begin with the birds of the lowland and 
 marm, our own carrion crow, which fo often 
 reforts to the edges of rivers and the feafide 
 for mellfim and muflels, had frequently brought 
 the poet good luck by cawing from fome hollow 
 oak on his left ; or, wicked thief that it was, 
 called for rain, with full clear voice, as it ftalked 
 along fingly on the dry fandbanks. 1 This bird 
 poffefled a great reputation amongft the Romans 
 for prophetic and thievim powers. From its ufual 
 cuftom of attacking its prey firft in the eyes, came 
 a Latin proverb, "To dig out the eyes of crows," 
 anfwering to ours about catching a weafel afleep. 
 It was celebrated, too, for living long, maring this 
 fame with the flag, and eagle, and the ferpent 
 which could put off years with its {kin. Its eyes 
 were ufed by the profligate as a love-charm to 
 throw duft in the eyes of hufbands. 2 Its larger 
 relative, the raven, was alfo fuppofed to have 
 an inftinclive knowledge of the approach of fine 
 weather : 
 
 " Thus thrice the ravens rend the liquid air, 
 And croaking notes proclaim the fettled fair. 
 Then, round their airy palaces they fly 
 To greet the fun, and feized with fecret joy, 
 
 1 "Eel.," ix. 14; "Georg.," i. 388. Cnf. Hor. " Od.," 
 iii. 1 2 : 
 
 "Aquas nifi fallit augur 
 Annofa cornix." 
 
 2 Prop., iv. 5, i>.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 179 
 
 When ftorms are over-blown, with food repair 
 
 To their forfaken nefts and callow care. 
 
 Not that I think their breafts with heavenly fouls 
 
 Infpired, as man, who deftiny controls, 
 
 But with the changeful temper of the fkies, 
 
 As rains condenie and funfhine ratifies, 
 
 So turn the fpecies in their altered minds 
 
 Compofed by calms and difcompofed by winds. 
 
 From hence proceeds the birds' harmonious voice, 
 
 From hence the crows exult and frifking lambs rejoice." 1 
 
 Atmofpheric changes connect themfelves, in Virgil's 
 mind, with the changed behaviour of birds. So, 
 when wind is impending: 
 
 " Back from mid ocean home the cormorants fly 
 With clamours, and the coots where fands arc dry 
 Refort, while herons love the upper fky." 2 
 
 Or when rain is imminent : 
 
 " Huge flocks of rifing rooks forfake their food 
 And, crying, feek the flicker of the wood. 
 Befides, the feveral forts of watery fowls 
 That fwim the feas or haunt the Handing pools. 
 Then lave their backs with fprinkling dews in vain, 
 And Item the ftream to meet the promifed rain." 3 
 
 Cranes view it blowing up, and defcend from 
 their lofty flights to the deep valleys with much 
 noife. And elfewhere he compares the buftle 
 infide a beleaguered city to their fcreaming : 
 
 "Juft fo 'neath inky clouds 
 Strymonian cranes fcream, cleaving lofty fkies 
 With clamour, 'fcaping rain with joyous notes." 4 
 
 The notion comes originally from Ariftotle, who 
 fays that cranes fly at a great height, in order that 
 they may difcern things far off; and if they fore- 
 
 1 Dryden, "Georg.," i. 410. 2 Ibid., u 361. 
 
 3 Ibid., i. 381. 
 
 4 "Georg.," i. 374 ; " ^En.," x. 264.
 
 i8o Gleanings from the 
 
 fee ftorms and wintry weather, they defcend and 
 reft on the ground. Akin to the cranes is the 
 ftork, and in fpring " the white bird comes which 
 is hated by long fnakes." 1 It is indeed difficult 
 for the dweller by Mincius, " clothed in glaucous 
 reeds," to forget the birds of the river 
 
 "Around, above, 
 
 Birds of the bank or river-bed in plumes 
 Of party-coloured fplendour foothe the fkies 
 With fong, and flit by ftream or woodland lawn." 2 
 
 The wild-goofe had probably proved destructive 
 to the poet's crops, for he terms it " improbus 
 anfer" (which the late Dr. Sewell quaintly tranflates 
 "the caitiff goofe"), and feoffs at its attempts at 
 fmging amongft fwans. The wild fwan, with its 
 graceful form and not unmufical notes, is, on the 
 contrary, a fpecial favourite with Virgil. Here is 
 a ftudy of wild fwans flying home : 
 
 " Like a long team of fnowy fwans on high 
 Which clap their wings and cleave the liquid Iky, 
 While homeward from their watery paftures borne, 
 They fmg and Afia's lakes their notes return. 
 Not one who heard their muftc from afar 
 Would think thefe troops an army trained to war, 
 But flocks of fowl that when the tempefts roar 
 With their hoarfe gabbling feck the filent fhore."* 
 
 Although Dryden was an accomplifhed fifher- 
 man, his rendering of the above lines proves him 
 to have been no ornithologift. He fucceeds 
 better in relating the transformation of Cycnus 
 into a fwan : 
 
 " Love was the fault of his famed anceftry, 
 Whofe forms and fortunes in his enfigns fly. 
 
 1 " Georg.," ii. 320. " "^n.," vii. 32. 
 
 3 Dryden, "^En.," vii. 699.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 8 1 
 
 For Cycnus loved unhappy Phaeton 
 And fung his lofs in poplar groves alone, 
 Beneath the lifter (hades to foothe his grief 
 Heaven heard his fong and haftened his relief; 
 And changed to fnowy plumes his hoary hair, 
 And winged his flight to chant aloft in air." 1 
 
 More than one of Virgil's fimiles of fwans 
 attacked by eagles may have been in the mind of 
 Sir E. Landfeer, when he painted his picture of 
 this fubject, which fome fifteen years ago was the 
 ornament of the Royal Academy. 
 
 " So, twice fix fwans in line exulting fee, 
 Whom Jove's bird fwooping from the upper fkies 
 Has fcattered, now the band or gains kind earth, 
 Or looks down on it as though gained." 2 
 
 And again : 
 
 " As when Jove's thunderbearer's crooked claws 
 Seizing on hare, or fwan with whiteft breaft, 
 Bears it aloft." 3 
 
 And once more : 
 
 " Bathed in red evening fkies, Jove's tawny bird 
 Was hunting more-birds and the clanging crowd 
 Of hurrying fwans, when fudden downward fhot 
 He fmites a goodly fwan into the waves 
 And bears it off, bold thief with crooked legs." 4 
 
 And he fpecially fpeaks of the plain near Mantua: 
 
 "Where feed the fnow-white fwans on graffy flopes." 5 
 
 Another water-bird is introduced in the "^Eneid," 
 iv. 253, which at firft fight, from its fplaming 
 dive, might referable the ofprey, of which a few 
 fpecimens may yet be feen in RofT-mire ; but the 
 
 1 Dryden, "^En.," x. 189. 2 Ibid., i. 392. 
 
 3 Ibid., ix. 562. 4 Ibid., xii. 247. 
 
 5 "Georg.," ii. 199.
 
 1 8 2 Gleanings from the 
 
 word humilis probably points to the ftraight, low- 
 flying advance of a cormorant over the waters. 
 Mercury is depicted as plunging into the fea, juft 
 as Homer had fung in the "Odyfley" (v. 57): 
 
 " Headlong the god dived quick into the waves, 
 Like the low-flying bird which round the fhores 
 And round fifh-haunted rocks flies near the fea." 
 
 The poet had certainly obferved with care the 
 haunts of the cormorant, and in another pafTage 
 accurately draws them ("JEneid," v. 128): 
 
 " Far out at fea againft the foam-white cliffs 
 Glooms a dark rock oft fmit by fwelling waves, 
 When winter's ftorm-winds blind the ftars ; but raifed 
 In calm-flowing feas above their level tides, 
 It forms a ftation much of cormorants loved, 
 Where grateful funfliine laves them." 
 
 Pigeons, again, are birds for which Virgil had 
 a fpecial liking. He fpeaks of the Chaonian 
 pigeons fluttered at the approach of an eagle. 
 And his Damon fays : 
 
 " To the dear miftrefs of my love-fick mind, 
 Her fwain a pretty prefent has defigned ; 
 I faw two ftock-doves billing, and ere long 
 Will take the neft, and hers fhall be the young." 1 
 
 And again : 
 
 " Stock-doves and turtles tell their amorous pain, 
 And from the lofty elms of love complain." 2 
 
 Though the reader of the original fcarcely re- 
 cognifes this for the tranflation of words fo true 
 to Nature as, " Not in the meantime mail the 
 wood-pigeons, fo dear to thee, hoarfe with cooing, 
 and the turtle, ceafe to moan from their lofty 
 
 1 Drydcn, "Eel.," Hi. 69. 2 Ibid., i. 58.
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 183 
 
 elm." Another beautiful image defcribes Hecuba 
 and her daughters flying to the altars, when Troy 
 was taken, like pigeons flying wildly from the 
 black ftorm ("^neid," ii. 516). But perhaps 
 his fineft ftudy of the pigeon defcribes the rock- 
 dove darting from her cave, as we may obferve it 
 on our own cliffs at Speeton or Cromarty : 
 
 " As, fudden ftartled from her cave, the dove 
 Whofe dear abode the darkling pumice hides, 
 Cleaves the air fwiftly, flapping through the cave 
 Till all its roof refounds, but foon, borne on, 
 Lightly flcims o'er the liquid plain, nor moves 
 Her pinions fleet." 1 
 
 This is felicitoufly true to Nature. Eye and ear 
 are alike fatisfied, and it feems to bring the rum 
 of air and roar of waves round the bafe of the 
 fea-cliffs to the mind as it is read. Another 
 fimile relates what too frequently befalls fuch a 
 bird on its emerging from the cavern's gloom, and 
 is another highly finifhed picture : 
 
 " With equal eafe the facred hawk purfues, 
 And fweeping upwards from his naked crag, 
 High o'er a flying cloud ftrikes down the dove, 
 Then grips and tears her with his crooked claws 
 Till gore and feathers float off down the breeze." 2 
 
 A fimilar reminifcence ftrikes the poet as he 
 thinks of Tarchon triumphantly bearing off booty: 
 
 " So, high aloft the tawny eagle fweeps, 
 Bearing away the ferpent flie has feized, 
 Wraps her feet round it and drives in her claws. 
 Wounded but dauntlefs ftill the angry fnake 
 Twines his thick folds and briflling with fet fcales, 
 HifTes and rears his threat'ning creft ; but fhe 
 Continues ftriking with her crooked beak, 
 O'erwhelms his rage, and wings the founding air." 3 
 
 1 " yn.," v. 213. 2 Ibid., xi. 721. 3 Ibid., xi. 751.
 
 1 84 Gleanings from the 
 
 Compare, too, the beautiful lines in " 
 72 1, Jeq. 
 
 Among water-birds, Virgil does not dwell much 
 upon the halcyon, though it pofTefTed what we 
 might fancy fo attractive a fet of myths. In a 
 picture of a fummer evening, he makes the mores 
 refound with the halcyon, the brakes with the 
 goldfinch, and tells how, in the beginning of fine 
 weather, the halcyons, beloved by Thetis, fpread 
 their wings on the more to the warm fun" 
 ("Georg.," iii. 338 ; i. 398). He has beautifully 
 touched the fad tale of the nightingale in two 
 paflages, relating in the firft how Philomela, after 
 ferving her dreadful banquet to Tereus, fled to 
 the wildernefs on the very wings with which me 
 had fluttered in her mifery round home ; and in 
 the fecond, comparing the fad (trains of Orpheus, 
 bereft of his wife, to the lorn nightingale, with a 
 happy imitation of the tendernefs of the celebrated 
 paffage in the "OdyfTey": 
 
 " As the lone bird of fong in poplar {hades 
 Bewails her ravifhed young, which fome hard clown 
 Noting hath drawn, ftill fledglings, from their neft ; 
 So fhe weeps night-long, and from fome thick bough 
 Again renews her ftrain, her ftrain fo fad, 
 And fills wide filence with her forrowing plaints." 1 
 
 Progne, Philomela's fifter, as well from the 
 myth as from being, the familiar bird of houfe 
 and lake, is not forgotten. She is among the 
 birds harmful to bees, " bee-eaters and other birds 
 and Progne" (i.e. the chimney-fwallow), "marked 
 on her breaft by bloody hands" ("Georg.," iv. 14). 
 
 1 "Eel.," vi. 80; "Georg.," iv. 511.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 185 
 
 Again, "with fhrill cries me flits around the 
 lakes" (Georg.," i. 377), "and hangs, with many 
 a twitter, her neft on the rafters" (ibid., iv. 307). 
 But a ftill more famous pafTage occurs in the 
 "^Eneid/'xii. 473, concerning which Gilbert White 
 writes pleafantJy, but as a practifed naturalift, in 
 his "Selborne" (ed. Bell, vol. i. 166). After re- 
 marking that the ancients were not wont to dif- 
 criminate between different fpecies as we are, he 
 concludes from many little touches in the picture, 
 that the poet (as in the two inftances quoted 
 already), was referring to the chimney-fwallow 
 rather than to its, comparatively fpeaking, more 
 clumfy brother, the martin : 
 
 " As when the dufky fwallow darts athwart 
 Some rich man's fpacious halls and lofty courts 
 To catch on nimble wings her tiny prey, 
 Then bears it fpeedy to her prattling neft, 
 And now by empty portico me gleams, 
 Now twitters by the low-lying marfh." 
 
 The woodpecker (picus) is happily connected 
 with another myth. Dryden's poetry is, again, 
 better here than his ornithology: 
 
 " Circe long had loved the youth in vain, 
 Till love refufed, converted to difdain ; 
 Then, mixing powerful herbs, with magic art 
 She changed his form who could not change his heart, 
 Conftrained him in a bird and made him fly 
 With parti-coloured plumes, a chattering pie." 1 
 
 The owl is another Virgilian bird. There are at 
 leaft four fpecies of fmall owls in Italy ; but the 
 poet generalizes them in the few yet telling lines 
 
 1 Drydcn, u ^En.," vii. 189.
 
 1 86 Gleanings from the 
 
 which he devotes to them. When fine weather is 
 imminent : 
 
 " In vain from fome high roof the mournful owl, 
 
 Watching the funfet, hoots till night grows late ;" 
 and, 
 
 " Lone on the roof with deathful cries the owl 
 Oft wails, prolonging with fad moans her grief;" 
 
 and once more, 
 
 " On tombs at times and ruined "gables late, 
 Wailing to darknefs, fits th' ill-omened bird." 1 
 
 A ftriking paflage in the firft "Georgic," 404, is 
 another fign of Virgil's fondnefs in his poetry for 
 aflbciating birds with popular myths. It relates 
 to the ofprey, or more probably fome kind of 
 falcon, purfuing Ciris another unknown bird. 
 The ftory of Nifus and his daughter Scylla is 
 told in Ovid, and may be found in the " Ciris," 
 elaborated from Virgil's own few lines in this 
 paflage : 
 
 " Towering aloft avenging Nifus flies, 
 While dared below the guilty Scylla lies. 
 Wherever frightened Scylla flies away, 
 Swift Nifus follows and purfues his prey. 
 Where injured Nifus takes his airy courfe, 
 Thence trembling Scylla flies and fhuns his force. 
 This punifhment purfues th' unhappy maid, 
 And thus the purple hair is dearly paid." 2 
 
 It may be worth while to fay that the word 
 "dared" in the fecond line of this tranflation is a 
 technical term of hawking ; meaning that a bird 
 lies clofe to the ground in terror at fome enemy 
 foaring above it. 
 
 1 " Georg.," i. 403 ; " ^En.," i. 404 ; xii. 862. 
 
