APPENDIX. 



255 



Hagnon magiie, tibi Divoin concessa favore, 



derived from a Tlioaii cross, and otiier such semiferous comraixtures, 

 be founded in fact ? 



Gratii Cyneg. 

 vs. 250. 



Hie et semiferam Thoum de sanguine prolem 



Fiiixit. Non alio major sua pectore virtus, 



Seu norit voces, seu tiudi ad pignora Martis. 



Thoes commissos (clarissima faiiia) leones 



Et subiSre astu, et parvis domuere lacertis. 



Nam genus exiguum, et pudeat quara infornie fateri 



Vulpini specie, &c. 



May not these possible tales have given currency and belief to the 

 supposed, impossible, fictitious, engendering of the fox and dog, and 

 the breed of semi-wild aXwireKihes 1 — Aristotle says roundly, when 

 animals resemble each other in size, outward character, and time of 

 gestation, they may breed together ; and that it positively happens 

 with the dog, fox, and wolf — ol be QiLes, says the Stagirite also, 

 ofioiujs KvioKovrat toIs kvctI, kciI tiktovcti tvcjjXu, k. t. \. — and therefore, 

 by his own canons, may engender with dogs. Galen, Hesychius, 

 and Gesner, seem to allow the possibility of vulpi-canine issue : 

 Caius accounts for such a birth by the " pruriens libido " of the 

 parties concerned : ^ even Blumenbach and Desmoulins, on the 

 authority of others, have given credency to it. Pennant reports a 

 case of prolific engendering of the fox and dog, on the word of an 

 Oxfordshire woodman ; and Daniel cites a second in London. 

 Hunter, who assumed nothing in natural history of doubtful cha- 

 racter as fact, till he had put it to the test, denies this cross, a jtriori, 

 not from actual experiment ; for he did not live to make the trial. 

 The former crosses he fully established : see Phil. Trans. Vol. 77. 



Ejusdem 

 vs. 263. 



Pennant's 

 Quadrupeds. 



Daniel's 

 Field-Sporls. 

 Vol. I. p. 12. 



1. Caius's love of the marvellous in natural history surpasses (considering the age 

 in which he lived) that of ^lian and Albertus Magnus. Under the heads of Urcanus 

 and Lacsena, this credulous correspondent of the acute Conrad Gesner notes, seem- 

 ingly in good earnest, that the former is the offspring of the Canis Catenarius and bear, 

 the latter of the dog and fox, " quos, licet inimicos, pruriens tamen libido sspe ita 

 hie conjungit, ut alibi solet." The truth, however, of tlie latter maybe doubted, after 

 the impossibility of the former. 



J. Caii 

 de Canibus 

 lirit. Libell. 



