Note 248 — ARRIAN ON COURSING.

Ἐπὶ δὲ ἀλώπεκι δραχμὴν—Anglicè, ninepence for a fox. The silver drachma was equal to six oboli, consequently this crafty and destructive felon was estimated at thrice the value of the hare. The reasons of the text for the extra payment must be perfectly satisfactory to the patrons of the leash—ὅτι ἐπίβουλον τὸ χρῆμα, καὶ τοὺς λαγὼς διαφθείρει, κ. τ. λ. “Fraudulentum animal,” saysL. xii. c. ii. Isidorus, “insidiisque decipiens:” and Ælian. de Naturâ Animal. L. xiii. c. xi.Ælian, αἱροῦνται δὲ οἱ λαγῲ ὑπὸ ἀλωπέκων ἐνίοτε, οὐκ ἧττον δρόμῳ, ἀλλὰ καὶ μᾶλλον τέχνῃ· σοφὸν γὰρ ἀπατᾷν ἀλώπηξ, καὶ δόλους οἶδεν. Xenophon, too, remarks that foxes are wont to kill not only hares, but leverets,De Venat. c. v. αὐτοὺς καὶ τὰ τέκνα: and is supported by the Cilician poet of the chase, who says of the fox—

Oppian. Cyneg. L. iii. 459.

Mayster of Game. c. viii. fol. 43.

“Foxes done grete harme,” says Duke Edmund, “in wareyns of conynges and of hares, the whiche thei ete, and take hem so gynnously and withe grete malice, and not withe rennyng.”