 2 Drydcn.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 187 
 
 This concludes the lift of birds which were dear 
 to Virgil. A few more lines relate to their 
 economy, their ufe in augury, and the like. Thus 
 a pretty picture gives us the woodman felling 
 ancient trees, and deftroying in their fall the 
 time-honoured nefts of birds; and another, the 
 lonely thickets enlivened in fpring with their fong. 
 Occafionally fome virulent difeafe attacks them, and 
 then "the very air is inhofpitable, headlong in 
 death they drop from the lofty clouds ;" or 
 winter's ftorm, and the approach of night drifting 
 downwards from the mountains, drives them in' 
 thoufands to take fhelter in their leafy coverts; 
 while at times thefe troops of birds (perhaps 
 ftarlings were in Virgil's mind), fettle down on 
 the thick plantations, and hoarfe flocks of fwans, 
 in the noify fwamps of rimy Po, make the fky 
 refound with their cries ("^Eneid," xi. 456, etc.). 
 In order to adorn the lowly home of Evander 
 ("^Eneid," viii. 456), a touch is added which 
 nearly approaches the poetic feeling of modern 
 times ; " the morning fongs of early birds beneath 
 his roof-tree" awake him. The finenefs of 
 Virgil's genius, the poetic colouring which he gives 
 to all that he touches, are very apparent in thefe 
 ftudies of his birds. It is very true, indeed, that 
 moft of his fimiles are drawn from Homer ; but 
 how often does he lend them a graceful turn 
 which is wanting in the rough vigour of the 
 original! "Take from Virgil," fays Coleridge in 
 the "Table Talk," "his melody and diction, and 
 what is there of him?" A novel and enlarged
 
 1 88 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 
 
 method of obferving Nature, and the difcovery of 
 a new fource of adornment for poetry, are at all 
 events features peculiar to him. Modern orni- 
 thologifts owe to him, as has been fhewn, not a 
 little ; and all lovers of the country love it the 
 better as they afTociate its birds of paftoral fcenes 
 with the mufical verfe and clear poetic infight of 
 the great Roman poet.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ROSES. 
 
 " An tu me in viola putabas aut in rofa dicere ?" 
 
 (Cic. Tuff., v. 26.) 
 
 |O ancient and widely prevalent are the 
 notions connected with the word 
 " rofe," that it might well be quef- 
 tioned whether " the rofe by any 
 other name would fmell as fweet." The name 
 comes to us, with flight dialectical variations, 
 through Latin and Greek from the Arabic. Not 
 that the Eaft is the exclufive home of the flower, 
 for it is found in almoft every country of the Old 
 and New World from Norway to the North of 
 Africa, and from Kamfchatka to Bengal. There 
 are no rofes, however, in South America or 
 Auftralia ; but the greateft beauty and moft 
 luxuriant growth of this lovely flower are un- 
 doubtedly to be feen in the Eaft. 
 
 " Who has not heard of the Vale of Cafhmere, 
 With its rofes the brightcft that earth ever gave?"
 
 1 90 Gleanings from the 
 
 All through the Bengal Preiidency rofes are 
 magnificent; but their beauty culminates at 
 Umritzur, which is a mafs of myrtles and rofes, 
 like a city of the "Arabian Nights." 1 Of the 
 many natural varieties, three are mainly the parents 
 of the enormous number of kinds cultivated by 
 modern gardeners, and thefe three were probably 
 equally well-known to the ancients. Thefe are 
 Rofa centifolia, which has been found wild in 
 thickets on the eaftern fide of the Caucafus ; 
 R. Damafcena, a native of Syria ; and R. Indica^ 
 the Chinefe rofe. Some 3,000 fpecies are now in 
 cultivation in France, which will give an idea of 
 the varieties which have fprung from budding, 
 grafting, and feed ; and Mr. Rivers enthufiaftically 
 anticipates, it may be ftated for all lovers of the 
 queen of flowers, that " the day will come when 
 all our rofes, even mofs-rofes, will have evergreen 
 foliage, brilliant and fragrant flowers, and the 
 habit of blooming from June till November." 2 The 
 rofe twice mentioned in the Old Teftament is 
 no true rofe, but moft probably the narciflus. 
 Similarly the fo-called Rofe of Jericho (Anaflatica 
 Hierochuntina) is a cruciferous plant, found in 
 
 1 Together with Adrianople thefe two cities make moft of 
 the Oriental attar of rofes. Umritzur " makes attar of rofes 
 from the R. centifolia, which only bloffoms once a year, and it 
 makes it for the world. Ten tons of rofe-petals are ufed 
 annually in it, and are worth from .20 to 30 per ton in the 
 raw ftate. The petals are diftilled through a hollow bamboo 
 into a veffel which contains fandal-wood oil. The contents 
 arc then poured out and allowed to ftand till the attar rifcs to 
 the furfacc in fmall globules, and is fkimmed off". The pure 
 attar fells for its weight in filver." " Greater Britain,"!., p. 278. 
 
 2 See Darwin, "Animals and Plants, etc.," vol. i., p. 391.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 9 1 
 
 fandy foil in Egypt and Paleftine, juft as our own 
 Chriftmas-rofe is really the black hellebore. 
 
 The Romans by no means attached to their 
 gardens the fenfe of a leifurely retreat, full of 
 beautiful flowers and made, as we do. The Latin 
 word for a garden, hortus (which is but a foftened 
 form of xoproc), fhews that they regarded it 
 mainly as a place for growing food ; in mort, 
 their garden was orchard, kitchen-garden, and, to 
 a very fmall extent, flower-garden in one. 1 This 
 economical view of a garden was a natural out- 
 growth of the practical Roman mind, although it 
 is feen, albeit in a minor degree, in the Greek 
 character as well. Roman gardeners, however, 
 rejoiced in beds of violets and rofes as much as we 
 do. Rofes were even forced in greenhoufes, fo 
 that lovers of flowers might have them during 
 winter. 2 
 
 " Dat feftinatas, Casfar, tibi bruma coronas ; 
 
 Quondam veris erat nunc tua fafta rofa eft." 3 
 
 " Once, Caefar, fpring was wont thy flow'r to greet ; 
 Now winter's rofes hurry thee to meet." 
 
 Befides miniftering to the pleafures of a garden, 
 rofes were largely ufed at Rome for garlands, to 
 
 1 Cnf. Cicero, " Cato Major," caps, xv.,' xvi., where with 
 many expreffions which fpeak of the delight in funfhine and 
 made of the country, the key-note is ftruck by the words, " Jam 
 hortum ipfi agricolas fuccidiam alteram appellant." 
 
 2 Compare Cicero, " Cum rofam viderat, turn incipere ver 
 arbitrabatur " (' Verr.," ii. 5, 10) ; and the philofopher Seneca's 
 indignant queftion, " Non vivunt contra naturam qui hieme 
 concupifcunt rofam ?" (Ep. cxxii. 8.) 
 
 3 Mart., xiii. 127. See Becker's "Callus," p. 289, ed. 1844.
 
 192 Gleanings from the 
 
 be worn during the caroufals which followed the 
 chief meal of the day. As early as the fecond 
 Punic war this feftive cuftom prevailed. There 
 was a notion among the Greeks that the flowers 
 prevented intoxication ; but they were chiefly 
 fubfervient to luxury. Befides rofes, violets were 
 alfo ufed for garlands, together with the green 
 leaves of the myrtle, ivy, and parfley. It was 
 ufual for the hoft to fupply thefe garlands, much 
 as a modern entertainer places a fmall nofegay 
 before each of his guefts. Everyone will remember 
 the beautiful little ode of Horace, in which he 
 warns his fervant againft extravagance in the 
 matter of garlands, bidding him refrain from feek- 
 ing where " the laft rofe of fummer " delays ; nor 
 has he written a more tender idyl than that which 
 mews us Pyrrha binding up her golden hair, while 
 fome {lender youth courts her in a grotto hung 
 with rofes. 1 Indeed, the rofe has always been the 
 flower moft dear to poetry. " Place a hundred 
 handfuls of fragrant herbs and flowers," fays the 
 Perfian Jami, " before the nightingale, yet he 
 wifhes not in his conftant heart for more than the 
 fweet breath of his beloved rofe." It was a 
 favourite flower of Milton, owing to his claffical 
 reading. In Eve's nuptial bower, 
 
 " Each beauteous flower, 
 Iris all hues, rofes, and jeflamine, 
 
 Reared high their flourifh'd heads between, and wrought 
 Mofaic." 
 
 1 It is fcarcely neceffary to add that Milton has tranflated 
 this ode of Horace into as dainty Englim as the original, and 
 in the fame metre.
 
 Natural Hijiory of the Ancients. 1 9 3 
 There the firft parents, 
 
 " Lulled by nightingales, embracing flept, 
 And on their naked limbs the flowery roof 
 Shower'd rofes which the morn repaired." 
 
 Eve is painted, 
 
 " Veiled in a cloud of fragrance, where fhe flood, 
 Half fpied, fo thick the rofes blufhing round 
 About her glow'd." 
 
 And when Adam firft learns his wife's tranf- 
 greffion : 
 
 " From his flack hand the garland wreath'd for Eve 
 Down dropt, and all the faded rofes fhed." 1 
 
 Shakefpeare's rofes are thofe which blofTomed 
 on the hedges by the Avon, and in the little 
 cottage-plots with which he was moft familiar. 
 His " fweet mufk-rofes " are the wildings of his 
 own country lanes. He has ftamped an indelible 
 afTociation on this flower by relating the ftory of 
 red and white rofes becoming the badges of the 
 rival houfes of York and Lancafter (" i Henry VI.," 
 ii. 4). All who have read the beautiful " Virgin 
 Martyr " of Maffinger will remember how felici- 
 toufly he makes ufe of the legend which tells that 
 rofes were fent down from Paradife to ftrengthen 
 the martyr's refolution. 
 
 The rofe was efpecially facred to Venus. She 
 was fabled to have rifen from the fea dropping 
 rofes over Rhodes, itfelf named from and famous 
 for that flower. 2 Another legend told that fhe 
 
 1 "Par. Loft," iv. 697, 771, and ix. 425. 
 
 2 Ovid, "Fail.," v. 354: 
 
 " Et monet aetatis fpecie, dum floreat, uti ; 
 Contemn! fpinam, cum cecidere rofse." 
 O
 
 1 94 Gleanings from the 
 
 prefented a rofe to the Egyptian God of Silence, 
 Harpocrates, whence the expreflion " under the 
 rofe." 1 It was ufed at Rome on all feftive or 
 folemn occafions, and is frequently alluded to by 
 the Roman poets in reference to its beauty and 
 the moral its frailnefs pointed, as, indeed, the 
 poets of every nation have fung. Thus Horace 
 fpeaks of the " nimium breves flores amasnas rofae;" 
 and Martial, when addrefling his own book of 
 poems : 
 
 " Haec hora eft tua, cum furit Lyaeus. 
 Cum regnat rofa, cum madent capilli." 2 
 
 The expreflions "to lie among rofes," to 
 " drink," or " live " among them, were fynonyms 
 at Rome for luxurious living ; and Cicero thus 
 paints the exceflive luxury of Verres : " Lectica 
 octophoro ferebatur, in qua pulvinus erat perlu- 
 cidus, Melitenfi rofa fartus; ipfe autem coronam 
 habebat unam in capite, alteram in collo, reti- 
 culumque ad nares fibi admovebat tenuiflimo lino, 
 minutis maculis, plenum rofae" (Verr., ii. 5, 27). 
 " Rofa," or " mea rofa," became, naturally, a term 
 of endearment, juft as with us it has become a 
 Chriftian name. The annual dreffing of the 
 graves with flowers, which is fo well-known a 
 cuftom in modern France, fprang from the feaft of 
 rofes at Rome the rofalia, or r of ales efc<e> when 
 the tombs were adorned in like manner with 
 
 1 Billerbeck, "Flora Claflica" (Leipzig, 1824), p. 132. " So 
 we condemn not the German cuftom, which over the table 
 defcribeth a rofe in the ceiling." (Sir T. Browne, " Vulgar 
 Errors," v. 22.) 
 
 2 Martial, x. 19, 19.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 195 
 
 garlands of rofes. " Cato, in his * Treatife of 
 Gardens,' ordained as a neceflary point that they 
 mould be planted and enriched with fuch herbs as 
 might bring forth flowers for coronets and gar- 
 lands." 1 Pliny adds, however, that the Romans 
 were acquainted with very few garden flowers 
 for garlands fave violets and rofes. The rojeta^ or 
 rofe-beds, in which thefe rofes were grown, are 
 much celebrated in Latin poetry, particularly thofe 
 of Paeftum, which ftill delight the traveller, 2 and 
 were renowned for blorToming twice in the year. 
 
 Pliny is the chief authority for Roman rofes. 
 He mentions that twelve varieties of the flower, 
 all more or lefs efteemed, were known at Rome. 
 Thofe grown at Praenefte and Capua were regarded 
 as the beft. A botanical characteriftic of the rofe 
 family is the porTeffion of five petals. Pliny had 
 noticed this: " The feweft leaves that a rofe hath 
 be five; and fo upward they grow ever ftill more 
 and more, untill they come to thofe that have an 
 hundred, namely about Campain in Italy, and 
 neere to Philippos, a city in Greece, whereupon 
 the rofe is called in Latine Centifolia." They 
 have been brought to this fize, and to the fragrance 
 which many of them, efpecially thofe of Cyrene, 
 poflefs, he adds, " by many devifes and fophiftica- 
 tions " of the gardeners. Yet how little he knew 
 practically about rofe-cultivation is apparent from 
 his words, " the rofe-bufli loveth not to be planted 
 
 1 Pliny, "Nat. Hift." (Holland), xxi. i. 
 
 2 "Biferi rofaria Paefti," Virg., "Georg.," iv. 119; Prop., 
 iv. 5, 59 ; and "punicea rofeta," Virg., "Eel.," v. 17.
 
 1 96 Gleanings from the 
 
 in a fat and rich foile, ne yet upon a vein of cley," 
 which is the exact oppofite to the recommendations 
 of modern horticulture. Another hint may be 
 commended to the attention of rofarians : " They 
 that defire to have rofes blow betimes in the yeare 
 before their neighbours, ufe to make a trench 
 round about the root a foot deep, and poure hot- 
 water into it, even at the firft, when the bud of 
 the rofe beginneth to be knotted." 
 
 In fpeaking of the "wine rofat," or " oile 
 rofat," compounded of rofes, Pliny feems to mean 
 what we call attar of rofes, or rofe-water. The 
 beft rofe-water is at prefent made at Ghazeepore, 
 and it is ufed in much the fame manner as the 
 Romans employed their "wine rofat," for bathing 
 any fore or inflamed part of the body. But, as 
 ufual, Pliny recommends every part of the rofe 
 for different ailments. The root of a kind of 
 wild rofe (our dog-rofe, fo named from this fuper- 
 ftition), is a fovereign remedy againft the bite of a 
 mad dog. " The afhes of rofes, burnt, ferve to 
 trim the haires of the eiebrowes. Dried rofe-leaves 
 do reprefs the flux of humours into the eies. The 
 flowre procureth fleepe. To rub the teeth with 
 the feed eafeth the toothach. The wild rofe- 
 leaves, reduced into a liniment with Beares greafe, 
 doth wonderfully make haire to grow again;" 
 thefe will ferve as fpecimens of the medicinal value 
 of the rofe in Roman eyes. 1 In Gerard's "Herbal" 
 will be found two folio pages of the medicinal 
 value of rofes in the eftimation of our forefathers. 
 
 1 See "Nat. Hift.," viii. 41 ; xxi. 19.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 1 97 
 
 That the rofe came from the Eaft to the Greeks, 
 is teftified by the fad: of Homer knowing nothing 
 of the rofe as a flower. He did, indeed, know of 
 attar of rofes, for ("Iliad," xxiii. i86)he makes 
 Aphrodite anoint the corpfe of Heclor with " oil 
 of rofes." 1 In his time, the ,rofe itfelf had not 
 been imported into Greece. The fame fact is 
 evidently alluded to by his conftant ufe of " rofy- 
 fingered" as an epithet of the dawn (which may 
 be compared with our own poet's "God made 
 Himfelf an awful rofe of dawn "), and of Aphro- 
 dite herfelf. Thus the introduction of her worfhip 
 into Greece has been actually afcribed to the 
 Phoenicians, who, we know, did bring there the 
 planetary worfhip of the AfTyrians. Moreover, 
 "Aphrodite is placed by Homer in relation with 
 the Charites, Eaftern perfonages, whofe name 
 correfponds with the Sanfcrit Harits, meaning 
 originally 'bright,' and afterwards the horfes of 
 the dawn." 2 It is curious that the rofe, fave with 
 the lyric poets, does not feem to have been a great 
 favourite. Sophocles prefers the hyacinth. The. 
 dramatic poets, concentrating their thoughts on 
 the tragedy of man's feeling and actions, difre- 
 garded it as a creature of a wholly different, a 
 lower and a frivolous world. Anacreon naturally 
 celebrates the flower, and does fo more than any 
 other Greek finger : 
 
 1 " Poeta rofam non norit, oleum ex rofa norit " (Aul. Gell., 
 xiv. 6, 3). Cnf., too, Pliny, "Nat. Hift.," xxi. 4. 
 
