Part 69

Arcadia boasted not these as her only ferine crosses—φῦλα θηρομιγῆ—for in the country of Lycaon, too, in all their glory, rode the στρατὸς θαυμαστὸς of semi-human centaurs, lords of the chase, around mount Pholoë,

ἀμφὶ πόδας Φολόης ἀνεμώδεος ἄγρια φῦλα θηρομιγῆ, μερόπων μὲν ἐπ’ ἰξύας, ἰξυόφιν δὲ ἵππων ἡμιβρότων.

Scaliger denies the inference—“Possunt quidem lupi mitiores fieri, sed nunquàm lupinam formam, et totalem feritatem exuent, quemadmodum et plantæ novo cultu mitescunt.”

Both these hybrid productions are alluded to, in his wonted strain of disgust, by the misanthropic Agrippa, in his 73rd chapter, de Agriculturâ.

In the rare tract of Jean de Clamorgan, I find a practical remark to the point: “Noterez que j’ay veu quelquefois que les levriers font difficulté de prendre une loupe chaude, ains la veulent saillir et covrir comme une chienne: mais s’il y a aux cours quelque bonne levrière, elle la prendra par envie et jalousie.”

Blondus, in his ‘Libellus de Canibus et Venatione,’ remarks on the breed of demi-wolves, as they are called by Shakespeare, that this cross was not had recourse to in his days, because it was not wanted—“tantâ feritate et astutiâ non egemus:” but Wase bears testimony to its historical notoriety. “From the experience of this country,” says he, “that semifera proles, or whelps, that come of the commixture of a bitch with a dog-wolf, is verified, called anciently lyciscæ; and this ill quality they find inherent to that sort of dogs, that they can by no way of bringing up be restrained from preying upon cattle—‘sed præceps virtus ipsâ venabitur aulâ’—by which they have merited to be esteemed criminal before they be whelped; and there is a law in that behalf, which straitly enjoins, that if any bitch be limed with a wolf, either she must be hanged immediately, or her puppies must be made away: this may serve to avouch somewhat, all that character which Gratius gives of the semiferous mongrels, of his Hyrcanian and the Tiger.”

By the occurrences which took place at Melville Island, recorded in the Appendix of Capt. Parry’s 1st Voyage, we have clear proof that even an undomesticated wolf, in its natural and wild state, will have intercourse with a domestic dog.

The contiguity of India to Hyrcania, and the latter abounding with tigers, may be the cause of the same tale being told by Aristotle and Pliny of the tigri-canine cross of India, as by Gratius of that of Hyrcania. Both are of course purely fabulous. Whatever loss the fierce dog of Irak may occasion to pastoral property, herds and flocks—he is still to be cherished for his superior prowess in the savage hunt:—

Sed præceps virtus ipsâ venabitur aulâ: Ille tibi et pecudum multo cum sanguine crescet; Pasce tamen, quæcunque domi tibi crimina fecit, Excutiet silvâ magnus pugnator adeptâ.

The people of Hyrcania fostered their savage race of dogs for the express purpose, amongst others, of devouring the bodies of the dead—a practice noticed by Theodoret as being discontinued by them and the Caspians after their conversion to Christianity.

The hare on the reverse of Locrian numismata cannot be considered as proof of the pursuit of such quarry being the popular diversion of the country, nor as militating against the Locrian hound’s introduction here;—for the same impression occurs on other coins—on those of the Falisci, a colony of Argos, and others—having reference to historical or mythological subjects, unconnected with the field sports of the country.

Οἱ Μαιάνδρῳ παροικοῦντες Μάγνητες. The same are mentioned by Ælian, in his work de Naturâ Animalium, in conjunction with the Hyrcanians, as being attended to battle by canine auxiliaries—καὶ ἦν καὶ τοῦτο συμμαχικὸν ἀγαθὸν αὐτοῖς καὶ ἐπικουρικόν. And Pliny, speaking of the Colophonii and Castabalenses, says they had “cohortes canum—fidissima auxilia, nec stipendiorum indigna.”

His Colophoniacæ (si vera est fama) phalanges Auxiliis, hostem valido fregêre duello: Infaustoque olim cecidissent Caspia marte Agmina, ni tali defensa cohorte fuissent.

Ælian tells us of a war-dog, perhaps an Epirote, συστρατιώτην κύνα—who so distinguished himself with his Athenian lord at the battle of Marathon, as to be honoured with an effigy on the same tablet with his master.

For a fine representation of the Canis Molossus Venaticus, see De la Chausse, Museum Romanum, Tab. +lxiv.+ and Montfaucon Antiquité expliquée, Chasse au Sanglier, Tom. +iii.+ pl. 179. Several hunters are returning from the chase with the Magister Venationis, bearing in his hand a shield;—a cart drawn by oxen conveys a dead boar, on which lies a huge dog apparently killed in the fray, and by the side walks a second hound of the type alluded to. See also the Venationes Ferarum of Stradanus and Galle, plate +viii.+ and the Genii hunting, from Maffei, at the beginning of this Appendix, where a Molossian-like hound is on the point of seizing a wild boar.

