256 



APPENDIX. 



May not Ovid be supposed to allude to the cross of the Thos and 

 dog-, and to exemplify it in the individual of Acta^on's pack whom 

 he calls Thous ? 



Ovid. Metam. 

 L. III. 220. 



Cyneg. L. in. 

 vs. 33G. 



Philosoph. 



Transactions 



Vol. 77. 



Et Thous, et Cyprio velox cum fratre Lycisca. 



The fanciful origin of Oppian's Thos from the wolf and panther, lidev 

 Kp(iTep6(ppova (piiXa, baffles all elucidation. 



Let the uXwireKtbes, then, be considered as possible hybrids, 

 the produce of authenticated crosses. ^ The wolf, jackal, and 

 dog, all differ but little. " The dog himself," says Mr. Hunter, 



Gratii Cyneg. 

 vs. 259. 



Theocriti 

 Idyll. I. vs. 110. 



Cowper's Task. 

 J3. V. 



Hor. Od. L. 

 Ode VI. 



1. We may suppose the far-famed hound of Sparta, the foxife harrier, '' vulpina 

 specie," not very unlike the prick-eared, or at least semi-pendulous-eared lurcher of 

 modera days, employed by a poaching shepherd to guard his flock, and too often to 

 catch at force, KaTo. irSSas, his master's hares, or drive them into the wily laqueus or 

 suare : 



(Trel Koi iJ.a,\a vofx^vti, 

 KoX TTTUKas fidWei, koI drjpia t' &\\a Stci/cet. 



Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears. 

 And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher and half cur ; 



he is too well known by his depredations in the hare-warren to need a fuller delinea- 

 tion. 



Janus Vlitius considers the Spartan a long-eared hound, and proposes to read Zra 

 fjMKpa instead of fjuKpa in Xenophon's minute description of the type of excellence in 

 this breed : but Horace's " aure sublata" would rather favour the notion that the ear 

 was small and prickid vp in pursuit of game, as we see in lurchers, and such-like 

 poaching tikes : 



Nam qualis HUt Molossus, aut fulvus Lacon, 



Arnica vis pastoribus, 

 Agam per altas aure sublatA nives 



Quaecunque prajcedet fera. 



on which Dacier observes, " plus les chicns sont courageux, plus ils dressent les 

 oreilles en courant ;" a quality for which a prick-eared sharp-scented lurching cur 

 might be praised — which is characteristic of the Molossus, but odious in the genuine 

 well-bred greyhound, with which the " veloces catuli" and "fulvus Lacon" of the 

 contemporary poets of Rome have been ignorantly identified by monkish an- 

 notators. 