 2 W. E. Gladftone, "Juventus Mundi," p. 315; and fee 
 Max Mialler's " Effay on Comparative Mythology." (" Oxford 
 Eflays," 1856, p. 8 1.)
 
 198 Gleanings from the 
 
 " With rofes crowned, on flowers fupinely laid, 
 Anacreon blithe the fprightly lyre effayed." 
 
 Love fleeping among the rofes and flung by a 
 bee, or caught by the Mufes and bound with 
 wreaths of rofes, or the ode on " The Rofe," 
 imitated by Dr. Broome, which begins : 
 
 "Come, lyrift, tune thy harp and play 
 Refponfive to my vocal lay ; 
 Gently touch it while I fmg 
 The rofe, the glory of the Spring." 
 
 Thefe are famples of the feftive ideas connected 
 with rofes among the luxurious Afiatic Greeks. 
 The flavour of rofes was ufed to improve cookery, 
 and fo there was a Greek conferve, like our 
 marmalade, compofed of rofes and quinces. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, the rofe was one of the 
 few flowers which men found Jeifure to cultivate 
 in England. It would not be often feen on the 
 cottage-wall, as with us at prefent, but more fre- 
 quently in the pleafance or even the little garden 
 on one fide of the caftle, mut in between two of 
 its angles, fuch as may yet be feen at Stirling. 
 The French writer of the " Romaunt of the Rofe " 
 would naturally expect it to bloflbm in the garden 
 which he fomewhat profanely, though only after 
 the famion of his time, defcribes as : 
 
 " There is no place in Paradife 
 So gode in for to dwell or be, 
 As in that gardin thoughtin me." 
 
 And the God of Love is attired by him in a 
 garment :
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 199 
 
 " Ipurtraied and iwrought with floures 
 By divers medeling of coloures ; 
 Flouris there were of many gife, 
 Ifet by compace in a fife. 
 There lackid no of lure to my dome, 
 Ne not fo much as floure of brome, 
 Ne violet, ne eke pewinke, 
 Ne flowre none that men can on thinke ; 
 And many a rofe-lefe full long 
 Was entermedlid there emong ; 
 And alfo on his hedde was fet 
 Of rofes redde a chapilet." 1 
 
 A rofary is alfo defcribed 
 
 "Chargid fullofrofis 
 That with an hedge aboute enclofed is.' 
 
 There "gretift hepe of rofes be;" and thefe 
 "rofes redde" with their " knoppis," or birds, are 
 dwelt on by the poet with the pleafure of a true 
 rofe-lover. 
 
 But it is in Dante that the moft glorious and 
 devotional ufe of the rofe is found ; a ufe from 
 which comes our expreflion a " rofe-window," to 
 indicate a large circular cathedral window filled 
 with ftained glafs reprefenting faints and martyrs 
 radiating from the central effulgence of Divine 
 glory. Thus in the " Paradifo," he writes : 
 
 " Lume e laflu, che vifibile face 
 Lo Creatore a quella creatura, 
 Che folo in lui vedere ha la fua pace ; 
 
 " E fi diftende in circular figura 
 
 In tanto, che la fua circonferenza 
 Sarebbe al Sol troppo larga cintura. 
 * * * * 
 
 " Nel giallo della rofa fempiterna 
 Che fi dilata, rigrada e redole 
 Odor di lode al Sol che fempre verna." 
 
 1 Anderfon's Poets, vol. i., pp. 281, 287.
 
 200 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 
 And again, in the next canto: 
 
 " In forma dunque di Candida rofa 
 Mi fi moftrava la milizia fanta, 
 Che nel fuo fangue Crifto fece fpofa j" 
 
 while the angel hoft, like bees humming round a 
 rofe, 
 
 " Nel gran fior difcendeva, che f'adorna 
 Di tanti foglie, e quindi rifaliva 
 La dove il fuo amor fempre foggiorrvi. 
 
 " Le facce tutte avean di fiamma viva, 
 E 1' ale d' oro, e 1' altro tanto bianco 
 Che nulla neve a quel termine arriva. 
 
 " Quando fcendean nel fior, di banco in banco 
 Porgevan della pace e dell' ardore, 
 Ch' egli acquiftavan ventilando il fianco. 
 
 # * # * 
 
 " Che la luce divina e penetrante 
 
 Per 1' univerfo, fecondo ch' e degno, 
 Si che nulla le puote effere oftante." 1 
 
 Surely no uninfpired writer ever penned fuch words 
 of fplendid adoration and infight ! The vifion 
 may fitly clofe with the ftrain of another great 
 thinker : 
 
 " All is beauty, 
 
 And knowing this is love, and love is duty ; 
 
 What further may be fought for or declared ?" 2 
 
 1 " Paradifo," Canto xxx. 100 ; xxxi. 1-24. 
 
 2 Browning, ''The Guardian Angel."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 WOLVES. 
 
 HE wolf, as being univerfally dif- 
 tributed, is fo well known that a 
 large body of curious learning has 
 grown up with it. Its tail is ftraight; 
 which feems to eftablim a ftructural difference 
 between it and the numerous varieties of the dog. 
 Yet naturalifts, fuch as tfie late Mr. Bell, have 
 derived all dogs from the wolf, although Linnaeus 
 defcribes the former animal as " cauda finiftrorfum 
 recurvata." The Old World wolves are probably 
 not fpecifically different from thofe of the New. 
 They are found all over the Continent, and range 
 from Egypt to Lapland. The jackal, a near 
 congener, appears only in Eaftern Europe, while a 
 variety known as the black wolf (C. Lycaori] is 
 found in the Vofges Mountains, in the Alps, and 
 the Pyrenees. As for the derivation of the word 
 " wolf," its " fuggefted connection with Lat. 
 * vulpes,' a fox, is not generally accepted." 1 The 
 1 Skcat, " Dictionary."
 
 202 Gleanings from the 
 
 Sanfcrit form of the word is "vrika," the "tearer," 
 or " render." In Icelandic it is " ulfr," whence 
 our "wolf;" as "old" has become "wold." With 
 the Northmen, the wolf was facred to Odin, who 
 was always accompanied by two of thefe animals, 
 Geri and Freki, which were fed with his own 
 hand. At Jeaft two place-names in Lincolnfhire, 
 Ulceby and Uffelby, retain traces of the wolf's 
 Norfe name j 1 while Wolverton, Woolmer, and the 
 like, mew that the Saxons alfo left their name for 
 the creature in the local nomenclature of the 
 country. 
 
 The wolf was in later hiftorical times the 
 largeft wild beaft known to the Greeks ; although, 
 in the time of Xerxes, lions had fallen upon his 
 baggage animals in Theflaly. It was regarded by 
 them as the type of a bloodthirfty ravening 
 creature, and as fuch frequently appears in Homer. 2 
 Its {kin was occafionally worn as a helmet, like the 
 bearfkins of our troops. The Thracians, who 
 joined the army of Xerxes, each bore two fpears, 
 ufed for wolf-hunting, as arms. As being ftriftly 
 a nocturnal animal, moft often feen in what was 
 called " wolf-twilight," or grey dawn, the wolf 
 was celebrated with the ancients in witchcraft and 
 fuperftition. Homer places it together with the 
 lion in the landfcape round the abode of Circe. 
 Together with the Romans, it was an article of 
 folk-lore among the Greeks that if a wolf faw a 
 
 1 Streatfeild, "Lincolnfhire and the Danes," 1884, p. 72. 
 
 2 Thus the Greeks and Trojans, mutually inflamed with 
 rage, rum upon each other "like wolves " (" II.," iv. 471).
 
 Natural Hijiory of the Ancients. 203 
 
 perfon firft, that man was ftruck dumb. So Plato 
 makes Socrates fay, when angrily accofted by the 
 fophift Thrafymachus : "I was difmayed and 
 feared as I looked at him ; and I verily believe, 
 unlefs I had feen him firft, that I mould have been 
 ftruck dumb." 1 So "to fee a wolf," "wolf's 
 wings " (like " pigeon's milk "), and " the wolf 
 marrying the lamb," with others of the fame kind, 
 became ufual Greek proverbs. Dean Trench 
 juftly ftigmatizes " one muft howl with the wolves" 
 as being the moft daftardly of all proverbs. This, 
 however, is not due to Greek imagination. 
 
 The Egyptians fpecially aflbciated the wolf with 
 the world of darknefs. It is reprefented on the 
 painted walls of their catacombs and temples, and 
 was probably connected by the priefts with fome 
 efoteric dodlrine of the tranfmigration of fouls. 
 Wolf mummies are found at Ofioot, the ancient 
 Lycopolis. 
 
 At Rome, the wolf, fuitably to the national 
 character, was held in high honour. This took its 
 rife from the fhe-wolf which had fuckled Romulus 
 and Remus. Lupa, as Livy terms her, was the 
 wife of Fauftulus, the royal herdfman ; but me was 
 
 1 "De Rep.," 336 d. Cnf. Virgil, 
 
 " Mserin lupi videre priores." 
 
 ("Eel.," ix. 54, and Theoc. xiv. 22.) "The ground or oc- 
 cafional original hereof was probably the amazement and 
 fudden filence the unexpected appearance of wolves do often 
 put upon travellers. But thus could not the mouths of worthy 
 martyrs be filenced, who being expofed not only unto the eyes, 
 but the mercilefs teeth of wolves, gave loud expreffions of 
 their faith, and their holy clamours were heard as high as 
 heaven." (Sir T. Browne, " Vulgar Errors," iii. 8.)
 
 204 Gleanings from the 
 
 foon deified under the title of Luperca, while the 
 Lycean Pan's feftival (fo called becaufe he kept 
 off wolves) was entitled Lupercalia, and was one 
 of the moft popular of the old Roman feftivities. 
 From the ftory connected with the birth of the 
 founder of the city, the wolf was deemed facred to 
 Mars. A clufter of Roman proverbs attached 
 itfelf to this animal. " Lupus in fermone " was 
 applied to any fudden appearance of the perfon 
 who was being fpoken of at the time. " To have 
 a wolf by the ears," meant to be in a fituation of 
 great difficulty, from which advance or retreat was 
 dangerous. " To fnatch the lamb from the wolf," 
 " to fet the wolf over the flock," and the like, are 
 famples of thefe proverbs. The reprefentation of 
 the wolf, fometimes with, fometimes without the 
 twin children, was a favourite device on Roman 
 coins. It appears alfo on one of Ilerda. Art and 
 poetry drew Romulus as rejoicing 
 
 " Lupae fulvo nutricis tegmine." 
 
 Among the magnificent imagery of the fhield 
 worked by Vulcan and given by Venus to ./Eneas, 
 we may be fure that thefe infant glories of the 
 State were not forgotten : 
 
 " Fecerat et viridi fcetam Mavortis in antro 
 Procubuiffe lupam ; geminos huic ubera circum, 
 Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matfem 
 Impavidos ; illam tereti cervice refiexam 
 Mulcere alternos et corpora fingere lingua." 1 
 
 Dryden has caught much of the beauty of thefe 
 lines : 
 
 1 "JEn." viii. 630.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 205 
 
 " Here in a verdant cave's embowering (hade, 
 The foftering wolf and martial twins were laid ; 
 Th' indulgent mother, half reclined along, 
 Looked fondly back, and formed them with her tongue, 
 While at her breaft the fportive infants hung." 
 
 Ornytus is alfo pictured by Virgil as wearing a 
 wolf-fkin head-drefs: 
 
 " Caput ingens oris hiatus 
 Et malae texere lupi cum dentibus albis." 1 
 
 Ariftotle evidently knew a good deal about the 
 habits of the wolf. It produces blind puppies like 
 a dog, he fays. A pleafant fable has attached 
 itfelf to wolves, that they all produce young in a 
 certain twelve days of the year, becaufe in fo many 
 days they once conducted Latona from the Hyper- 
 boreans to Delos, fhe having changed herfelf into 
 the form of a me-wolf from fear of Juno. This 
 ftatement, however, he adds, feems to be as 
 mythical as the ftory that they only bear young 
 once in their lives. They always live on flefh, 
 except when ailing, and then, like dogs, they eat 
 grafs. Thofe which lead a folitary life are more 
 ready to eat men than thofe which hunt in packs. 
 In exceflive hunger they will ftoop to eat earth. 
 Clearly Ariftotle had fifted much of the popular 
 knowledge, as was his wont; but it is not fur- 
 prifmg that he ftates more of wolves than experi- 
 ence warranted. 2 
 
 Pliny, on the contrary, although he lived fo 
 much later, was an eager liftener to all old 
 women's tales. The fat of wolves was efteemed, 
 
 1 " ^En.," xi. 680. 
 
 2 " De Nat. Animal.," vi. 29 ; viii. 7.
 
 2o6 Gleanings from the 
 
 he writes, above all. " New- wedded wives were 
 wont upon their marriage-day to anoint the fide- 
 pofts of their hufbands therwith at their firft 
 entrance, to the end that no charms, witchcrafts, 
 and forceries might haue power to enter in." 
 Again : " The muffle or fnout of a wolfe, kept 
 long dried, is a counter-charm againft all witch- 
 craft and forcery; which is the reafon that they 
 ufually fet it upon gates of countrey ferms. The 
 fame force the very {kin is thought to haue which 
 is flaied whole of itfelf, without any flefh, from 
 the nape of the neck. And, in truth, ouer and 
 aboue the properties which I haue reported already 
 of this beaft, of fuch power and vertue it is, that 
 if horfes chance to tread in the tracls of a wolfe, 
 their feet will be immediately benummed and 
 aftonied. Alfo their lard is a remedy for thofe 
 who are empoifoned by drinking quickfiluer." 
 Some parts of the animal he prefcribes to be 
 mixed with Attic honey, as this is " fmgular for 
 thofe whofe fight is dim and troubled." Like- 
 wi{e certain bones are found in wolves " which, if 
 they be hanged about the arme, do cure the 
 collicke." But his credulity was not yet fated. 
 " To come unto leechcraft belonging unto beafts, 
 it is faid that wolves wil not come into any lord- 
 ihip or territory, if one of them be taken, and 
 when the legs are broken, be let bloud with a knife 
 by little and little, fo as the fame may be fhed 
 about the limits or bounds of the faid field, as he 
 is drawne along, and then the body be buried in 
 the very place where they began firft to dragge
 
 Natural Hiftory of the- Ancients. 207 
 
 him. Others take the plough-mare from the 
 plough wherewith the firft furrow was made that 
 yeare in the field, and put it upon the fire burn- 
 ing vpon the common hearth of the houfe, and 
 there let it lie untill it be quite confumed ; and 
 look how long this is in doing, fo long mal the 
 wolfe do no harm to any liuing creature within 
 that territorie or lordmip." 1 
 
 Shakefpeare, who has remembered to add "the 
 tooth of wolf" to the hell-broth of his witches' 
 caldron, had good reafon for the feleclion, as this 
 animal enjoyed an unenviable reputation in witch- 
 craft. By the wondrous herbs of Pontus, the lover 
 in Virgil was enabled to fee Mceris turn into a 
 wolf, and hide in the woods and call forth ghofts 
 from their fepulchres, 2 that is, become a were- 
 wolf. This is the firft mention in Latin literature 
 of the verfipellis or turnfkin, but it ran through 
 the magical authors. In Greece the fuperftition 
 was well known ; certain Scythians near the Black 
 Sea pafled for wizards, becaufe once a year they 
 became wolves for a few days, and then returned 
 to their true form. The old Northmen fancied 
 that by wearing coats of wolf-lkin, men could 
 become wolves at pleafure. Indeed, the fuperfti- 
 tion has fpread widely, and is at prefent largely 
 believed among the Northern nations. In Germany 
 the change is now effected by unclafping or cutting 
 a girdle made of the {kin of a man who has been 
 hanged, and fattened by a buckle having feven 
 
 1 Pliny, "Nat. Hift." (Holland), xxviii. 9, 10 ; xiv. 20. 
 
 2 " Eel.," viii. 97.
 
