CYNEGETICA, III. 438-460 



headlike tufts, black to the view, like the scales of 

 serpents. When he seeks the dusky puffing viper, 

 he arches liis tail in front of her and challenges the 

 deadly beast. The Asp over against him lifts up 

 her head hard by and expands her breast and bares 

 her stubborn teeth and fights vainly with her deadly 

 jaws. But then the warlike Ichneumon lingers not 

 in the sands, but leaps and seizes her tennble throat 

 and rends her ^nth his jaws as she twists this way 

 and that and straightway lays her dead — vainly 

 spitting » forth the bitter deadly venom of her 

 passionate ^\Tatli. 



Furthermore, most cunning ^ among all the beasts 

 of the field is the Fox." WarUke of heart and ^vise 

 she dwells in remotest lair, with seven-gated openings 

 to her house and tunnelled earths far from one 

 another, lest hunters set an ambush about her doors 

 and lead her captive with snares. Terrible is she 

 to fight >\-ith her teeth against stronger wild beasts 

 and hunting Dogs. And when chilly >nnter comes 

 and she lacks food, and the vines show bare of grapes, 

 then she weaves a deadly device for hunting, to 

 capture by craft birds ^ and the young of Hares." 



(c/. 'Ewib : 'E^'i'dXioj) parallel to the masc. Triduiv : riOrjKos. 

 ISoth occur together in Pind. P. ii. 72 AcaXoj tol iridwv . . . aid 

 /caXoj . . . Kepdoi 5e ri fid\a toOto K€pda\^ov Te\4$€i ; where 

 Ka\(K alludes not merely to the formula *caX6s, vau-xji koXos 

 (cf. Callim. E. xxx. o (Loeb) n.) but also to jcaXXtas, a pet- 

 name for the Ape {cf. Callim. (Loeb) Fr. Incert. 141 n.). 



' Cants wipes, M.G. dXf irov, still pretty common in 

 Greece, where it is smaller and more greyish in hue than 

 the Fox of N. Europe (Bik. p. 11) ; verj' frequent in Palestine 

 where the common Fox of the S. and central country is the 

 Egyptian Fox, greyer and smaller than ours {cf. A. 606 a 2+), 

 while in the N. is found the larger SvTifti! Fox(Tristr. p. 85). 



■* Cf. H. ii. lOT ff. n. ' ' Ael. xiii. 11. 



151 



