[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 75.]
Sunt quibus immundo decerptæ vulture plumæ Instrumentum operis fuit, et non parva facultas. Tantum inter nivei jungantur vellera cygni: Et satis armorum est. Hæc clarâ luce coruscaut, Terribiles species: ab vulture dirus avaro Turbat odor silvas, meliusque alterna valet res.
[Sidenote: Wase’s Illustrations, &c. p. 7.]
The line of feathers of various hue, impregnated with artificial odour, “was drawn about the woods (——ὀλίγον γαίης ἐφύπερθεν, Oppian. Cyneg. +iv.+ 386.) in the intermitted spaces where the toyles were pitched, that so the deer (than which no creature is more timorous) might balk them, and be cast upon the net.” The _linea_ thus flanked the δίκτυ or long net, where not extensive enough to enclose the covert; and filled the intervals, between the purse-nets and nooses, when the latter were set independent of the _retia_.
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 85.]
Hic magis in cervos valuit metus.[303] Ast ubi lentæ Interdum Libyco fucantur sandice pinnæ, Lineaque extructis lucent anconibus arma: Rarum si qua metus eludat bellua falsos.
The Cilician poet has left a graphic description of the _formido_, as employed in the Armenian bear-hunt—a picture so vividly sketched, Cyneg. +iv.+ 380, that I regret its length prevents transcription. A part of it will be found hereafter under the Eastern “Canis _Inductor_”—the Armenian limehound. The fourth Halieutic, in an apposite and beautiful simile, describes the startling effect of the feathered line on timid animals of chase:
[Sidenote: Oppian. Hal. L. +iv.+ 586.]
ὧδε καὶ ἐν ξυλόχοισιν ὀρέστεροι ἀγρευτῆρες εἷλον ἀναλκείην ἐλάφων εὐαγρέϊ τέχνῃ, μηρίνθῳ στέψαντες ἅπαν δρίος· ἀμφὶ δὲ κούφων ὀρνίθων δήσαντο θοὰ πτερά· ταὶ δ’ ἐσορῶσαι ἠλέματα πτώσσουσι κενὸν φόβον, οὐδὲ πελάσσαι μαψιδίαις πτερύγεσσιν ἀτυζόμεναι μεμάασιν εἰσόκε θηρητῆρες ἐπαΐξαντες ἕλωσι.
Many notices of this instrument will occur to the classical reader in the works of the Latin poets, but in none more copiously delineated than in the Cynegeticon of Nemesian; who enumerates the many sources whence the feathers of dissimilar tint are to be culled for decorating the “plumed line:”
[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 312.]
Dat tibi pinnarum terrentia millia vultur; Dat Libye magnarum avium fœcunda creatrix, Dantque grues, cygnique senes, et candidus anser; Dant quæ fluminibus crassisque paludibus errant, Pellitosque pedes stagnanti gurgite tingunt: Hinc magè Puniceas nativo munere sumes: Namque illic sine fine greges florentibus alis Invenies avium, suavique rubescere luto, Et sparsos passim tergo vernare colores.
If the reader be interested in the minutiæ of Grecian and Roman net-making, and the methods of fixing the ἄρκυες, δίκτυα, and ἐνόδια, the _casses_, _retia_, and _plagæ_, he is referred for the former to the Cynegeticus of the elder Xenophon, and that most extraordinary work of human research, the Onomasticon of Julius Pollux—for the latter, to the Venatio Novantiqua of Janus Vlitius, a scholar of deep erudition, and an experienced sportsman:—a summary view being all that can be rendered by the present writer, professedly epitomising the labours of more experienced workmen.
The ἄρκυες or _casses_ were conical, purse or tunnel-like nets, ending in a point at one end, and having a running noose of entrance at the other, resembling somewhat a hooped calash, or cowl.
[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 300.]
The δίκτυα or _retia_ were long sean-like nets for open fields, and for encircling brakes and coverts;——“longoque meantia retia tractu.”
The ἐνόδια or _plagæ_ were nets of much less length, to be placed across roads, game-tracks, paths, and narrow openings between bushes.
The ἄρκυες appear to have been sometimes placed independent of the δίκτυα, but more commonly in the course of the main nets; so that when the animals passed along the _linear_ and _reticular_ barrier, exploring a place of egress, terrified by the _formido_, (which flanked the hayes, and occasionally was drawn along above the net-rope to scare the game from overleaping,) and the meshes of the δίκτυα, (continuous except where the purse-nets were introduced with their slip-knot entrance), on attempting to pass out at the apparent opening of the ἄρκυς, they became by their struggles entangled therein[305]—the purse either spontaneously, or by the agency of the men placed there to draw the necessary ropes, immediately closing at the mouth.
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +iv.+ 409.]