 208 Gleanings from tlte 
 
 tongues. Trials of alleged were-wolves (loup- 
 garous) were as numerous in France, during the 
 fixteenth century, as were trials for witchcraft in 
 Scotland. There are many traces of the belief in 
 Ruffian folk-lore, and the wolf in the ftory of 
 " Little Red Riding Hood " was probably a were- 
 wolf. 1 
 
 Before the age of Jupiter, wild beafts and ferpents 
 were innocuous, faid the Latin poet : 
 
 " Hie malum virus ferpentibus addidit atris, 
 Praedarique lupos juffit." 
 
 And in his picture of peftilence devaftating a 
 country, with much fkill he introduces the wolf: 
 
 " Non lupus infldias explorat ovilia circum, 
 Nee gregibus noclurnus inambulat ; acrior ilium 
 Cura domat." 
 
 A ftill more beautiful comparifon reprefents the 
 wolf as endowed with confcience, and, mindful of 
 his offences againft man, {linking off into the 
 wilds. 2 
 
 " Velut ille, prius quam tela inimica fequantur, 
 Continue in montes fefe avius abdidit altos, 
 Occifo paftore, lupus, magnove juvenco, 
 Confcius audacis fafti, caudamque remulcens 
 Subjecit pavitantem utero, filvafque petivit." 
 
 And the horror of the portents attending Casfar's 
 death is intenfified by the howling of wolves : 
 
 " Et altse 
 Per noftem refonare lupis ululantibus urbes." 3 
 
 1 See a good chapter on this curious fuperftition in Kelly's 
 " Curiofities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore ;" 
 cap. ix. (1863). 
 
 2 "Georg.," Hi. 537 ; i. 130 ; "^En.," xi. 809. 
 
 3 " Georg.," 5. 486.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 209 
 
 In facl, the wolf was an animal fuited to Virgil's 
 poetry, and kept in ftore by him, ready for any 
 imaginative emergency. So when Turnus has to 
 be reprefented raging againft the foe, he is com- 
 pared to a wolf. Dryden by no means enters into 
 the full beauty of the paflage, which mould be 
 read in the original : 
 
 " So roams the mighty wolf about the fold, 
 Wet with defcending mowers and ftiff with cold ; 
 He howls for hunger and he grins for pain, 
 His gnafhing teeth are exercifed in vain ; 
 And, impotent of anger, finds no way 
 In his diftended paws to grafp the prey. 
 The mothers liften ; but the bleating lambs 
 Securely fwig the breaft beneath the dams." 1 
 
 After his ordinary famion, ^lian adds to the 
 marvels of Pliny refpe&ing the wolf. It cannot 
 bend its head back, he afTerts ; but muft look 
 ftraight forwards. If it mould happen to tread 
 on a flower of the fquill, it is at once rendered 
 torpid ; fo foxes take care to ftrew fquills in the 
 dens of wolves. 2 This animal has left its traces 
 in our botanical names. The lycopodium is fo 
 called from its refemblance to the dark circular 
 cumion under the wolf's foot, while its upper 
 furface was feen by the fanciful in the lycopus, or 
 gipfy-wort. The gaping mouth of the wolf has 
 left its popular impreflion in the lycopis or buglofs 
 (wolf's-face). 
 
 Wolves go back to a great antiquity, for their 
 bones have been found in the foflil cave of Aurignac 
 in France, in Kent's Hole, and elfewhere ; while 
 
 1 u ^En.," ix. 59. 2 "De Nat. An.," x. 26.
 
 2 1 o Gleanings from the 
 
 they are faid to have been feen, fo lately as Eliza- 
 beth's reign, in Dartmoor and Dean Foreft. An 
 amwfing writer, who travelled through Sutherland- 
 mire in 1650, fays: "Specially here never lack 
 wolves more than are expedient." For the hiftory 
 of the wolf in England, the reader may be re- 
 ferred to Harting's "Extinct Britim Animals," 
 where much information on them is collected. 
 He decides that the animal became extinct in 
 England fometime in the reign of Henry VII. 
 In Scotland, wolves lingered until the end of the 
 feventeenth century, the laft being killed in 1 743 ; 
 while the laft was killed in Ireland in 1770, t all 
 events after i~66. 1 An old belief averred that 
 wolves could not live in England. 
 
 If proverbial lore, witchcraft, and fuperftitions 
 of many kinds claim the wolf as a ufeful animal, 
 the fabulift would be put to fore ftraits were 
 he deprived of its afliftance. ./Efop and his imi- 
 tators generally draw the wolf as the imperfona- 
 tion of tyrannical greed ; as in the fable of " The 
 Wolf and the Lamb." Occafionally it is ufed to 
 teach mankind a moral lefTon, as in that of the 
 boy who called " Wolf! wolf !" when there was no 
 wolf, and was finally torn in pieces for his deceit. 
 Once, however, the better part of the wolf its 
 wild and free nature is defervedly recognifed in the 
 fable of " The Wolf and Dog," when the latter tries 
 to cajole the ftarving wolf to give up its freedom : 
 
 "Be complaifant, obliging, kind, 
 And leave the wolf for once behind." 
 
 1 "Extind Brit. Animals," p. 204.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 2 1 1 
 
 But on the wolf unluckily feeing the collar round 
 his friend's neck, then, 
 
 " He ftarts and without more ado, 
 He bids the abjeft wretch adieu. 
 * Enjoy your dainties, friend ; to me 
 The noble ft feaft is liberty. 
 The famifhed wolf upon thefe defert plains, 
 Is happier than a fawning cur in chains.' " 
 
 Vaniere, the Jefuit, in his " Praedium Rufticum " 
 (lib. xvi.), defcribes in poetic language the capture 
 of wolves in pitfalls, and then names a curious 
 method of capturing them, viz., by the ufe of fifh- 
 hooks : 
 
 " Mira frande lupum capies, pifcaria celans. 
 ./Era cibis ; carnes et inextricabile ferrum 
 Haufit ubi, vis nulla potelt exfolvere rubras, 
 Non ovium jam caede fuo fed fanguine fauces." 
 
 After his fafhion, Goflbn (1579), in order to help 
 the Lord Mayor of London " to fette his hand to 
 thruft out abufes," drags in a fimilitude.from wolves 
 which he muft have found in fome old author, but 
 which has efcaped us : " The Thracians, when they 
 muft paffe over frozen ftreames, fende out theyr 
 Wolues, which laying theyr eares to the yfe [ice], 
 liften for noyfe. If they hear any thing, they gather 
 that it mooues ; if it mooue, it is not congealed. 
 If it be not congealed, it muft be liquide. If it 
 be liquide, then will it yeelde ; and if it yeelde, 
 it is not good trufting it with the weight of their 
 bodyes, left they fincke. The world is fo flippery 
 that you are often inforced to pafs over yfe. 
 Therefore I humbly befeech you to try farther
 
 2 1 2 Natural Hijiory of the Ancients. 
 
 and truft lefle: not your Wolues, but many of 
 your Citizens haue already fifted the daunger of 
 your pafTage, and in fifting beene fwallowed to their 
 discredite." 1 
 
 1 Stephen Gorton's " Schoole of Abufe" (ed. Arber), p. 56.
 
 CHAPTER XV, 
 
 ANCIENT FISH-LORE. 
 
 " Vera vulgi opinio, quidquic! nafcatur in parte naturae ulla, 
 ct in mare effe, praeterquc multa qua? nufquam alibi." (PLINY, 
 Nat, ////?., ix. I.) 
 
 [N no department of natural hiftory is 
 the ignorance and credulity of ancient 
 writers fo noticeable as in their 
 account of fifti. Our own popular 
 mifconceptions with regard to the habits and 
 economy of rim may well induce us to view withs 
 indulgence the mort-comings of ancient naturalifts ; 
 and the Fimeries Exhibition of 1 883 feems to have 
 effected but little improvement in this refpect. 
 The knowledge of the people with regard to rim, 
 however, has increafed wonderfully between the 
 reign of Henry VII. and our own days; in the 
 cafe of ancient fcientific writers ufmg the word 
 " fcientific " of the beft knowledge of the time 
 not only does the knowledge of fifties and their 
 economy appear not to have improved at all in 
 the four hundred years which intervened between.
 
 2 1 4 Gleanings from the 
 
 Ariftotle and the elder Pliny, but it has abfolutely 
 retrograded. Pliny believes more fables, and 
 recounts with grave face more marvels than did 
 the elder natural hiftorian, while he is not nearly 
 fo difcriminating, and does not exhibit the fame 
 common-fenfe as did his forerunner. The vaft- 
 nefs of his own compilations, and his perpetual 
 induftry in noting any circumftances of intereft 
 connected with natural hiftory, fmothered his 
 judgment. He had neither time to fift facts nor 
 to weigh the authority to be attached to ftate- 
 ments of other authors ; and thefe defects leave his 
 great " Natural Hiftory " a rudis indigeftaque 
 moles, which compares unfavourably with the more 
 exact and painftaking work of Ariftotle. He, 
 on the contrary, muft have ftudied fifh practically, 
 fo far as actual ftudy of natural hiftory was poflible 
 in the judgment of his time, and betrays no fmall 
 acquaintance with the clarification of fifh, and the 
 differences which mark them off from quadrupeds 
 and birds. Thus he divides them into fifh which 
 produce young by eggs, like ordinary fifh, or fifh 
 which produce their young alive fifh which we 
 now know to refemble quadrupeds in pofTefTing 
 warm blood, fuch as whales, dolphins, rd atXa^, 
 and the like. On their generation he was very 
 well informed. Pliny, on the contrary, in addition 
 to the ftatements of previous writers and of his 
 own coadjutors, might have never feen a fifh fave 
 fuch as appeared at his table. The migrations of 
 fifh, whereby the moft ufeful families are brought 
 at certain feafons annually to our mores tunnies,
 
 Natural Htftory of the Ancients. 2 1 5 
 
 mackerel, and the like had been inveftigated by 
 the Greek philofopher. He had alfo learnt that 
 this united movement of certain kinds of fifh (oi 
 'Xyrol, as he terms them ; " fim that fwim in com- 
 panies ") was preliminary to their fpawning near 
 the coafts in mallow water, 1 although his reafons 
 for thefe migrations might furnim a logician with 
 inftances of the fallacy, Non caufa 'pro cavja. 
 " Now of fifties," he remarks, " fome migrate to 
 the land from the fea, and to the fea again from 
 the land, in order to avoid the extremes of heat 
 and cold. Thofe which are taken near the more 
 are better than oceanic fiihes, for they have more, 
 and better, fuftenance ; as wherever the. fur* ftrikes 
 it produces more numerous, and better, and more 
 tender creatures, juft as may be feen in garden 
 produce." 2 Poffeiling a wide knowledge, too, 
 of the different modes of generation among fim, 
 even he is not fuperior to many prejudices, and to 
 the influence of much which would now be termed 
 folk-lore. " Some fim are fprung from mud and 
 fand, even among fuch families as generate in the 
 ordinary manner with eggs. This happens in 
 marfhes and fuch places, juft as is faid once, to 
 have happened at Cnidus.. There the water was 
 dried up by the dog-days, and all the mud taken 
 out ; but the water began to teem with life as 
 foon as the firft mowers fell, and in this place 
 little fifh were generated as the water began to 
 rife." This is ftill a vulgar belief. Another, 
 
 1 Ariftot., " De Nat. Anim.," v. 9. 
 
 2 Ibid., viii. 15.
 
 2 1 6 Gleanings from the 
 
 which refembles the popular ftories of mowers 
 of frogs or fiih, is alluded to in the following 
 words on the fifh called aphye : " They are 
 produced in fhady and marihy places when, after a 
 period of fine weather, the earth has taken in 
 much warmth, as is the cafe about Salamis and 
 Marathon. In fuch places, then, the apbrus is 
 produced in funny weather. In fome places alfo it 
 is born, whenever much rain has fallen from the fky, 
 in the foam (apbrus) which floats on the furface of 
 the rain-water ; and fometimes," he goes on to ftate, 
 " it fprings from the foam on the furface of the 
 fea." Here, probably, for the fake of etymology, he 
 identifies the aphye (a-Qvw) and the aphrus (foam). 
 Endlefs fables are told about the generation of 
 eels at the prefent day. They find their prototype 
 in the firft natural hiftorian. This kind of fifh, 
 too, he fays, is not born from eggs or the ordinary 
 generation of fifties ; and it is clear that this is fo 
 from the fact that, when marfhes have been drained 
 and the mud fuffered to harden, eels have appeared 
 with the firft mower ; "but in droughts and Jakes 
 always full of water they are not generated, for 
 they both Jive and are fprung from the water of 
 mowers." Nor do they fpring from worms, as 
 fome think, " but from what are called the vitals 
 of the earth, which of their own accord acquire 
 confiftency in the mud and damp ground." And 
 they are generated wherever there may be putre- 
 faction in the fea and rivers in the fea where the 
 feaweed is thick, and round the edges of lakes 
 and rivers, for there the heat prevails moft to
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 217 
 
 caufe putrefaction. 1 A moment's reflection mews 
 how fimilar are the beliefs of labourers, and even 
 of many in higher ftations at the prefent day. 
 
 A queftion has often been raifed whether fifties 
 deep. Ariftotle has no hesitation in anfwering it 
 in the affirmative. They do not, indeed, clofe 
 their eyes ; but their motionlefs ftate, faving the 
 flow movement of the tail, proves it. In this 
 fleep he knew that they could be taken out by the 
 hand or ftruck with a ftick. The tunny-catchers, 
 too, while the tunnies are afleep, are enabled to 
 throw their nets around them. " The dolphin 
 and whale, and fuch as have an air-paflage, fleep 
 on the fea with their air-paffage projecting through 
 which they breathe, gently moving their fins ; ere 
 now fome have heard a dolphin fnoring." 2 To 
 fome fuch fable Milton alludes in his grand lines : 
 
 "that fea-beaft 
 
 Leviathan, which God of all His works 
 Created hugeft that fwim the ocean ftream ; 
 Him, haply, flumb'ring on the Norway foam, 
 The pilot of fome fmall night-founder'd fkifF 
 Deeming fome ifland, oft, as feamen tell, 
 With fixed anchor in his fcaly rind, 
 Moors by his fide under the lee, while night 
 Invefts the fea, and wifhed morn delays." 3 
 
 Among the fingular fifti which Ariftotle knows 
 and defcribes may be named the angler, or fifher- 
 frog (lopbius pt/catorius), and the electric ray 
 (raia torpedo}. The habits of life of thefe are 
 detailed, juft as modern fcience knows them : the 
 firft, with the tempting baits at the end of the long 
 
 1 Ariftot., "De An. Hift.," vi. 14, 15. 
 
 2 Ibid., iv. 10. 3 "Par. Loft," i. 200.
 
 2 1 8 Gleanings from the 
 
 line-like procefles on its head, while itfelf lies con- 
 cealed in the fand ; the fecond, with its powerful 
 natural battery, by which it ftuns fim before it 
 feizes them. He alfo mentions that it has the 
 power to benumb men, as our modern fifhermen 
 fometimes find to their coft. 1 The anthias, when 
 taken, endeavours to faw the line off on the rocks, 
 juft as falmon do, when hooked in a Scotch ftream, 
 with ledges of flate. The fcolopendra has an eafy 
 mode of efcaping the hook. When it has 
 fwallowed one it turns infide out, and, fo having 
 rejected the hook, turns back again. The fox-rim 
 has another device : it choofes the line above the 
 hook for attack, bites it through, and fo efcapes ; 
 but night-lines fet with many hooks prove fatal 
 to this fifh. Of the giants, as he calls it that 
 is the filurus Ariftotle tells a ftory which has 
 actually been proved true in the cafe of the 
 common male Englifh ftickleback {gafterofteus 
 tracburus), which thus acT:s as guard to its neft, 
 and will not allow a female to approach the eggs. 2 
 " Of river fifhes, the male glanis takes great care 
 of its young. The female, having brought them 
 into exiftence, departs; but the male, noting 
 where moft of the fpawn adheres, acls as guardian 
 of the eggs, and continues to do fo, warding ofF 
 the other little fifh left they mould deftroy the 
 brood. And this it does for forty or fifty days, 
 until the brood has grown and is able to efcape 
 
 1 For the ftatements contained in this fcftion fee a curious 
 chapter (ix. 25). 
 
 2 See Yarrell, "Hilt, of Britifh Fifhes," ii., p. 77.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 2 1 9 
 
 from other fifh. This circumftance is known by 
 the fifhers from the fadl of the fifh moaning and 
 uttering a roar when it keeps off intruders." 
 With the exception of this latter marvel, the 
 procedure of the glanis is precifely that of the 
 ftickleback. Although Ariftotle has miftaken the 
 fifh, the obfervation is acute, and mews how much 
 the philofopher was in advance of his age. The 
 habits of the fepia, in difcharging its ink, were alfo 
 familiar to him. A paragraph refpecling the 
 poulpe will mew the fingular manner in which 
 facl: and fable are mingled with the ftatements of 
 even the beft of ancient naturalifts : " Now the 
 polypus is a foolifh creature, for it will come to a 
 man's hand if he puts it into the water ; yet it is 
 a creature of fome contrivance, for it collects all 
 its prey into the den where it lives, and, when it 
 has confumed the mofl ufeful parts, it cafts out the 
 fhells and fragments of the crabs and fea-fnails and 
 the fpines of the little fifh, and chafes the fifh 
 which then come together to them, changing its 
 colour, and adapting itfelf in hue as much as 
 poffible to the ftones around. It adopts the fame 
 device when terrified." He is fomewhat narrow 
 in his views in a fucceeding fentence: "Among 
 fifh, the rhine " (feemingly a kind of mark) " is the 
 only one to change colour like the polypus." This 
 is probably a common device with moft fifh, and 
 is well known to be the cafe with trout. In Mr. 
 St. John's " Natural Hiftory and Wild Sports of 
 Moray," fome fmgular inftances are related of this
 
 22O Gleanings from the 
 
 power in trout to aflimilate their colour to their 
 furroundings. 
 
