[700] See Arrian on Coursing: the Cynegeticus of the younger Xenophon, translated from the Greek, &c. &c. by a graduate of Medicine (William C. Dansey, M. B.). London, 1831, pp. 68, 188.
Xenophon, in his treatise on Hunting, further informs us, that the cord used for making the ἄρκυς, or purse-net, consisted of three strands, and that three lines twisted together commonly made a strand (ii. 4); but that, when the net was intended to catch the wild boar, nine lines went to a strand instead of three (x. 2).
It remains to be noticed, that, when the long range of nets, set up in the manner which has been now represented, was designed to catch the stag (cervus), it was flanked by cords, to which, as well as to the nets themselves, feathers dyed scarlet, and of other bright colors intermixed with their native white, and sometimes probably birds’ wings, were tied so as to flare and flutter in the wind[701]. This appendage to the nets was called the metus or formido (Virg. