206 



APPENDIX. 



Jul. Firmici 

 L. V. c. VIII. 



and then inverting the order of sequence, names, apparently in 

 illustration of his classes, the Cretan, Spartan, and Briton : 



Hirsuteeque fremunt Cressae, tenuesque Laceena;, 

 Magnaque taurorum fracture coUa Britannae, 



The first we must acknowledge to be nare sagaces ; the second 

 pedibus celeres, the slenderest and speediest hounds, probably, 

 known to the poet, in the absence of the Vertragus, — whom alone 

 we consider swift of foot, and entitled to rank under the class so 

 denominated. The Britannae justly exemplify the dogs of combat — 

 graviorihus aptee morsibus. 



Julius Firmicus comprehends the whole genus under the triple 

 distinction of " Molossi, Vertragi, et qui sunt ad venationes ac- 

 comodati," — meaning to include in the latter periphrasis the whole 

 class of sagacious hounds, as he does the pugnacious under the 

 title of Molossi. 



Of Oppian's tripartite arrangement, exemplified in the portraits 

 which he has drawn of the individuals representative of each class, 

 and of his farther distinction, founded on purity and commixture of 

 blood, I shall hereafter speak ; assuming at present, on the autho- 

 rity of the cited passages, that all the more celebrated varieties of 

 the canine race, mentioned in the Cynegetica of Greece and Rome, 

 of the date referred to, may be classified under the triple division of 

 pugnaces, sagaces, and celeres. ^ 



Joan. Darcii 



Venusini 



Canes. 



1. Tlie same threefold division runs through many of the modern semi-classical 

 Cynegetica— being founded, as of course it is, in the essential qualities of the canine 

 race: 



Nunc age quis villas meiior, gregibusque tuendis ; 



Quffi volucri soboles cursu, nasove sagaci 



Sit potior ; ncc enim solers dedit omnibus unum 



Natura ingenium. 



Ulysses Aldrovandus, in the section of his elaborate work which treats of the canine 

 De Quad. Digit, race, uses the very words of Seneca hefore cited, to mark the " tres prajcipua cani- 

 P* * * bus venaticis proprietates — sagacitas, cursus, atidacia." 



Vanierii Praed. 

 Rust. L. IV. 



Sed non una canum species : pars nata domorura 

 Excubiis, gressum et mensam sectatur herilem : 

 Venandi studiosa feras pars alite cursu 

 Insequitur, vcl nare sagax vestigat odora. 