 If Ariftotle contains many facls with not a few 
 fables, Pliny's " Natural Hiftory of Fifh " confifts 
 of many fables with but few facts. He is 
 omnivorous and indifcriminating ; like his own 
 Silurus, " a great devourer, and maketh foule 
 work, for no Jiving creatures come amifTe unto 
 him ; he fetteth up all indifferently." Marvels of 
 every kind are dear to him, fuch as the Indian 
 fifties, like eels, fixty cubits long, and fo ftrong 
 that when elephants come to the river to drink, 
 they catch their trunks with their teeth, and 
 " mauger their hearts, force them downe under 
 the water." A few more fpecimens of his 
 curioufly blended facts and fancies may be given. 
 All nm fuffer much from cold, " but thofe 
 efpecially who are thought to have a ftone in 
 their head, as the pikes, the chromes, fcienze and 
 pagri." Again, " The Arcadians make wonderous 
 great account of their exocoetus, fo called for that 
 hee goeth abroad and taketh up his lodging on 
 the dry land to fleep." Ariftotle was inclined to 
 be credulous when treating of eels. Liften to 
 Pliny : " Yeeles live 8 yeares. And if the North 
 wind blow they abide alive without water 6 daies, 
 but not fo long in a Southern wind. Of all fifh, they 
 alone if they lie dead, flote not above the water." 
 The whole life-hiftory of the eel is ftill fuch an 
 enigma that readers muft be cautious how they 
 fmile at Pliny's ftories. Take the following for 
 inftance : " There is a Lake in Italy called Benacus,
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 221 
 
 through which the river Mincius runs; at the 
 ifTue whereof everie yere about the moneth of 
 October, when the Autumne ftar Arcturus, 
 whereby the lake is troubled as it were with a 
 winter ftorme and tempeft, a man mall fee rolling 
 amongft the waves a wonderfull number of thefe 
 Yeels wound and tangled one within another ; in- 
 fomuch as in the leapweeles and weernets devifed 
 for the nonce to catch them in this river, there be 
 found fometime a thoufand of them wrapped 
 together in one ball." After the merriment which 
 fuch a ftory is liable to excite has abated, it is 
 worth while turning to a book juft publimed by a 
 fimerman who has carefully ftudied the habits of 
 eels in the Broads of Norfolk. " A very curious 
 phenomenon," he fays, " is fometimes obfervable 
 in the upper waters of the Yare and Waveney : 
 the eels come down in large folid balls from one 
 to two feet in diameter, heads infide and tails out ; 
 and thefe living balls roll down the river, and 
 plump into the nets with fuch force as to carry 
 them away, for which reafon the eel-fifhers at the 
 mills dread their coming. We cannot even guefs 
 at the caufe of this fingular eel-freak." 1 
 
 The Echeneis, of courfe, is fabled by Pliny to 
 ftay mips ; " for that caufe alfo it hath but a bad 
 name in matters of love, for inchanting as it were 
 both men and women. Moreover, it hath this 
 vertue, being kept in fait, to draw up gold that is 
 fallen into a pit or well, being never fo deep, if it is 
 
 1 "The Broads of Norfolk," p. 216. Blackwood, 1883. 
 By G. C. Davies.
 
 222 Gleanings from the 
 
 let down and come to touch it." Vidlor Hugo 
 has thrilled numberlefs readers with his account of 
 the huge poulpe that attacked a man, and many 
 ftories, fabulous and otherwife, have in recent 
 years been feen in print about the fize and fierce- 
 nefs of poulpes and calamaries. Pliny gives a 
 marvellous account of the killing of fuch a 
 monfter, " whofe head was as big as a good round 
 hogfhead or barrel that would take and contain i 5 
 amphores." His words implicitly contain all the 
 fabulous as well as the true recitals concerning 
 thefe monfters which have appeared of 1'ate years. 
 Much of Pliny's " Hiftory " is a tranflation from 
 Ariftotle, with many fables and fcraps of Italian 
 folk-lore appended. We muft own to ignorance 
 of the aries or ram-nm, which muft poftefs what 
 our forefathers would have termed " a fhrewd 
 nature," for it is " a very ftrong theef at fea, and 
 makes foule work where he comes; for one 
 while he fquats clofe vnder the made of big mips 
 that ride at ranker in the bay, where he lies in 
 ambufti to wait when any man for his pleafure 
 would fwim and bath himfelf, that fo he might 
 furprife them: otherwhiles he puts out his nofe 
 above the water to fpie any fmall fiftier boats 
 comming, and then he fwimmeth clofe to them, 
 overturneth and finketh them." His teaching on 
 the generation of fifties is marked with vague 
 credulity. His anthias, too, cuts the line afunder 
 with the fharp, faw-like fins which it bears on its 
 back, while the fargons fret it in two againft a 
 fharp rock. His laft chapter on fifti is delightful,
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 223 
 
 and has been the fource of many of the fabulous 
 tales of later ages. Some fim are friendly, he tells, 
 others hateful to each other : " The Mullet and the 
 fea-Pike hate one another, and be ever at deadly 
 war ; likewife the Congre and the Lamprey ; in- 
 fomuch as they gnaw off one another's taile. The 
 Lobfter is fo afraid of the Polype, or Pourcuttell, 
 that if he fpie him neere, he evermore dieth for 
 very woe. The Lobfters are ready to fcratch and 
 teare the Congre ; the Congres, again, do as much 
 for the Polype. On the other fide there be 
 examples of friendfhip among rimes befides thofe 
 of whofe fociety and fellowmip I have already 
 written, and namely between the great whale 
 Balaena and the little Mufculus. For whereas the 
 whale aforefaid hath no ufe of his eies (by reafon 
 of the heavy weight of his eie-browes that cover 
 them), the other fwimmeth before him, ferveth 
 him inftead of eies and lights, to mow when he is 
 neere the fhelves and mallows, wherein he may be 
 foon grounded, fo big and huge he is." This 
 ftory has greatly taken the fancy of many old 
 Englifh writers, and it is evidently capable of 
 being largely moralized. For example : " The 
 ancients give for an Hierogliph of a wife Senate 
 and able Counfell a little fifh going before the 
 great whale, difcovering mallows and other 
 dangers, and mewing the way by the motitfn of 
 itfelf. This living, the whale is fafe, but being 
 dead, he knoweth not what to do." 1 
 
 1 " Sion's Plea againft the Prelacy." See, too, S. Goflbn's 
 "Schoole of Abufe" (ed. Arber), p. 55. The above citations
 
 224 Gleanings from the 
 
 The many curiofities of fifh-life are often dwelt 
 upon by mediaeval and later writers. They alfo 
 fancied that analogues of all things Jiving on earth 
 were to be found in the fea. Thus Walton writes 
 of the wonders which the Tradefcants collected 
 into their mufeum. This yet exifts under the 
 name of their friend Afhmole, at Oxford: "You 
 may there fee the Hog-fim, the Dog-fim, the 
 Dolphin, the Cony-fiih, the Parrot-fim, the Shark, 
 the Poifon-fifh," and others. And we will follow 
 his example in " fweetening this difcourfe out of a 
 contemplation in divine Du Bartas," after duly 
 cautioning readers that this poet's works, tranflated 
 into Englim by Sylvefter, form 670 folio pages of 
 the moft extreme dulnefs imaginable: 1 
 
 " God quickened in the fea and in the rivers 
 So many fifties of fo many features, 
 That in the waters we may fee all creatures 
 Even all that on the Earth are to be found, 
 As if the world were in deep waters drowned. 
 For Seas as well as Skies have Sun, Moon, Stars ; 
 As well as Air Swallows, Rooks, and Stares ; 
 As well as Earth Vines, Rofes, Nettles, Melons, 
 Mufhrooms, Pinks, Gilliflowers and many millions 
 Of other plants, more rare, more ftrange than thefe 
 As very fifties, living in the feas ; 
 As alfo Rams, Calves, Horfes, Hares and Hogs, 
 Wolves, Urchins, Lions, Elephants and Dogs, 
 Yea, Men and Maids," etc., etc. 
 
 Walton proceeds to enumerate, from Lilian and 
 
 from Pliny belong to "Nat. Hift.," ix. 15, 16, 19, 21, 22, 25, 
 30, 44, 50, 51, 59, 62 (Holland's Translation). 
 
 1 "Du Bartas, His divine Weekes and Workes, with a 
 Compleate Collection of all the other moft delightfull Workes, 
 tranflated and written by y't famous Philomufus Jofuah 
 Sylvefter, Gent." London, 1641.
 
 Natural Hi /lory of the Ancients. 225 
 
 Oppian, in whom any number of fimilar marvels 
 may be found, fome of the moft curious fimilarities 
 between fea and land creatures, the hermit, Adonis, 
 and the like. The latter fifh finds much favour 
 in his eyes, " becaufe it is a loving and innocent 
 fifh, a fifh that hurts nothing that hath life, and 
 is at peace with all the numerous inhabitants of 
 that vaft watery element ; and truly, I think, 
 moft Anglers are Jo difpojed to moft of mankind'' 1 
 Spenfer, who fwept everything into his verfe, 
 was not unmindful of the refources of pifcine 
 monfters offered him by the fea. They may 
 amufe fifhermen, when, as his own Colin fays : 
 
 " Sad winter welked hath the day, 
 And Phoebus, wearie of his yearlie tafke, 
 Yftabled hath his fteedes in lowly lay, 
 And taken up his ynne in Fifties haflce." 2 
 
 And for his unknown pifcine terrors, they are not 
 even furpafTed by the monfters of the deep which 
 Schiller makes his Diver fee in the perilous plunge 
 for the goblet. In truth, it is a gruefome cata- 
 logue : 
 
 " Eftfoones they faw an hideous hoaft arrayd 
 Of huge fea-monfters, fuch as living fence difmayd. 
 
 " Moft ugly ftiapes and horrible afpe"ls, 
 
 Such as dame Nature felfe mote feare to fee, 
 Or ftiame, that ever mould fo fowle defefts 
 From her moft cunning hand efcaped bee ; 
 All dreadful portraits of deformitee : 
 Spring-headed hydres ; and fea-fhouldring whales, 
 Great whirlpools, which all fifties make to flee ; 
 Bright fcolopendraes armd with filver fcales ; 
 
 Mighty monoceros with immeafured tayles ; 
 
 1 See " Compleat Angler," part i. 
 
 2 " The Shepheard's Calender," November.
 
 226 Gleanings from the 
 
 " The dreadful fifh, that hath deferv'd the name 
 Of Death, and like him lookes in dreadful hew ; 
 The griefly wafTerman, that makes his game 
 The flying mips with fwiftnefs to purfew ; 
 The horrible fea-fatyre, that doth {hew 
 His fearefull face in time of greateft ftorme ; 
 Huge ziffius, whom mariners efchew 
 No lefle than rockes, as trauellers informe ; 
 And greedy rofmarines with vifages deforme : 
 
 "All thefe and thoufand thoufands many more, 
 And more deformed monfters thoufand fold 
 With dreadfull noife and hollow rombling rore 
 Came rufhing, in the fomy waues enrold." 
 
 Soon afterwards Spenfer's travellers fee the five 
 Sirens, as if he was determined that the fea fhould 
 hold wonders enough. Thefe were once " faire 
 Ladies," but now 
 
 " Depriv'd 
 
 Of their proud beautie, and th* one moyity 
 Transform'd to fim for their bold furquetry ; 
 But th' upper halfe their hew retained flill, 
 And their fweet (kill in wonted melody." 
 
 The laft line, however, is worthy for its fweetnefs 
 to compare with anything which even Milton wrote 
 on mufic. 1 
 
 From fabulous to the fifh of everyday-life is 
 an eafy ftep. Another poet of the Elizabethan 
 period mail fum up the ftore of fim with which 
 Nature, niggardly in beftowing other charms, has 
 enriched Lincolnfhire. The German Ocean was 
 even in his time recognifed as the Mother of 
 Wealth : 
 
 " What fim can any more or Britifti fea-town mew 
 That's eatable to us, that it doth not beftow 
 
 1 Spenfer, "Faerie Queenc," bk. ii. xii. 23, 31.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 227 
 
 Abundantly thereon ? The herring, king of fea, 
 The fatter-feeding cod, the mackerel brought by May, 
 The dainty fole and plaice, the dab, as of their blood ; 
 The conger finely foufed, hot fummer's cooleft food ; 
 The whiting known to all, a general wholefome difh, 
 The gurnet, rochet, mayd and mullet, dainty fifh ; 
 The haddock, turbet, berb, fifh nourifhing and ftrong ; 
 The thornback and the fcate, provocative among ; 
 The weaver, which although his prickles venom be, 
 By fifhers cut away, which buyers feldom fee, 
 Yet for the fifh he bears 'tis not accounted bad ; 
 The fea-flounder is here as common as the fhad, 
 The fturgeon, cut to keggs (too big to handle whole), 
 Gives many a dainty bit out of his lufty jole." 
 
