CYNEGETICA, III. 365-392 



He loves a lair in the farthest depths of the crags 

 and greatly he loathes the noisy din of wild beasts. 

 Unceasingly he roams in pursuit of the female and 

 is greatly excited by the frenzy of desire. On his 

 neck the hair bristles erect, like the crest of a great- 

 plumed helmet. He drops foam upon the ground and 

 gnashes the white hedge of his teeth, panting hotly ; 

 and there is much more rage about his mating than 

 modesty." If the female abide his advances, she 

 quenches all his rage and lulls to rest his passion. 

 But if she refuses intercourse and flee, straightway 

 stirred by the hot and fiery goad of desire he either 

 overcomes her and mates with her by force or he 

 attacks her with his jaws and lays her dead in the 

 dust. There is a tale touching the Wild Boar that 

 his white tusk * has within it a secret devouring fiery 

 force. A manifest proof of this for men is well 

 founded. For when a great thronging crowd of 

 hunters with their Dogs lay the beast low upon the 

 ground, overcoming him with long spear on spear, 

 then if one take a thin hair from the neck and 

 approach it to the tusk of the still gasping beast, 

 straightway the hair takes fire and curls iip. And 

 on either side of the Dogs themselves, where the 

 fierce tusks of the Swine's jaws have touched them, 

 marks of burning are traced upon the hide. 



Than the Porcupines *' there is nothing in the shady 

 wood more terrible to behold nor aught more deadly 



ov yap a.v tCiv kvvQjv ifxaprdvcov rg vXrj'fT} tov ffWfJMroi &Kpa ra 

 TpiX'^H^Ta irepuirifnrpa. 



' Uystruc cristata. '* It is very cominon in all the rocky 

 districts and mountain glens of the Holy Land " (Tristr. p. 

 Ho) ; A. 490 b -29 ; 579 a 29 ; 60<> a -28 ; Ael. i. 31, vii. 4T, 

 xii. 26; Phil 71; Herod, iv. 193; Plin. viii. 125; Solin. 

 XXX. 28. 



I, 14.5 



