CYNEGETICA, III. 393-U3 



Their size is like that of the bloody Wolves ; short, 

 small, and strong is their body, but their hide bristles 

 all about with rough and shaggy quills, such as those 

 ^^^th which the cunning tribes of Hedgehogs " are 

 armed. But when far mightier beasts pursue him, 

 then he uses this device. He erects his sharp quills 

 and backward hurls* straight the dire shaft that 

 bristles on his flying back, and both flees amain 

 and fights as he seeks to escape. Many " a time 

 he slays a saw-toothed Dog ; even so, one would 

 say, shoots a man well skilled in archery. Therefore 

 when the hunters espy him. they do not slip the 

 Dogs but de\ise a trick, which I shall tell<* when I 

 sing of the slaying of wild beasts. 



The Ichneumon* is small, but as well worthy to be 

 sung as large beasts by reason of the cunning and 

 great vahance which it hides in a feeble body. For 

 indeed by its craft it slays two tribes — the reptile 

 Serpents and the terrible Crocodiles,^ those creatures 

 of the Nile, a deadly race. When one of the dread 

 beasts sleeps, opening his lips with triple row and 



(v. 21), whom he feigns to have learned his art from the 

 Porcupine : Parthosque retro didicisse ferire Prima sagitti- 

 ferae pecudis documenta secutos (47 f.). 



' For drjddKii cf. i. -27 n. 



"* This promise is nowhere fulfilled in our extant text. 



* Herpestes ichneumon or Pharaoh's Cat, a species of 

 Mongoose, still domesticated in Egj-pt as a destroyer of 

 Rats and Mice. It is extremely common in every part of 

 Palestine, " so that it is scarcely possible ever to take a 

 walk soon after sunrise without meeting this little animal trot- 

 ting awav to its hole " (Tristr, p. lol). A. aSO a 23 ; 61-2 a 15 ; 

 Strabo 812 ; Nemes. 54 ; Phil. 98 ; Plin. viii. 88 ; Cic. X.D. 

 i. 36. 101. Also called ixi-eiT^s Herod, ii. 61 ; Nicand. T. 195 ; 

 Hesvch. *. ix^eiTal' oi pvv ixvevfioves Xeyo/jifvoi. 



f A. 48T a 2i: 503 a 1, etc. ; Plin. viii. 89; Herod, ii. 68 ; 

 Solin. xxxii. U ; Plut. Mor. 976 b, 982 c. 



147 