 And much more to the fame import, often profaic 
 enough, and a warning to poets who commit thern-^ 
 felves to enumerations of natural objects. We 
 will conclude with one more curious fuperftition 
 about the ofprey. Drayton's lines prove that the 
 bird was fufficiently common in Lincolnmire in his 
 time ; though, alas ! it has now been long extinct, 
 and the few that do crofs the county on migration 
 meet with the ufual fate of all rare birds, being at 
 once mot and " fet up " in glafs cafes, lafting 
 emblems of the felfim and wanton cruelty of their 
 captors : 
 
 " The ofpray oft here feen, though feldom here it breeds, 
 Which over them the fifh no fooner do efpie, 
 But (betwixt him and them by an antipathy) 
 Turning their bellies up, as though their death they faw, 
 They at his pleafure lie to fluff his glutt'nous maw." 1 
 
 1 Drayton's " Polyolbion," Song 25.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MYTHICAL ANIMALS. 
 
 " Libri Graeci miraculorum fabularumque pleni ; res inauditas, 
 incredulas ; fcriptores veteres non parvae auftoritatis." (AuL. 
 GELLIUS.) 
 
 |N Greek and Roman literature, par- 
 ticularly in the earlier authors, many 
 mythical beings are found, juft as in 
 the primitive hiftory of almoft all 
 Sometimes the philofophical reafon for a 
 belief in thefe mythical creatures is evident after 
 a little confederation. Thus the numerous worms 
 or ferpents many of which have left their trail 
 on local names, and many more in the traditional 
 folk-lore of England are undoubtedly due to the 
 old Norfe reverence for thefe creatures; perhaps 
 becaufe, in the Scandinavian cofmogony, the earth 
 was girdled by a monftrous ferpent called Jormun- 
 gandr. Again, the numerous and fantaftically- 
 fized facred fim of the Buddhifts are referable to 
 thefe devotees' fondnefs for fim ; while the mythi- 
 cally-fhaped creatures, peacocks, elephants, and
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 229 
 
 the like, common in Oriental art, are but ex- 
 aggerations of forms familiar to Eaftern tribes 
 from their infancy. In claffical literature, the 
 genius of the two nations delighted to exercife 
 itfelf in the production of grotefque monfters, 
 which fancy frequently inverted with ftriking 
 attributes; and the poets, embalming thefe con- 
 ceptions in their verfe, handed them on to 
 numerous generations of writers and ftudents of 
 ancient Greece and Rome. Wordfworth has well 
 pointed out that the natural features of Greece, 
 when pafTed through the alembic of poetic fancy, 
 at once refulted in many a beautiful, many a 
 monftrous brood of fupernatural creations : 
 
 " The Zephyrs fanning, as they patted, their wings, 
 Lacked not for love fair objefts whom they wooed 
 With gentle whifper. Withered boughs grotefque, 
 Stripped of their leaves and twigs by hoary age, 
 From depth of maggy covert peeping forth 
 Jn the low vale, or on fteep mountain-fide ; 
 And, fometimes, intermixed with ftirring horns 
 Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard, 
 Thefe were the lurking Satyrs, a wild brood 
 Of gamefome deities ; or Pan himfelf, 
 The fun pie fhepherd's awe-infpiring god." 1 
 
 Befides the richnefs of native fancy, a large 
 infufion of Oriental beliefs coloured Greek myth- 
 ology. It is exceedingly difficult to eftimate the 
 amount and value of thefe importations. Save in 
 the " Odyfley," Homer is comparatively free from 
 them. There he feems intentionally to have 
 dowered his verfe with much of the richnefs and 
 many of the fantaftic character iftics of the Eaft. 
 
 1 See "The Excurfion," pp. 134-139.
 
 230 Gleanings from the 
 
 Phoenician failors and merchants brought into 
 Greece a flock of marvels which they may have 
 gathered from fuch ftory-tellers as may yet be 
 heard in Bagdad, and read of in the pages of 
 the " Arabian Nights." Many of the mipwrecks 
 of Odyfleus, the marvels of Circe's ifland, the 
 prodigies vifible to the hero in the Necyia, are of 
 a diftinctly Eaftern dye. The Orontes did not 
 flow alone into the Tiber ; and tales of travellers, 
 always acceptable to ftay-at-home folk, came with 
 a natural fitnefs from the fertile lands of the Eaft 
 to the Weftern World. How greatly the Greeks 
 were indebted to the Egyptians for much of their 
 fyftem of divinities, and efpecially for fo many of 
 their conceptions of the future ftate, may be feen 
 in Herodotus. The fables of Charon and his 
 obole, of Cerberus, of the ftern Rhadamanthus, 
 and the like, are fpecimens of this mythology of 
 Hades. The worfhip of Aphrodite and Hercules 
 came to Greece from the Phoenician cult of 
 Aftarte and Melkarth. The revels connected 
 with the worfhip of Dionyfus were due to Egypt. 
 Over and above the fyftems of the greater 
 divinities which were elaborated by the Greeks 
 and Romans, they were exceedingly hofpitable to 
 the gods of conquered lands. Thefe were intro- 
 duced with much of the flrange ritual connected 
 with them, and large numbers of the vulgar were 
 carried away with their worfhip. Many ftrange 
 and grotefque conceptions of what may be termed 
 popular mythology alfo fucceeded in entering the 
 clailical lands feme from one caufe, fome from
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 231 
 
 another. Thus Herodotus appears to have taken, 
 so Heeren fuppofes, a caravan journey through 
 North Africa, as defcribed by him in iv. 181-185 ; 
 and we can trace the marvels which were told him 
 in his journey becoming, on his return, part and 
 parcel of Greek thought. To this were due the 
 marvellous animals which his defcription of a large 
 ftrip of territory, being O^twSj/c, weftward of the 
 river Triton, allowed the play of fancy at once to 
 create : oxen which fed backwards, owing to the 
 projection of their horns in front ; fnakes, lions, 
 elephants, bears, afps, horned wild affes, dog- 
 headed apes, monfters with no heads and eyes in 
 their chefts, " as the Libyans tell, and wild men 
 and wild women, and multitudes of other creatures 
 in nowife fabulous," as the hiftorian feelingly fays. 1 
 It is curious that the monftrous creatures which 
 Robinfon Crufoe met are placed by Defoe in this 
 region. Moft probably many of thefe reports 
 were induftrioufly fpread abroad by the Cartha- 
 ginians to prevent troublefome neighbours from 
 interfering with their commerce ; but much muft 
 be afligned to the tendency of all ignorance to 
 exaggerate. Here, too, was the country of the 
 Garamantes, Lotophagi, and others, where Greek 
 fancy could plant marvels of any kind ; much as 
 our popular writers take New Guinea and the 
 Cannibal Iflands for the home of their ideal 
 monfters. 
 
 Modern philology has done much to winnow 
 the corn from the chaff in thefe mythological 
 
 1 Herod., iv. 191.
 
 232 Gleanings from the 
 
 fpeculations. It is now generally recognised that 
 aftronomical phenomena, the fucceflion of day and 
 night, the proceffion of the fun through the figns 
 of the zodiac, and the like, underlie many of the 
 moft grotefque of thefe claflical beliefs. " By a 
 fucceflion of the moft fortunate circumftances, the 
 aftronomical books of three of the principal 
 religions of the ancient world have lately been 
 recovered the Veda, the Zend-Avefta, and the 
 Tripitaka. But not only have we thus gained 
 accefs to the moft authentic documents from 
 which to ftudy the ancient religion of the Brah- 
 mans, the Zoroaftrians, and the Buddhifts, but by 
 difcovering the real origin of Greek, Roman, and 
 likewife of Teutonic, Celtic, and Slavonic myth- 
 ology, it has become poflible to feparate the truly 
 religious elements in the facred traditions of thefe 
 nations from the mythological cruft by which they 
 are furrounded, and thus to gain a clearer infight 
 into the real faith of the ancient Aryan world." 1 
 It may, however, be reafonably doubted whether 
 the univerfal folvent of a folar myth has not been 
 too frequently applied. Many of the mythological 
 animals of the ancients appear to have been created 
 for a moral purpofe ; therefore it is out of place to 
 regard them as emblems of aftronomical phe- 
 nomena. " Upon deliberate confideration," fays 
 Lord Bacon, "my judgment is that a concealed 
 inftruction and allegory was originally intended in 
 many of the ancient fables." And the Jeaft 
 
 1 Max Miiller, " Selefted Eflays" (Longmans, 1881), vol. i., 
 p. 5.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 233 
 
 reflection will mew to a believer in revelation that 
 the Greeks often fpake of things higher than they 
 knew when they difcourfed of mythical animals 
 and events. Thefe ftories are many of them waifs 
 and ftrays which have floated down the ftream of 
 time from the original home of the human race. 
 They are part of the fairy-tales told in the nurfery 
 of man during the infancy of the world, drawn by 
 the Greeks and Romans from " the common flock 
 of ancient tradition, and varied but in point of 
 embellimment, which is their own. And this 
 principally raifes my efteem of thefe fables ; which 
 I receive, not as the product of the age or inven- 
 tion of the poets, but as facred relics, gentle 
 whifpers, and the breath of better times, that 
 from the traditions of more ancient nations came 
 at length into the flutes and trumpets of the 
 Greeks." 1 In purfuance of this view, Lord 
 Bacon explains Typhon to mean a rebel ; Proteus, 
 matter ; the Sphinx, fcience ; the Sirens, pleafures ; 
 and Scylla and Charybdis, the middle way ; and fo 
 forth. The Cyclopes again, fo poetically defcribed 
 by Virgil : 
 
 " Centum alii curva haec habitant at littora vulgo 
 Infandi Cyclopes, et altis montibus errant ;" 
 
 and again : 
 
 " Cernimus adftantes necquidquam lumine torvo 
 fratres, .... concilium horrendum," 
 
 become, in his view, minifters of terror aflifting a 
 defpotifm. The poets, however, do not feem to 
 
 1 Bacon's " Wifdom of the Ancients," Preface.
 
 234 Gleanings from the 
 
 bear him out in this interpretation ; with them 
 the Cyclopes rather reprefent the exceflive toil 
 required in forging iron, and fhew that the 
 bleffings of civilization are only attained by 
 conftant and unenviable labours " as when the 
 Cyclopes haftily forge thunderbolts out of tough 
 mafles of metal ; fome take in and blow out the 
 gales of heaven from their bellows of bullhide, 
 others dip the hiding bronze into the lake. ^Etna 
 groans at the weight of the anvils placed upon 
 her. They, vying with one another with mighty 
 force, raife their arms together, and turn with 
 ftout-holding forceps the weighty iron." 1 
 
 Kingfley opined that our own Teutonic fore- 
 fathers imported their elves, trolls, pixies, and the 
 like, from the heart of Ana. They feem to us 
 rather a fpontaneous growth of the northern 
 mind, fuited to the attributes of the " blamelefs 
 Hyperboreans," who gave them birth. No 
 monftrous brood are they, fwelling with envy and 
 rage againft heaven and earth, like Hylasus, 
 Typhoeus, and the remnants of the giants of 
 Grecian fancy, but kindly houfehold fprites, will- 
 ing to be friendly with man ; and, if a little trickfy 
 at times, eafily appealed by a bowl of milk, a 
 fremly-baked cake, or the like. Even Thor and 
 Odin (Thunder and Wind) were magnanimous and 
 placable, if huge and all-powerful. Images of 
 terror and fuperhuman force and cruelty naturally 
 affecled the Greeks in their beautiful land and 
 mild, foporific climate. The Scandinavians, on 
 
 1 Virgil, " .<n.," iii. 634, 677 ; " Gcorg.," iv. 170-175.
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 235 
 
 the other hand, with their barren cliffs, vaft 
 precipices, and ftern lengthy winters, were more 
 accemble in the way of contraft to gentler and 
 fofter beings who would refine the ruggednefs of 
 their national character. Yet early northern art, 
 like Greek poetry, played with and expanded its 
 types of the fupernatural into a thoufand quaint 
 interlaced devices. That Chriftianity underlaid 
 moft of thefe curious carvings, fo familiar to 
 admirers of Pictifh or Scandinavian ftone-fculpture, 
 is manifeft from the circumftance of the crofs in 
 fome floriated and interwoven pattern frequently 
 forming the foundation of a wealth of ornamenta- 
 tion and imagery. In this crofs are often found 
 fine bofTes or holes (for the five wounds of our 
 Lord), juft as is fo frequently obferved in the fine 
 crofles of Cornwall. The imagination of the 
 carvers was allowed to run riot round this fymbol 
 of falvation. Among the moft lovely twifted 
 cable-patterns are feen on the old Scotch ftones 
 birds, fifh kifTmg each other (as at Mortlach), deer 
 purfuing each other (Elgin), horfe-headed fifh 
 (Upper Manbean), ferpents, bulls, horfes, bears, 
 fifh with the adipofe fin reprefented proving how 
 carefully the artift had copied nature galleys, 
 reindeer (near Grantown), wild boars with very 
 confpicuous tufks, ospreys eating fifh, and the 
 like. " The eye," fays Burton, " becomes almoft 
 tired with the endlefs fuccefTion of grim and 
 ghaftly human figures, of diftorted limbs, of pre- 
 ternatural beafts, birds, and fifhes, of dragons, 
 centaurs, and entwined fnakes." The germs of
 
 236 Gleanings from the 
 
 this charadleriftically circular ornamentation may 
 be feen in the fingular curves and circles of early 
 Celtic and prehiftoric times, many of which are 
 ftill preferved in ftone. And yet there are points 
 to connect Scandinavian with Oriental ftone- 
 fculpture. Even in Ceylon (tones may be feen 
 with elephants, crefcents, ferpents, and geefe 
 carved on them. At Canna, in the Hebrides, in 
 a little churchyard, a broken crofs of yellow fand- 
 ftone exifts bearing curious carvings, and, among 
 other things, exhibiting a camel, 1 " the only 
 inftance of it known in Scotland." Lions are 
 alfo, at lead twice, found among the creatures 
 carved on the fculptured ftones of Scotland. Such 
 marvellous kinfhip is there between the different 
 families of the human race ; fo curioufly have 
 early beliefs expanded, mrunk, difappeared, and 
 again emerged in the moft unexpected localities. 
 
 Another fertile fource of zoological myths 
 among the ancients was their total ignorance in 
 many cafes, in others what is equally dangerous, 
 their little knowledge of natural hiftory. Pliny 
 knew a little about the cuckoo, for inftance ; but, 
 trading on this, he fimply invented the fable that 
 it is eaten by its own kind. This tendency may 
 often be feen in his recitals. The fea-monfter, 
 /cfjroc, was idealized from the large marks of the 
 Mediterranean by the help, in all probability, of 
 
 1 "The Hebrides," by Mifs Gordon Gumming, 1883, 
 p. 112. See alfo " Rude Stone Monuments," by FergufTon, 
 paflim; The Sculptured Stones of Scotland " (Spalding Club), 
 2 vols. fol., by John Stuart, 1856-67; "The Bookhunter," 
 J. H. Burton, p. 396 (Edinburgh, 1863).
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 237 
 
 Phoenician traditions of whales; and then the next 
 ftep was eafy, the ftories of Andromeda and 
 Hefione, and their releafe by heroes. Similarly 
 the hydra 1 was magnified from the fnake. The 
 Harpies, too, which inhabited the Strophades, 
 were faint fhadows of travellers' tales from the 
 Eaft. Large bats were fpeedily transformed by 
 credulous wonder into 
 
 " Virginei volucrum vultus, foediffima ventris 
 Proluvies, uncaeque manus, et pallida Temper 
 Ora fame ;" 
 
 and then the poet may well add, " Triftius haud 
 illis monftrum." 2 
 
 The procefs of mythological creation can be 
 feen in the " OdyfTey," where the word Harpy firft 
 occurs. In it Harpies are fimply ftorm-winds 
 which fweep off" their victims ; the fouler features 
 were afterwards added. 3 Once more, the griffin 
 was fabled to pofTefs a lion's body, with an eagle's 
 face and wings. When we are told that it was 
 faid to guard the gold-mines in the country of the 
 Arimafpi, we are at no Jofs to difcover the reafon 
 which prompted its creation. 4 It is not fo eafy to 
 trace the genefis of the Chimaera, " the invincible 
 Chimasra," as Homer terms it, " which was of 
 divine, and not of mortal lineage, a lion in front, 
 a dragon behind, and a fhe-goat in the midft, 
 breathing forth the dreadful might of blazing 
 
 1 " Quinquaginta atris immanis hiatibus Hydra 
 
 Saevior intus habet fedem." Virgil, " JEn.," vi. 576. 
 
 2 Virgil, "^En.," iii. 214, and 223 feq. 
 
 3 Odyffey," xx. 77. 
 
 4 See Virgil, " Eel.," viiL 27, and the note of Forbiger.
 
 238 Gleanings from the 
 
 fire." 1 At all events, it ferved Virgil for an obje6t 
 on which to expend his imagination when it 
 figured on the helmet of Turnus : 
 
 " Cui triplici crinita juba galea alta Chimasram 
 Suftinet, ^Etnaeos efflantem faucibus ignes ; 
 Tarn magis ilia fremens, et triftibus effera flammis, 
 Quam magis efFufo crudefcunt fanguine pugnae." 
 
