Natural Hiftory of the Ancients. 209 



In fact, the wolf was an animal fuited to Virgil's 

 poetry, and kept in ftore by him, ready for any 

 imaginative emergency. So when Turnus has to 

 be reprefented raging againft the foe, he is com- 

 pared to a wolf. Dryden by no means enters into 

 the full beauty of the paflage, which mould be 

 read in the original : 



" So roams the mighty wolf about the fold, 

 Wet with defcending mowers and ftiff with cold ; 

 He howls for hunger and he grins for pain, 

 His gnafhing teeth are exercifed in vain ; 

 And, impotent of anger, finds no way 

 In his diftended paws to grafp the prey. 

 The mothers liften ; but the bleating lambs 

 Securely fwig the breaft beneath the dams." 1 



After his ordinary famion, ^Elian adds to the 

 marvels of Pliny refpecting the wolf. It cannot 

 bend its head back, he afferts ; but muft look 

 ftraight forwards. If it mould happen to tread 

 on a flower of the fquill, it is at once rendered 

 torpid ; fo foxes take care to ftrew fquills in the 

 dens of wolves. 2 This animal has left its traces 

 in our botanical names. The lycopodium is fo 

 called from its refemblance to the dark circular 

 cufhion under the wolf's foot, while its upper 

 furface was feen by the fanciful in the lycopus, or 

 gipfy-wort. The gaping mouth of the wolf has 

 left its popular impreflion in the lycopis or buglofs 

 (wolf's-face). 



Wolves go back to a great antiquity, for their 

 bones have been found in the foflil cave of Aurignac 

 in France, in Kent's Hole, and elfewhere ; while 



i ,En.," ix. 59. 2 De Nat> An<j x z6 



