250 



APPENDIX. 



J. Vlitii 



Venatio 

 Novantiqua. 



Wase's 



Illustrations of 



Gratius. 



These were perhaps very cunning and savage varieties of the clog of 

 Laconia, and classed in consequence by the poet with the family of 

 pugnaces ; though more properly belonging to that of nare sagaces. 

 The words of Gratius are of doubtful signification, and the passage 

 may be corrupt. He either means, as the British dogs excel in 

 courage, so do the Athamanian in cunning — which is his usual anti- 

 thetical mode of stating opposite qualities — or else, as the British 

 dogs surpass the Molossian in stoutness, so they equal the Athama- 

 nian, Thessalian, and Epirote in subtlety. This interpretation 

 accords with the known properties of the British bull-dog. It is 

 singular that dogs of two districts, Acarnania and Etolia, adjoining 

 each other, and only separated by the river Achelous, should have 

 been of such opposite qualities — the former so mute, the latter, in 

 the sportsman's phrase, so open. 



CANES VENATICI. Class II. 



CANES SAGACES. 



Claudian. de 



Lauil. Stilicon. 



L. III. 



Ha nare sagaces. 



The multitudinous varieties of this class have one common quality, 

 by which they are united in the same family, and which Gratius 

 terms " venandi sagax virtus," diversified in its phenomena, and 

 operative under great dissimilarity of external shape. ^ 



breed of game ; for, being one of the many haunts of Dian, it bestowed on tlie God- 

 dess the local name of Pheraea : 



Callimach. H. 

 in Dian. 

 vs. 25 'J. 



1. This class appears to answer to the second of M. F. Cuvier, having the head 

 and jaws shorter than those proper to our third class of pedibus celeres, but not so 

 much truncated as in the canes bellicosi. The parietal bones, in such types as are 

 supposed to resemble those of antiquity, do not approach each other above the tem- 

 poral fossae, but widen so as to enlarge the cerebral cavity of the forehead. 



