Part 27

Ut canis ocultos agitat quum Belgicus apros, Erroresque feræ sollers per devia mersâ Nare legit, tacitoque premens vestigia rostro Lustrat inaccessos venantum indagine saltus: Nec sistit, nisi conceptum sectatus odorem, Deprendit spissis arcana cubilia dumis.

And it strikes me, that the Gelonian and Umbrian of Gratius, the Tuscan of Nemesian, and the Armenian bear-hound of Oppian, are all varieties of limehound. Of the Metagon, already mentioned, there can be no doubt—he is clearly of the class described by the Greek poet of the Halieutics:

σκύλακες δὲ συνέμποροι ἡγεμονῆες κνώδαλα σημαίνουσι, καὶ ἰθύνουσιν ἄνακτας εὐνὴν εἰς αὐτὴν—

The Homeric inductors occur in the boar-hunt of Mount Parnassus, in the van of which Ulysses, οὐτάμεναι μεμαὼς, distinguishes himself, with the sons of Autolycus:

οἱ δ’ ἐς βῆσσαν ἵκανον ἐπακτῆρες· πρὸ δ’ ἄρ’ αὐτῶν ἴχνη ἐρευνῶντες κύνες ἤϊσαν, κ. τ. λ.

and the abstract phraseology of Lucretius affords a second early notice of them:

tum fissa ferarum Ungula quo tulerit gressum, præmissa canum vis Ducit.

The first limehound in the annals of sporting was Glympicus, tutored in the art of harbouring by the Bœotian Hagnon, a huntsman immortalized by Gratius:

Sed primum celsâ lorum cervice ferentem, Glympice, te silvis egit Bœotius Hagnon, Hagnon Astylides, Hagnon, quem plurima semper Gratia per nostros unum testabitur usus. Hic trepidas artes et vix novitate sedentes Vidit, quà propior patuit via: nec sibi turbam Contraxit comitem, nec vasa tenentia longè. Unus præsidium, atque operi spes magna petito, Assumptus Metagon lustrat per nota ferarum Pascua, per fontes, per quas trivêre latebras, Primæ lucis opus: tum signa vapore ferino Intemerata legens, si qua est, qua fallitur, ejus Turba loci, majore secat spatia extera gyro. Atque hic egressu jam tum sine fraude reperto Incubuit spatiis, qualis permissa Lechæis Thessalium quadriga decus, quam gloria patrum Excitat, et primæ spes ambitiosa coronæ. Sed ne qua ex nimio redeat jactura favore, Lex dicta officiis: ne voce lacesseret hostem, Neve levem prædam, aut propioris pignora lucri Amplexus, primos nequicquam effunderet actus. Jam vero impensum melior fortuna laborem Quum sequitur, juxtaque domus quæsita ferarum, Ut sciat, occultos et signis arguat hostes: Aut effecta levi testatur gaudia caudâ, Aut ipsa infodiens uncis vestigia plantis Mandit humum, celsasve apprensat naribus auras. Et tamen, ut ne prima faventem pignora fallant, Circa omnem, aspretis medius qua clauditur orbis, Ferre pedem, accessusque, abitusque, notâsse ferarum Admonet, et, si forte loci spes prima fefellit, (Rarum opus) incubuit spatiis ad prospera versis, Intacto repetens prima ad vestigia gyro.

We here see the limier’s style of harbouring portrayed to the life—falling on the trail—coming to a fault—recovering the scent—and following it up to the lair. The harbourer of more modern days is the inquisitor of Pliny’s short sketch; “Scrutatur vestigia atque persequitur, comitantem ad feram inquisitorem loro trahens: quâ visâ quàm silens et occulta, quàm significans demonstratio est!” But of all descriptions in the range of classical literature the most exquisitively beautiful is Ælian’s—no painter can surpass this graphic hunting-piece:—προηγεῖται τοῦ κυνηγέτου (ὁ κύων ὁ θηρατικὸς) ἱμάντι μακρῷ προσημμένος, καὶ ῥινηλατεῖ, τῆς φωνῆς ἔχων ἐγκρατῶς καἰ σιωπῶν, κ. τ. λ. The hound’s busy manner,—his steady search, even where there is no game,—his burst of silent joy at catching a scent,—his salutation of the harbourer as if sympathizing in his glee at being successful,—his drawing on up to the boar’s couch,—the start—and final pæan of exultation and victory, are all described in masterly style.

