DOMESTIC CATS. 507 



in tlie writings of any author who flourished, if authors did flourish, 

 in the years which rolled so drearily away between the days of 

 Evagrius and those of the author of this tragi- comedy. The word 

 mustela seems, I may say, in leaving this part of my subject, nearly 

 always, if not quite, to stand for a weasel of one kind or another ; 

 though Phaedrus does once, namely iv. i. 9, use the word in a 

 passage homologous with one of those in which we find alXovpos 

 used in the fables ascribed to j3Esop. This latter word, on the other 

 hand, seems always to stand for a Felis domesticus or catus ; whilst 

 Felis in the Latin writers does seem, according to Facciolati, to be 

 used indifferently, or nearly so, for either Feline or Musteline. The 

 argument to show that our white-breasted Marten, Mustela foina^ 

 was used for the same domestic purposes by the ancients as the 

 Felis domesticus is by ourselves, may be briefly stated thus. An 

 animal called ya\r\ by Aristotle (' Hist. Anim.' ii. 3. 5, vi. 30. 2, 

 viii. 27. 2, ix. 2. 9, ib. 7. 4), and repeatedly referred to by Aristo- 

 phanes ^ and other Greek writers of the best ages, as well as by the 

 Scholiasts^, under this title and in more or less completely pro- 

 verbial expressions, is spoken of as destroying mice, snakes, lizards, 

 birds and birds' eggs, as being the reverse of odoriferous, as 



^ Aristophanes, * Acharn.' 255 : — 



KOLKiroiiiaiTai ya\as 



ffOV jiljd^V ^TTOV PSeiv. 



*Plutu3' 693 : — 



vnb Tov deovs fidiovaa Spi/xvrepov yaXijs. 

 * Vesp.' 363, 4 :— ^ 



ucrirep fit yaXrjv Kpia /ckiipacrav 



TTjpovaiv ex'^^''"' o^iXioKovs. 

 Ibid. 1182 :— 



ovTQ} rroT r^v fxvs Kal yaX^. 

 Ibid. I186:— 



/xCs Kal yaXds ixiWus Xeyeiv kv avSpdaiv; 

 ♦Thesmoph.' 558 : — 



us t' av TO, Kpk' h^ 'Airarovpicuy rats fiaffrpoirois 8i5ov<Tat, 

 ijreiTa Tr)v yakfjv (pdfM€v. 

 •Eccles.' 792 : — 



^ Sia^eiev yaXrj. 



2 Simonides of Amorgos, fl. B.C. 660 ; Stobseus, ' Florilegia,' vol. iii. ed. Gaisford, p. 63, 

 T. 73. 61 :- 



KXiiTTovaa 5' e/)5et ttoXXcl yelrovas Ka/ed, 



dOvra 8' Upa iroXXdKis KanadUi, 

 Cf. also yaXTi x^'^^^^ov, yaXfj KpoKurov ; Babrius 2 7, yaXrj drjpaxTa fivs t€ ml cavpas. 

 Mr. Max Miiller tells me that in the ' Hitopadesa ' an animal, called NaJcula, kills 

 the serpent under the same provocation and with the same reward as the hoimd kills 

 the wolf in our story of Llewellyn. It very probably may have been a marten. 