ἐπεὶ κελάδοντος ἀήτεω ταινίαι τ’ ἐφύπερθε διηέριαι κραδάουσι, κινύμεναι πτέρυγές τε λιγήϊα συρίζουσιν. οὕνεκα παπταίνουσα κατ’ ἄρκυας ἀντίον ἕρπει· ἐν δ’ ἔπεσεν λινέοισι λόχοις.
The whole management of the nets and lines was vested in the watch αἰζηῶν πυλαωρῶν referred to, who were concealed under copse-wood, for the purpose, more particularly, of attending to the ἐπίδρομος and περίδρομος, the ropes (smooth and knotless) which governed the ἄρκυες, and passed through iron rings, along the course of the δίκτυα, up to the watchmen’s hiding-place:
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +iv.+ 382.]
ἐν δὲ δύω κλῖναν δοιαῖς ἑκάτερθε κεραιαῖς ἀνέρας ἀκρολίνους ὑπὸ μειλινέοισι πάγοισιν.
The length of the δίκτυα or _retia_, properly so called, would astonish a modern disciple of Diana. So great was the extent of ground sometimes enclosed by these toils, that Plutarch mentions, in his life of Alexander, hunting-nets above twelve miles long. With such it was customary to encircle vast tracts of country, and then, by gradually contracting their ambit, to force the animals of the district into a narrower compass;—when at the will of the _magister venationis_, the work of slaughter commenced.[306] This mode of hunting is very clearly described, with its usual auxiliaries of noise and flame, in a simile of the Achilleid:
[Sidenote: Statii Achil. L. +i.+ 459.]
sic curva feras indago latentes Claudit, et admotis paulatim cassibus arctat. Illæ ignem sonitumque pavent, diffusaque linquunt Avia, miranturque suum decrescere montem, Donec in angustam ceciderunt undique vallem, Inque vicem stupuêre greges, socioque timore Mansuescunt. Simul hirtus aper, simul ursa, lupusque Cogitur, et captos contemnit cerva leones.
The Faliscian poet, in the early part of his Cynegeticon, specifies the best materials for the composition of nets, with particular instructions for their size and shape:
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 25.]
Prima jubent tenui nascentem jungere filo Limbum, et quadruplici tormento adstringere limbos. Illa operum patiens, illa usûs linea longi. Tunc ipsum medio cassem qui nascitur ore, Per senos circum usque sinus laqueabis, ut omnem Concipiat tergo, si quisquam est plurimus, hostem. Et bis vicenos, spatium prætendere passus Rete velim, plenisque decem consurgere nodis.
On the same subject the Carthaginian summarily touches, distinctly recognizing the three varieties of which we have been just speaking:
[Sidenote: Nemesian. Cyneg. vs. 299.]
Necnon et casses iidem venatibus aptos, Atque plagas, longoque meantia retia tractu Addiscant raris semper contexere nodis, Et servare modum maculis linoque tenaci.
And an earlier poet, in his praise of the brumal pleasures of the countryman’s life, sunders _plagæ_ and _retia_, applying them to such totally different purposes, that it is probable they sometimes differed as much in the structure of the mesh, its size, &c. as in the magnitude of the whole instrument:
[Sidenote: Hor. Epod. L. +ii.+ 29.]
At cum tonantis annus hybernus Jovis Imbres nivesque comparat: Aut trudit acres hinc et hinc multâ cane Apros in obstantes plagas; Aut amite levi rara tendit retia Turdis edacibus dolos, Pavidumve leporem, et advenam laqueo gruem, Jucunda captat præmia.
Whatever honour be attached to these reticular inventions, and that of the running-noose, the βρόχος or _laqueus_, is due to Hippolytus:
[Sidenote: Oppian. Cyneg. L. +ii.+ 24.]
ἄρκυας αὖτε βρόχους τε, καὶ ἀγκύλα δίκτυα πρῶτος Ἱππόλυτος μερόπεσσιν ἐπακτήρεσσιν ἔφηνε.
The βρόχος generally formed a rhomb-shaped entrance to the ἄρκυς, as probably did the _laqueus_ to the _cassis_:—but as the tunnel was occasionally used separate from the sean-like toil (δίκτυ—_rete_) and from the road-net (ἐνόδιον—_plagæ_), so may these slip-knot nooses have been also set independent of the purses, their usual additaments, in narrow passes, or straits frequented by game:
[Sidenote: P. A. Bargæi Cyneg. L. +i.+]
Namque hos aut foveis, aut cæci in limine callis Occultant, &c.
The noose-ropes,[307] being of much ruder manufacture, and more simple structure, than any variety of net with meshes, must have been of earlier institution.
[Sidenote: Gratii Cyneg. vs. 89.]
Nam fuit et laqueis aliquis curracibus usus. Cervino jussêre magis contexere nervo; Fraus teget insidias, habitu mentita ferino.