 And the Laureate was probably indebted to it for 
 the fine imagery of his hero Arthur's helmet which 
 Guinevere faw, 
 
 " Wet with the mifts and fmitten by the lights, 
 The Dragon of the great Pendragonfhip 
 Blaze, making all the night a ftream of fire." 
 
 Occasionally the poets, and efpecially the fyf- 
 tematizers of the national theology, from one 
 monfter fabled the birth of others. Thus from 
 Typhoeus and Echidna, Geryon, Orthos, Cerberus 
 and the Hydra were faid to have fprung. 
 Naturally, this principle was capable of indefinite 
 expanfion in the hands of imaginative writers. 
 Natural but unfamiliar objects fupplied the 
 nucleus round which other myths might centre. 
 Thus the aftonimment of their neighbours when 
 they firft beheld the ThefTalians mounted on 
 horfeback led to the formation of thofe fabulous 
 creatures, the Centaurs. The Greeks, it is well 
 known, at the fiege of Troy were unacquainted 
 with the art of riding. Again, the fight and 
 found of a roaring whirlpool, with much broken 
 water and furf, furnimed the hint for fome fea- 
 fong, which told of Scylla and her fix heads, each 
 
 1 "II.," vi. 179; and " JEn." vii. 785.
 
 Natural Hiflory of the Ancients. 239 
 
 poffefled of three rows of teeth, while below the 
 waift fhe developed into frightful dogs, which 
 never ceafed barking. Then the poets amplified 
 to their own liking. Thus Homer, " the great 
 father of them all :" 
 
 " Now, in the middle of the cliff is a darkling 
 cavern, looking weftward, turned towards Erebus, 
 nor in {both could a vigorous man from a hollow fhip 
 having mot an arrow penetrate with it the depths of 
 that hollow cave. Therein dwells Scylla, barking 
 terribly. Her voice is like that of a young 
 whelp, and herfelf is, in truth, a monftrous woe ; 
 nor would anyone rejoice when he beheld her, nor 
 even a god, if he approached her. All her twelve 
 feet are mif-mapen, and her fix necks are very long, 
 and fet on each is a terrible head, with three ranks 
 of teeth in it, many and crowded together, full of 
 black death. Up to the midft of her fhe is funk 
 in the hollow cavern, but thrufts out her heads 
 from its dreadful gulf. And there fhe fifties, 
 gazing round the cliff for dolphins, and fea-dogs, 
 and any greater monfter which fhe can feize, 
 whereof deep-voiced Amphitrite tends many 
 thoufands." 1 The undefined horror of much of 
 this defcription largely enhances its terror. What, 
 for inftance, is more ftriking than the expreffion, 
 "teeth full of black death"? Had Virgil been 
 contented with his Scylla, and the cliffs refounding 
 with blue fea-dogs, his monfter would have gained 
 in vaftnefs and awe; but he muft needs par- 
 ticularize, and at once the charm of the " monftrum, 
 1 Horn., " Od.," xii. 89.
 
 240 Gleanings from the 
 
 horrendum, informe, ingens," difappears. " A 
 cave reftrains Scylla with its dark receffes as me 
 thrufts forth her mouths and drags {hips on to the 
 rocks. Above, me bears the countenance of a 
 man, and as far as her loins is a virgin, with 
 beautiful breafts ; her extremities form a fea- 
 monfter " (piftrix\ " with huge body and the 
 womb of wolves attached to the tails of dolphins." 1 
 A pretty account of the transformation of Scylla 
 into this fea-monfter may be found in Ovid 
 (" Met.," xiv. 60-67). The poetic inftincl, how- 
 ever, is ftrong with Virgil ; when defcribing the 
 defcent of two Centaurs from fnowy mountains he 
 refrains from particulars, and merely calls them 
 " nubigenas " 2 cloud-fprung. Though primarily 
 denoting their parentage, the epithet is in other 
 ways a happy one from its indefinitenefs. 
 
 Even fifty years before the Chriftian era, not 
 only the monftrous creatures above fpoken of, but 
 alfo the ordinary deities, were only believed in by 
 the vulgar. Philofophers, however, either tacitly 
 endured or treated them with open contempt. 
 "The very children and old women ridiculed 
 Cerberus and the Furies, or treated them as mere 
 metaphors of confcience. In the deifm of Cicero, 
 the popular divinities were difcarded, the oracles 
 refuted and ridiculed, the whole fyftem of divina- 
 tion pronounced a political impofture, and the 
 genefis of the miraculous traced to the exuberance 
 of the imagination, and to certain difeafes of the 
 judgment." 3 Comedy at Athens early learnt to 
 
 1 Virgil, "^En.," iii. 426. 2 Virgil, "^En.," vii. 674. 
 8 Lecky's " Hiflory of European Morals," vol. i., p. 165.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 24 1 
 
 mock at the popular gods, and naturally at fuch 
 mythological monfters and heroes as Homer had 
 reverently recounted as feen by his hero in Hades, 
 Tityos lying on nine roods of ground, and ever 
 devoured by two vultures ; Tantalus up to his 
 chin in water, with the fineft fruit hanging before 
 him from branches which he could never grafp, 
 and the like. 1 The forms of thefe favourites of the 
 poets lingered, however, in art ; fculptors, painters, 
 potters, glyptic artifts, gladly availed themfelves 
 of their fantaftic fhapes, as had the old poets 
 before them. Cyclops and the Harpies, Medufa's 
 head and the hundred-eyed Argus are examples in 
 point. Thus Pegafus becomes the type of Corinth 
 on the coins of Auguftus, and the Sphinx of 
 Egypt. The Siren, half-bird, half-virgin, repre- 
 fents Cumas. The Chimaera is another emblem ol 
 Corinth. The Centaur Chiron and the Griffin are 
 found on late coins dedicated to Apollo. Others 
 are to be feen on bas-reliefs and vafes. If they 
 ever poflefled any conftraining moral or religious 
 force, it has long evaporated ; but the poet and 
 the artift are ftill thankful for thefe old mytholo- 
 gical forms. For them, 
 
 " Vinftus fedet immanis ferpentibus Otos, 
 Devinftum maeilus procul afpiciens Ephialten ;" 
 
 and 
 
 " Cerberus et diris fiagrat latratibus ora, 
 Anguibus hinc atque hinc horrent cui colla reflexis, 
 Sanguineique micant ardorem luminis orbes." 2 
 
 2 Virgil, "Culex," 219, 233. 
 R
 
 242 Gleanings from the 
 
 In the fame manner Spenfer depicts in a famous 
 ftanza the fingular group of objects drawn from 
 ancient monftrofities and romantic conceptions 
 with which were decorated the walls of the houfe 
 of Imagination : 
 
 " His chamber was difpaintcd all within 
 With fondry colours, in the which were writ 
 Infinite fhapes of thinges difperfed thin ; 
 Some fuch as in the world were never yit, 
 Ne can devized be of mortall wit ; 
 Some daily feene and knowen by their names 
 Such as in idle fantafies do flit ; 
 Infernall hags, centaurs, feendes, hippodames, 
 Apes, lyons, aegles, owles, fooles, lovers, children, dames." 1 
 
 It can hardly be faid, therefore, as Aulus Gellius 
 too confidently affirms, that marvels and prodigies 
 f'.ich as we have named are of no importance, 
 *' ad ornandum juvandumque ufum vitas." 2 He 
 himfelf, on landing from Greece at Brundifium, 
 tells us how eagerly he rufhed to a bookfeller's 
 mop, bought up a quantity of books containing 
 fuch recitals at a cheap rate, and then devoured 
 them in two confecutive nights. In fhort, the 
 imagination muft be fed, like the bodily appetite ; 
 and ftories of marvels muft at times be ferved up 
 to it, when they are as grateful after a period of 
 abftention as highly-feafoned viands are at certain 
 times to the bodily tafte. They ferved for ruder 
 ages the fame end which our own novels of 
 character and flight incident perform for more 
 critical readers. They amufe and infenfibly inftruct. 
 It was impofTible for an ancient Greek to liften to 
 
 1 " Faerie Queene," ii. 9, 50. 
 
 2 Aulus Gellius, ix. 4.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 24^ 
 
 the hunting of the mighty Calydonian boar without 
 his own pulfes beating the quicker the next time 
 he found himfelf chafing a dangerous quarry in 
 the Theflalian mountains ; nor could he ever hear 
 the recital of Cyclops's cannibal feaft and portentous 
 gluttony, as told in the "Odyffey," without having 
 his own character directed to that moderation and 
 chaftened fpirit which are among the fpecial 
 attributes of his nation. Though difcredited, they 
 ftill hold their own in the national Olympus, 
 mutely inculcating a horror of the monftrous 
 appetites of favagery. 
 
 He who would gauge the credulity of our fore- 
 fathers in the matter of monfters mould confult 
 Topfel's "Hiftory of Four-footed Beafts," 1658. 
 There he will find marvellous accounts and illuf- 
 trations of the fea-horfe, the fu, the water-fheep, 
 the tartarine, and the mantichora. Topfel ob- 
 tained his notion of this horrific creature from 
 Ctefias, but his print of it is fo amazing, that it 
 was certainly evolved from imagination.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 OYSTERS AND PEARLS. 
 
 "Parum fcilicet fuerat in gulas condi maria, nifi manibus, 
 auribus, capite, totoque corpore a foeminis juxta virifque gefta- 
 rentur." (PLINY, Nat. ////?., ix. 35.) 
 
 IGHLY prized as pearls have been 
 whenever they could be procured, 
 the Greeks feem to have known 
 little or nothing of them ; and yet 
 the Phoenicians, thofe matter-mariners of antiquity, 
 % might well be fuppofed to have trafficked in 
 them, when they 
 
 " Saw the merry Grecian coafter come, 
 
 Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, 
 Green burfting figs, and tunnies fteeped in brine, 
 And knew the intruders on their ancient home." 
 
 It might have been thought, too, that Homer 
 would have hung a carcanet of pearls round 
 Helen's neck, or powdered the braided treffes of 
 Circe and Calypfo with them, when he wiihed to 
 enhance their beauty. Until the firft century 
 before Chrift they were not abundant, or objects
 
 Natural Hiflory of the Ancients. 245 
 
 of ordinary luxury at Rome. During the reigns 
 of the Caefars, in the firft century after Chrift, 
 pearls were highly valued, and were prominently 
 difplayed by the Romans at 
 
 " Their fumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feafts 
 On citron tables or Atlantic ftone, 
 Their wines of Setia, Cales and Falerne, 
 Chios, and Crete," 
 
 when they would 
 
 " Quaff in gold, 
 
 Cryftal, and myrrhine cups, embofTed with gems 
 And ftuds of pearl." 1 
 
 The oyfter, however, was well known to the 
 Greeks. In early times, indeed, it feems to have 
 been curioufly defpifed as an article of food. The 
 only time that it is mentioned in Homer is when 
 Patroclus, in the " Iliad," hurls Cebriones, the 
 charioteer of Hector, from his place in the chariot, 
 and, after_ the fafhion of the time, mocks him : 
 " Ye gods ! truly he is an active man ! How 
 cleverly he dives ! If, indeed, he were on the 
 fifhy fea, this fellow would fatisfy many men by 
 groping on the bottom for oyfters, leaping off his 
 fhip even if it were very ftormy weather, fo cleverly 
 does he now dive head-foremoft from his chariot 
 to the plain!" 2 This paffage is curious both in 
 itfelf, and alfo becaufe it was much ufed in con- 
 troverfy by the Chorizontes (thofe who would 
 affign the " Iliad " and " Odyffey " to different 
 authors), inafmuch as the Homer of the " Iliad," 
 it was faid, does not introduce his heroes as eaters 
 
 J "Par. Regained," iv. 114. 
 2 "II.," xvi. 14.5.
 
 246 Gleanings from the 
 
 of fifh, but the author of the " Odyfley " does 
 (" OdyfTey," xii. 330-332). On the other hand, it 
 was replied by the Scholiaft with a delightfully un- 
 fcientific, if conclufive, argument, that they who 
 are accuftomed to eat oyfters may be confidered to 
 know the ufe of fifh in diet. A Homeric hero, 
 however, would as foon have thought of eating 
 fifh as a hero of Dr. Johnfon's time would have 
 drunk claret. 1 Ariftotle gives an elaborate account 
 of the oyfter's habits and anatomy : " It has the 
 ftrangeft nature of ail creatures, its body being 
 altogether concealed in fhell. It poflefTes two 
 openings, fome little diftance from each other, 
 very fmall, and not eafy to be difcerned, by 
 means of which it takes in and fends out water ;" 
 and more of fimilar import. He treats its fenfes 
 with fcant reverence ; but we know that an oyfter 
 pofTeiTes heart, liver, mouth, gills, and other 
 organs, to fay nothing of a capacious ftomach and 
 ciliary appendages, which bring a conftant ftream 
 of water and food to its mouth. What chiefly 
 ftruck the ancient Greeks with regard to its 
 economy is what firft imprelTes a child at prefent, 
 the clofe manner in which it clings to the rock. 
 Plato employs this habit of the oyfter in a beautiful 
 paflage : " We have given a true account of the 
 foul," he fays, " in its prefent appearance ; but we 
 have looked at it in a ftate like that of the fea-god 
 Glaucus, whofe original nature can no longer be 
 
 1 " Sir, claret is the liquor for boys ; port for men : but he 
 who afpires to be a hero " (fmiling) " muft drink brandy." 
 (Bofwell, vol. iii., p. 411, ed. 1816.)
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 247 
 
 readily difcerned by the eye, becaufe the old 
 members of his body have been either broken off 
 or crufhed, and in every way marred by the action 
 of the waves ; and becaufe extraneous fubftances 
 like oyfters, and fea- weeds, and ftones have 
 attached themfelves to him, fo that he refembles 
 any other monfter than his natural fhape : fo with 
 refpect to the foul, we behold it affected by ten 
 thoufand evils." And he continues : " We muft 
 look at its philofophical nature, and muft confider 
 to what it clings and what company it longs for, 
 inafmuch as it is kindred with the Divine, and the 
 Immortal, and the Ever-exifting ; and what it 
 would become were it wholly to follow thefe 
 attributes, and by this impulfe be borne upwards 
 out of the iea in which it now lies, and dif- 
 encumbered of the ftones and oyfters, and the 
 many earthy, ftony, and harm fubftances, which 
 have clung to it in confequence of its feafting 
 upon earth, at thofe banquetings which are deemed 
 fo happy." 1 
 
 Pliny difregards the oyfter in comparifon with 
 its parafite, the pearl. It furnifhes him with 
 forrowful reflections upon the luxury of his age, 
 the coftlinefs and hazard with which it is fought 
 for : " Principium culmenque omnium rerum 
 pretii margaritas tenent." Fine pearls are fupplied 
 by the Indian Ocean ; " and yet, to come by 
 them, we muft go and fearch among thofe huge 
 and terrible monfters of the fea which we have 
 fpoken of before. We muft pafs over fo many 
 1 Plato, "Repub.," 611 D.
 
 248 Gleanings from the 
 
 feas, and faile into far countries fo remote, and 
 come into thofe parts where the heate of the fun is 
 fo exceflive and extreme, and, when all is done, 
 we may perhaps mifle of them." But the beft 
 are found in the Perfian Gulf. ProfefTor Skeat 
 confiders the word " pearl " derived from the Low 
 Latin " perula " or " pirula," a little pear, the 
 diminutive of " pirum." Whether from defign or 
 mifprint, his view is curioufly borne out by 
 Holland in the following words : " This fhell-fim, 
 which is the mother of Pearle, differs not much 
 in the maner of breeding and generation from the 
 Oyfters ; for when the feafon of the yeare requireth 
 that they mould engender, they feeme to yawne 
 and gape, and fo do open wide; and then (by 
 report) they conceive a certaine moift dewe as 
 feed, wherewith they fwell and grow big, and 
 when time commeth labor to be delivered thereof; 
 and the fruit of thefe mell-fifhes are the Peares 
 [yfc], better or worfe, great or fmall, according to 
 the qualitie and quantitie of the dew which they 
 received. For if the dew were pure and cleare 
 which went into them, then are the Pearles white, 
 faire, and Orient ; but if grofle and troubled, the 
 Pearles Jikewife are dimme, foul, and dufkifh." 
 This conceit of pearls being fprung from dew runs 
 through much mediaeval poetry, and is a favourite 
 fancy with theologians. What was regarded as 
 playful imagination in Lord Beaconsfield's ftory of 
 the jeweller coming down once a year to wipe the 
 duchefs's pearls and Jay them gently in the fun 
 with a fouth wind, has its prototype in Pliny.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 249 
 
 He fays the colour of pearls becomes yellow or 
 remains white, like the complexion, according as 
 they are expofed to much or little funmine. And 
 yet, " as orient as they be, they waxe yellow with 
 age, become riveled, and looke dead, without any 
 lively vigor ; fo as that commendable orient luftre 
 (fo much fought for of our great lords and coftly 
 dames) continueth but in their youth and decaieth 
 with yeares." 
 