Lucan has “ora levis clamosa Molossi”—and Claudian “Molossi latrantes”—and into the error of his poetical predecessors Cardinal Adrian has fallen, in his Venatio ad Ascanium Cardinalem;—as if the Molossi were remarkably latrant, whereas closeness of mouth was their more distinctive quality: unless indeed this Cardinal of St. Chrysogonus refer to two different sorts of Molossi, the one latrant, the other mute and sagacious:

Deducunt alii canum phalanges. Latrantes abeunt simul molossi Mox indaginis unicæ sagaces:

for he subsequently slips some boar-hounds, “per invia lustra mussitantes,” and others again are distributed about the covert by the harbourers or huntsmen; the latter being denominated “feros molossos.”

Refer to Surflet’s translation of Maison Rustique, good reader, if you have it, and smile at the portraiture of the watch-dog, the joint execution of my medical brethren, “Charles Stevens and John Liebault, Doctors of Physicke.” C. 27. p. 168.

The answer of the Canis Pastoralis (ὅτε φωνήεντα ἦν τὰ ζῶα) to the dissatisfied sheep is beautifully illustrative of his services in the economy of pastoral life:—ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι ὁ καὶ ὑμᾶς αὐτὰς σώζων, ὥστε μήτε ὑπὲρ ἀνθρώπων κλέπτεσθαι, μήτε ὑπὸ λύκων ἁρπάζεσθαι· ἐπεὶ ὑμεῖς γε, εἰ μὴ ἐγὼ προφυλάττοιμι ὑμᾶς, οὐδ’ ἂν νέμεσθαι δύναισθε, φοβούμεναι μὴ ἀπόλησθε—thereby making good his claim to a share of his master’s food.

Statues and pictures of κύνες φρουροδόμοι were sometimes exhibited on the entrance doors, or walls of vestibules—of which kind were the dogs wrought of gold and silver by Vulcan for Alcinous, Δῶμα φυλασσέμεναι μεγαλήτορος Ἀλκινόοιο—and the Canis Catenarius of Petronius Arbiter—“ad sinistram intrantibus non longè ab ostiarii cellâ, canis ingens catenâ vinctus in pariete erat pictus, superque quadratâ literâ scriptum, CAVE CAVE CANEM.”—Even Mercury himself was sometimes there exhibited—upon the principle, I suppose, of setting a thief to catch a thief.

Aristotle alludes to Porter dogs in his Nicomachean Ethics, L. +vii.+ c. +vi.+ introducing them in a very pertinent illustration of the difference between incontinency of anger, and incontinency as to pleasure: anger seems to listen to reason, though it does not hear it distinctly, &c.—καθάπερ οἱ κύνες, πρὶν σκέψασθαι εἰ φίλος, ἂν μόνον ψοφήσῃ, ὑλακτοῦσιν· οὕτως ὁ θυμὸς, διὰ θερμότητα κ. τ. λ.

On which the indignant historian observes with warmth, “quò tam latè patens imperium? quò tantus liberorum numerus? quò denique tam arctâ benevolentiâ constricta Romana amicitia, si ad hæc tuenda nihil canino latratu ac morsu valentius duxit?”

The duke considers alauntz primarily derived from Spain, not natives of Britain; “As men clepyn greihoundes of England of Scotland and of Bretayn right so the alauntez and the houndes for the hawke cometh out of Spayn.” Minsheu deduces Alani “à regione quadam Epyri, quæ Albania dicitur, undè primùm advecti creduntur hi canes.” But they probably were bull-dogs in the common acceptation of the term.

The reader will remember the Alauntes of Chaucer, on which Dryden has bestowed rejuvenescence under the type of greyhounds, attendants of “the surly king of Thrace:”

Ten brace, and more, of greyhounds, snowy fair, And tall as stags, ran loose, and cours’d around his chair; A match for pards in flight, in grappling for the bear.

It has been observed by an eminent living naturalist, that the cerebral capacity of the bull-dog is sensibly smaller than of any other race: and it is doubtless to the decrease of the encephalon that we must attribute his inferiority to all others, in every thing relating to intelligence. He is scarcely capable of any education, and is fitted for nothing but ferocious combat. In the ancient translation of Caius’s libellus by Holinshed, this savage brute is sketched to the life, as “an huge dogge stubborne, ougly, eagre, burthenous of body (and therefore but of little swiftnesse,) terrible and feareful to behold, and more fearse and fell then any Archadien curre.” Nor is our estimate of his might in conflict weakened by Raphael’s statement that “alone and wythout anye help at al, he pulled downe first an huge beare, then a parde, and last of al a lyon, each after other, before the Frenche King in one day.”

Amongst the coins of Cunobelin is a representation of a dog, probably of this native variety, tall enough, according to Pegge, and of sufficient strength “to carry a lady.” And in Thoresby’s Museum is a British coin “exhibiting a dog under a man on horseback.” (p. 338.)