178 SPORT IN EUROPE 



Erymanthean boar.* The peasant farmers, however, caring for their 



crops rather than for sport, have, more effectually than Hercules 



himself, destroyed the beast. It has consequently become extremely 



wary ; the few surviving specimens venture out only by night, 



keeping at daytime among the rushes, where they feed. 



_ . The best piof-huntinof reo'ion, within easy reach of the 



Epirus. ^ '^ .^ & ' / 



Greek borders, is now the country a little beyond the 

 harbour of Panagia, on the coast of Epirus, opposite Corfu. The 

 peasants, who there act as beaters, are provided with dogs fairly 

 well trained to the work. Their co-operation is necessary, for the 

 pigs are very hard to dislodge from among the long reeds. By moon- 

 light, when the beasts are most likely to sally forth, lying in wait 

 for them may prove at times more successful. Red deer are also 

 occasionally met with there. In these northern districts, as well as 

 in the gorges of Arcadia, wolves are by no means scarce ; and they 

 are always sure to lurk in the vicinity of sheepfolds. Foxes and 

 jackals are of rare occurrence. 



Even more regrettable, in a certain sense, is the total extinction 

 of a herd of some five or six hundred wild oxen, which roamed until 

 quite recently in the trackless reed-beds around Lake Copais. They 

 were gradually exterminated by peasants, who used to lie in ambush 

 in the shallows of the lake, and who sold the carcasses of those noble 



* Mount Erymanthus and its gorges were covered with thick forests and peopled with 

 wild beasts of all sorts. It was therefore a favoured hunting-ground, primarily of Uiana : 



" Oi'77 5' "ApTe/MS flffi Kar' ovpeos ioxeai'pi^, 

 "H Kara. TfjvyeTOV ■jrepip.'qKeTov, ?) 'Yipvp-avdov, 

 TepwofxivT) KairpoKXi Kal uiKelris eXd0oicrt." 



0(L vi. 102. 



