12 
PASSIONAL ZOOLOGY. 
hunter, the destroyer of monsters, is the born benefactor of hu- 
manity, the protector of harvests and herds, the guardian of the or- 
phan, the defender of woman, and of all the oppressed. 
[The peasantry of Europe might hardly by these titles recognize 
those stately nobles who, before the revolutions of the last century 
had quickened the principle of democracy, used to sweep over their 
fields of growing grain, with retinues of servants^ hounds, and 
horses. But we here speak of more primitive epochs, when there 
was a work for the hunter before agriculture could commence. — T r.] 
What made so great the names of Bacchus, Hercules, and a crowd 
of other heroes ? Their passion for the chase. The history of the 
heroic ages is only a treatise on hunting. Humanity in its gratitude 
attributes the invention of the hunt to its gods. Olympus is peo- 
pled with hunting gods. And what gods ! The most beautiful, 
the youngest, the most adored of all. It is Apollo, god of the day, 
the god of poetry and fine arts, the same that killed the serpent 
Python with arrows ; Bacchus, inventor of wine, tamer of tigers, 
and supreme consoler of afflicted mortals ; Diana, the modest vestal, 
the lithe and elegant goddess of the chase and of chastity ; Diana, 
sister of Apollo, and most beautiful of the immortals after the mother 
of Love and the Graces ; Diana, who did not obtain the first prize 
of beauty at the great competition on Mount Ida, because she would 
not seek it, because the scruples of her ferocious modesty would 
not permit her to accept the conditions of the programme of exam- 
ination, because the proud goddess who had commenced by meta- 
morphosing into a stag the hunter Acteon, guilty of surprising her 
amid her nymphs in her bathing toilet, could not decently present 
herself in a similar costume to the eyes of the Trojan shepherd. 
I beg to be informed here why the Greeks, who have found it 
necessary to place three or four hunters or huntresses of high title 
in the senate of the gods, have not even dreamed of reserving the 
smallest place in this august assembly for the patron of fishermen. 
I know the Greek mythology too well, and its habitual generosity, 
to attribute this conduct in regard to a pacific industry to a vile 
and sordid motive of economy. The gratitude of mortals did more 
than decorate the benefactors of the world with the vain title of 
gods, and place them in Olympus, It gave them a place on the 
