Note 146 — ARRIAN ON COURSING.

Xenophon enters most fully into the description of the hare, her habits, haunts, &c.—De Venat. c. v.ποδωκέστατοι μὲν οὖν εἰσὶν οἱ ὄρειοι, οἱ πεδινοὶ δὲ ἧττον, βραδύτατοι δὲ οἱ ἕλειοι. And so also Ælian, with some difference as to the speed of the mountain and plain hares—De Naturâ Animal. L. xiii. c. 14.Λαγῲ δὲ ὄρειοι οὐκ οὕτως ταχεῖς ὡσπεροῦν οἱ τοῖς πεδίοις ἐνοικοῦντες, εἰ μή ποτε ἄρα κἀκεῖνοι πεδίον ἔχοιεν ὑποκείμενον, ἐν ᾧ κατίοντες διαθέουσι. See also Polluc. Onomast. L. v. c. xii. and varr. de r. r. l. iii. c. xii. Much of Xenophon’s description is versified by Oppian:

Cyneget. L. iii. vs. 504.

Mayster of Game. c. iii. fol. 20.

“Of hares soom goon faster and ben stronger than other, as of men and of other beestis. And also the pasture and the contre wher thei abiden helpeth moche thereto; ffor whan an hare abideth and formeth in a playn contre ther as no busshes be, suche hares ben comonly strengest and wel rennyng. And also whan thei pasture of too herbes, that oon is clepyd sorpol and that other pulegium, thei be stronge and fast rennyng.”

This superiority of the upland over the lowland hare continues, according to Paullini, after death. The flavour of its flesh on the table is as superior in the former to what it is in the latter, as the prowess of the one during life surpassed that of the other—C. F. Paullini Lagograph. Curios. S. iv.“Lumbi et clunes, seu coxæ,” says the credulous epicure of Eisenach, “gratissimum præbent alimentum et pulmentum, imprimis marium, qui femellis in cibatu meritò præferuntur, præsertim si montium fuerint incolæ planorumque locorum, serpyllo, pulegio, et similibus herbis vescentes. Qui enim in palustribus locis degunt, vilioris conditionis sunt carnis et succi deterioris.” The cause of the inferiority of the latter is furnished by Simon Paulli, Quadripartit. Botanicum.“quia illorum intercus et excrementitia humiditas, quæ carnem reddit manu contumacem, non attenuata et consumpta est, uti horum, qui fugati sunt.”