Note 306 — APPENDIX.

Certaine Illustrations of the Cynegeticall Poem of Gratius. p. 68.

“In Poland, when the king hunts,” observes Wase, “his servants are wont to surround a wood, though to the space of a mile or better in compasse, with toiles, which are pitched upon firme stakes: this being done, the whole town, all sexes and ages, promiscuously rush into the inclosure, and with their loud shouts rear all the beasts within that wood, which making forth, are intercepted in the nets. There small and great beasts are together intangled, after the same manner as when amongst us we draw a net over a pond, and after beating it all over with poles, we bring out not only pike and carp, but lesser fry: so they enclose at once, dear, and bores, and roe-bucks, and hares: for so they order their nets, that the space of those meshes which are twisted with greater cords, for the entangling of greater beasts—that space, I say, is made up with smaller whip-cord, for the catching lesser prey.” See Xenophon de Venatione, c. vi., and pausanias in bœoticis, c. xxi. The latter author relates that the Celtic hunters surrounded plains and mountain-thickets with their toils, so as to be certain of catching all the animals within the circumference thereof.