 Some fhells were kept at Rome for perfume- 
 cafes, and in them the pearls were left adhering to 
 the halves. The pearl itfelf was fuppofed by 
 Pliny to be foft and tender in the water, but to 
 grow hard when once removed. If he exaggerates 
 the danger of the fhell clofing upon the hand, he 
 does not fufficiently dwell upon the perils which 
 the ihell-divers run from the attacks of marks. 
 Thefe are their moft dreaded foes. It is worth 
 while tranfcribing fome more of his quaint fancies 
 in Holland's words : " Let the niher looke well 
 to his fingers, for if me catch his hand between, 
 off it goeth ; fo trenchant and fharp an edge me 
 carrieth, that is able to cut it quite a-two. And 
 verily this is a juft punimment for the theefe, 
 and none more : albeit me be furnifhed and armed 
 with other means of revenge. For they keep for 
 the moft part about craggie rocks, and are there 
 found ; and if they lie in the deepe, accompanied 
 lightly they are with curft fea-dogs. And yet 
 all this will not ferve to fltar men away from 
 fiming after them; for why? our dames and 
 gentlewomen muft have their eares behanged
 
 250 Gleanings from the 
 
 with them, there is no remedie. Some fay that 
 thefe mother-pearles have their kings and captaines, 
 as Bees have ; that as they have their fwarmes led 
 by a mafter-Bee, fo every troup and companie of 
 thefe have one fpeciall great and old one to con- 
 duct it, and fuch commonly have a fingular dexteritie, 
 and wonderfull gift to prevent and avoid all 
 daungers. Thefe they be that the dyvers after 
 pearles are moft carefull to come by, for if they be 
 once caught, the reft fcatter afunder and be foone 
 taken up within the nets." He knew of their 
 being laid in heaps, as at prefent, until, on the 
 creature dying, the pearls are found in the fhells. 
 A good pearl ought to poflefs five qualities: it 
 mould be orient (glittering), white, great, round, 
 fmooth, and weighty. The beft pearls, when thefe 
 qualities meet in them, were known at Rome as 
 " Unions," " as a man would fay Singular, and by 
 themfelves alone. The Greeks have no fuch 
 tearmes for them, neither know they how to cal 
 them ; nor yet the Barbarians, who found them 
 firft out, otherwife than Margaritae." 1 Their 
 higheft praife, he adds, is to be called exaluminati, 
 i.e. orient, and clear as alum. Pear-ftiaped pearls, 
 (or elenchi] were greatly valued ; " our dames take 
 a great pride in a brauerie, to haue thefe not only 
 hang dangling at their fingers, but alfo two or three 
 of them together pendant at their eares." They took 
 pleafure in hearing them when thus hung knock 
 
 1 This word " margarita," fo well-known in modern languages, 
 is faid to be derived from a Sanfcrit word manaarita, " the 
 pure." (See Trench, " Parables," 6th ed., p. 1 30.)
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 25 1 
 
 together like cymbals ; hence fuch pearls were 
 called crotalia. All this luxury once more tempts 
 him to moralize. " Now adayes alfo it is growne 
 to this paiTe, that meane women and poore mens 
 wives affect to weare them, becaufe they would be 
 thought rich, and a by-word it is amongft them, 
 That a faire pearle at a woman's eare is as good 
 in the ftreet where me goeth as an huimer to make 
 way, for that every one will give fuch the place. 1 
 Nay, our gentlewomen are come now to weare 
 them upon their feet, and not at their shoo-latchets 
 only, but alfo vpon their ftartups and fine bufldns, 
 which they garnifh all ouer with pearle. For it 
 will not fuffice nor ferue their turne to carie pearles 
 about them, but they muft tread upon pearles, goe 
 among pearles, and walke, as it were, on a paue- 
 ment of pearle." 
 
 Some pearles, but few and fmall ones, were 
 found in the Bofphorus, and off the coafts of 
 Acarnania and Mauretania. From thefe Pliny 
 pafTes to a notorious example of wafteful excefs 
 and intolerable pride. " I myfelfe have feen Lollia 
 Paulina (late wife and after widdow to Caius 
 Caligula the emperor), when me was drefTed and 
 fet out, not in ftately wife nor of purpofe for 
 fome great folemnity, but only when me was to 
 go to a wedding fupper, or rather unto a feaft 
 
 \ To fhow how diffufe is Dr. Philemon Holland, it is worth 
 while contrafting this fentence with the terfe beauty of the 
 original : " Affeftantque jam et pauperes, lidlorem foeminaE in 
 publico unionem efle didlitantes." Yet is Holland's quaintnefs 
 not difpleafing. " Huifhcr " is our modern " ufher," and " ftart- 
 ups" are high fhoes.
 
 252 Gleanings from the 
 
 when the affurance was made, and great perfons 
 they were not that made the faid feaft," (mediocrium 
 etiam fponfalium coena), " I have feen her, I fay, 
 fo befet and bedeckt all over with hemeraulds and 
 pearles, difpofed in rewes, ranks, and courfes, one 
 by another, round about the attire of her head, 
 her cawle, her borders, her peruk of hair, her 
 bondgrace " (high hood over the forehead), " and 
 chaplet ; at her ears pendant, about her neck in a 
 carcanet, upon her wreft in bracelets, and on her 
 fingers in rings, that me glittered and mon again 
 like the fun as me went. The value of these 
 ornaments me efteemed and rated at 400 hundred 
 thoufand Seftertii." When Pliny mentally com- 
 pares this luxury with the fimple array of fuch 
 old Romans as Curius or Fabricius even while 
 triumphing, he cannot forbear bitter reflections. 
 Who would not have wimed that they had been 
 pulled out of their chariots and never triumphed, 
 than. that their victories mould have let into Rome 
 fuch a flood of coftly ornaments ! As for Lollia 
 herfelf, me may fitly point a moral. All thefe 
 jewels came to her from her uncle, M. Lollius, 
 and were the fruit of his extortions and outrageous 
 exactions from different provinces. Yet the end 
 was that, lofing the friendmip of Caligula, and 
 being accufed of bribery and corruption, he " dranke 
 a cup of poifon, and preuented his judiciall trial ; 
 that forfooth his neece Lollia, all to be hanged 
 with jewels of 400 hundred thoufand Seftertii, 
 mould be feene glittering and looked at of euery 
 man by candle-light all a fupper time."
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 253 
 
 Pliny alfo tells the ftory of Cleopatra and the 
 precious pearl, which fhe diflblved in vinegar and 
 then fwallowed, in order to carry out her vain- 
 glorious boaft that her fupper fhould coft her 
 fixty millions of fefterces. Clodius, however, the 
 fon of a tragic poet, had long before her time per- 
 formed the fame fenfelefs feat. After the taking 
 of Alexandria, pearls were common at Rome. 
 Arabia, Pliny notes, if blefled in its perfumes, is 
 ftill more enriched by its feas and the abundance 
 of pearls which they produce. 1 
 
 In the Old Teftament, the word " pearl " is 
 fuppofed to mean " mother-of-pearl," or " cryftal," 
 or "rubies." The pearl proper was not known to 
 the Jews until later times ; it often appears in the 
 imagery of the New Teftament. 
 
 The true pearl-oyfter istheavtcula margaritifera 
 of the Perfian Gulf, Cape Comorin, and Ceylon ; 
 but in Britain pearls are found in the unio marga-. 
 ritiferus, in the oftrea edulis (oyfter), and even in 
 the mytilus communis (common muflel), though 
 thefe are not fo valuable. The white iridefcent 
 mother-of-pearl fubftance in thefe fhells is known 
 as " nacre." It is compofed of layers of mem- 
 branous fhell-fubftance. The pearl itfelf is merely 
 an accretion of nacre, generally round fome 
 fubftance of foreign origin which has found its way 
 into the fhell. Hence artificial pearls have been 
 procured by wounding the creature with a fharp- 
 pointed implement or introducing foreign bodies. 
 
 1 See Pliny (Holland's Tranflation), ix. 35 ; xii. 18 ; and 
 Hor., ii. 4, 239.
 
 251 Gleanings from the 
 
 The oftrea edulis, although pearls are found in it, 
 was in Roman times, as in ours, far more celebrated 
 at feafts. It may be faid to have its capital in 
 Britain (fays Profeffor E. Forbes), although it is 
 found elfewhere on the coafts of Europe. It has 
 always been efteemed beft from the beds off Kent. 
 In Roman times, an epicure could diftinguifh the 
 Britifh oyfters at once : 
 
 " Circeis nata forent an 
 
 Lucrinum ad faxum, Rutupinove edita fundo 
 Oftrea, callebat primo deprendere morfu j" 1 
 
 juft as anyone can at prefent tell a native from the 
 huge coarfe oyfter of Cleethorpes. 
 
 The Romans knew of, and prized our Britifh 
 pearls. Indeed, Suetonius intimates that they 
 formed the chief inducement to Casfar to invade 
 Britain. Pliny characterizes them fairly, as being 
 fmall and poorly coloured ; and he knew them 
 .well, as the breaftplate which Julius Casfar 
 dedicated to Venus Genetrix at Rome was com- 
 pofed of them. Thofe rivers, with us, which 
 flow from mountains generally contain the pearl- 
 fhells. The Eik and Conway are famous for them. 
 A Conway pearl is faid to be inferted in the royal 
 crown of England. The Irt, in Cumberland, alfo 
 produces pearls ; but the moft famous of our pearl- 
 bearing rivers, in ancient as in modern times, was 
 undoubtedly the Tay. We have examined many 
 which were found in this river in recent years. 
 They are all wanting in brilliancy are not orient, 
 in mort. The beft have a flightly pink tinge. 
 1 Juv., iv. 140.
 
 Natural Hi/lory of the Ancients. 25$ 
 
 Tacitus, like Pliny, moralizes over pearls. To 
 both writers they were the fymbol of unbounded 
 luxury. " The ocean round Britain produces 
 pearls, but they are dufky and of a livid hue. 
 Some think that thofe who collect them are want- 
 ing in art, for, in the Red Sea, pearls are taken 
 out from their fhells while living and yet breath- 
 ing; in Britain they are collected juft as they have 
 been expelled by the pearl-oyfter. I would fooner 
 believe that fine properties were wanting to the 
 pearls than avarice in us." * 
 
 Among the gifts which Ovid feigns Pygmalion 
 to have heaped on the ftatue of the nymph 
 whom he loved, are gems for the fingers and 
 necklaces for her (lender neck: 
 
 " Aure leves baccae, redimicula peftore pendent, 
 Cunfta decent." 
 
 Virgil, too, when fpeaking of the blifsful life of 
 the fhepherd, fays, what if he has none of the 
 refinements of luxury : 
 
 "Neclndi 
 
 Conchea bacca maris pretio eft ; at peftore puro 
 Saspe fuper tenero profternit gramine corpus." 
 
 Indeed, " bacca " or " berry," with fome poetic 
 addition, was a ufual defignation for a pearl. 
 " Variis fpirat Nereia bacca figuris," fays Claudian ; 
 fometimes by itfelf: 
 
 " Quin et Sidonias chlamydes, et cingula baccis 
 Afpera, gemmatafque togas 
 Dividis ex asquo." 
 
 1 Tac. "Ag.," 12. Britifh pearls with Pliny are " parvos 
 atque decolores ;" with Tacitus, " fubfufca ac liventia."
 
 256 Gleanings from the 
 
 And ftill more clearly, with fome epithet : 
 
 " Nee fit marita quae rotundioribus 
 Onufta baccis ambulet." 1 
 
 Shakefpeare does not feem to have been fond of 
 pearls ; he loves, indeed, the " liquid pearl " on 
 the " bladed grafs," but does not go out of his 
 way to dwell upon the beauty or rarity of the 
 ornament. He had read Pliny, however, as 
 appears from what Troilus fays of Creflida : 
 " Her bed is India ; there fhe lies, a pearl." 
 
 With Milton, the pearl forms part, not only of 
 his claflical imagery, but alfo of his deep fenfe of 
 the beauty that dwells in all harmonious and 
 regular fights and founds. He knew the mediaeval 
 conceit of tears changing into pearls : 
 
 " The fair bloffom hangs the head 
 Sideways, as on a dying bed, 
 And thofe pearls of dew fhe wears, 
 Prove to be prefaging tears." 2 
 
 With him, too, 
 
 " Morn, her rofy fteps in the eaflern clime 
 Advancing, fowed the earth with orient pearl." 3 
 
 And in Paradife, 
 
 " From that fapphire fount the crifped brooks, 
 Rolling on orient pearl and fands of gold, 
 With mazy error, under pendent fhades 
 Ran neftar." 
 
 In heaven, too, there is a bright fea " of jafper, or 
 
 1 Ovid, "Met.," x. 265; Virgil, " Cul.," 67; Claud., 
 "Cons. Honor," 592; and "Laud. Stil.," ii. 88; Hor., 
 "Ep.," viii. 13. 
 
 2 "Epitaph on the Marchionefs of Winchefter." 
 
 3 " Par. Loft," v. i.
 
 Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 257 
 
 of liquid pearl ;" while as for the pearls of actual 
 daily life, 
 
 " The gorgeous Eaft, with richeft hand, 
 Show'rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold." 
 
 And, faireft fcene of all, when Sabrina " com- 
 mended her innocence " to the Severn's flood : 
 
 " The water nymphs that in the bottom played, 
 Held up their pearled wrifts and took her in." 1 
 
 Who that has not feen them for himfelf, if he 
 loves to mufe near running water, hold up their 
 pearled wrifts as the long-fwaying treffes of the 
 water ranunculus, with their white bloffoms, rife 
 to the furface and again gracefully fink ? 
 
 Pearls are only one item in the Jong lift of 
 woman's adornments which fo characteristically 
 call forth the anger of Burton : " Why do they 
 adorn themfelves with fo many colours of pearls, 
 fictitious flowers, curious needle-works, quaint 
 devices, fweet-fmelling odours, with thofe in- 
 eftimable riches of precious ftones, pearls, rubies, 
 diamonds, emeralds ? etc. Why do they crown 
 themfelves with gold and filver, ufe coronets and 
 tires of feveral fafhions, deck themfelves with 
 pendants, bracelets, ear-rings, chains, girdles, rings, 
 furs, fpangles, embroyderies, fhadows rebatoes, 
 verficolor ribbands? Why do they make fuch 
 glorious mows with their fcarfs, feathers, fans, 
 mafks, furs, laces, tiffanies, ruffs, falls, calls, cuffs, 
 damafks, velvets, tinfels, cloth of gold, filver tiffue?" 
 etc. And then the old mifogynift concludes: 
 
 1 See "Par. Loft," iv. 238 ; ii. 4 ; " Comus," 834. 
 S
 
 258 Natural Hiflory of the Ancients. 
 
 " They had more need, fome of them, be tied in 
 bedlam with iron chains ; have a whip for a fan, 
 and hair-cloths next to their {kins, inftead of 
 wrought fmocks ; and have their cheeks ftigmatifed 
 with a hot iron, I fay, fome of our Jezebels, 
 inftead of painting, if they were well ferved." 
 
 " Pars minima eft ipfa puella fui." 1 
 Anatomy of Melancholy," Part iii. 2, 3.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 IB. 
 
 cfp 2 7 
 
 MA? 9 197 
 
 BIQ t?"7 
 AUG 8 REC'D 
 
 tC'O 
 
 Form L9-Series 4939 
 
 JA