The Gelonian breed is very cursorily mentioned by Gratius, as timid and sagacious;

Arma negant contrà, martemque odêre Geloni, Sed natura sagax....

and is recommended to be crossed with the tigrine Hyrcanian; whence spiritless Gelonian bitches have derived that courage and pluck, of which they stood in need:

traxêre animos de patre Gelonæ Hyrcano.

The Umbrian had much of the Gelonian character—timorous and soft—but remarkably keen of nose. Wishing to incorporate every good quality in the same mongrel breed, Gratius ejaculates—

At fugit adversos idem quos reperit hostes Umber. Quanta fides, utinam et solertia naris, Tanta foret virtus, et tantum vellet in armis!

Silius Italicus notes the sagacity of the Umber, and seems to indicate his closeness of mouth in the contrasted barking of the Spartan,

Ceu pernix cum densa vagis latratibus implet Venator dumeta Lacon, aut exigit Umber Nare sagax è calle feras perterrita latè Agmina præcipitant volucres formidine cervi.

But his habits are most vividly sketched in an elegant simile of Seneca’s Thyestes, where Atreus, exulting in his artful entrapping of his brother, (as a wild beast enveloped in the hunter’s toils—plagis.....clusa dispositis fera,—) exclaims in a strain of ill-dissembled self-gratulation,

venit in nostras manus Tandem Thyestes; venit, et totus quidem. Vix tempero animo, vix dolor frenos capit: Sic, cum feras vestigat, et longo sagax Loro tenetur Umber, ac presso vias Scrutatur ore; dum procul lento suem Odore sentit, paret, et tacito locum Rostro pererrat: præda cum propior fuit; Cervice totâ pugnat, et gestu vocat Dominum morantem, seque retinenti eripit.

The Virgilian Umbrian, to which Æneas in pursuit of Turnus is likened in the last book of the Æneid, may be taken to signify any Canis venaticus, and not that of Umbria particularly:

Inclusum veluti si quandò flumine nactus Cervum, aut puniceæ septum formidine pennæ, Venator cursu, canis et latratibus instat; Ille autem, insidiis et ripâ territus altâ, Mille fugit refugitque vias: at vividus Umber Hæret hians, jam jamque tenet, similisque tenenti Increpuit malis, morsuque elusus inani est.

The true Umbrian, I conceive, was mute—certainly so, until his game was on foot; as were all the other finders spoken of. But another reason against the dog of Maro being the native dog of Umbria is this—the poet would never have compared the brave and victorious Æneas to a notoriously timid animal, who “fugit adversos idem quos repperit hostes—” while the hero was dealing death and destruction on all sides of him;

Æneas mortem contrà præsensque minatur Exitium, si quisquam adeat; terretque trementes Excisurum urbem minitans; et saucius instat.

If the character of the hounds of Umbria be such as stated, on the authority of the ancient Cynegetica, the epithet “audaces” bestowed on them by the Latin poet of Barga must be unmerited;

——Celtis velocibus Umbros, Audaces Umbros, et odoris naribus acres.

Barthius, erroneously in my opinion, identifies the Tuscan dogs of Nemesian with the fierce Molossian-like animals of Oppian’s first Cynegetic (vs. 413.). To the passage already cited under the Canes Bellicosi, the reader is referred, for the purpose of comparison with the following from the Carthaginian poet:

Quin et Tuscorum non est extrema voluptas Sæpè canum: sit forma illis licet obsita villo, Dissimilesque habeant catulis velocibus artus; Haud tamen injucunda dabunt tibi munera prædæ. Namque et odorato noscunt vestigia prato, Atque etiam leporum secreta cubilia monstrant.