INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 91 



scenes, and in the fabulous or actual deaths of 

 heroes and real personages, by the agency of dogs : 

 though even here they are probably mere types, in- 

 cluding the fate of Actaeon, and of Eschylus, torn to 

 pieces by Esterices, not terriers, as Dr. Clark seems 

 to believe, nor house-dogs, but massacred by en- 

 vious courtiers, on account of the honours paid him 

 by King Attalus. The Romans, also, had their 

 legends and ceremonies, in which dogs bore a con- 

 spicuous part. The image of a dog was placed in 

 the vestibulum of their houses to guard the Penates. 

 In commemoration of their delivery from destruc- 

 tion, and in punishment of the apathy the Capito- 

 line watch -dogs were guilty of, on the night when 

 the Senonic Gauls would have escaladed this last 

 stronghold of the republic, and geese alone were 

 watchful, they had annually a ceremony, wherein 

 a dog was crucified upon an elder-tree (Sambucus 

 nigra\ between the temples of Sumanus and In- 

 ventus ; and all dogs seen about the streets were 

 then flogged, for the neglect of their progenitors. 



In the fire-worship initiation of the Zenda Vesta, 

 he, the dog that repels darkness and his agents, is 

 pourtrayed with the eyes and eyebrows yellow, and 

 the ears white and yellow. The animal is still an 

 object of solicitude with all Parsees at Bombay. 

 Food is, by them, given to all dogs promiscuously ; 

 and so incumbered was the city by their numbers, 

 that the government, not without serious opposi- 

 tion, was lately compelled to abate the nuisance, by 

 causing great numbers to be enticed on board boats, 



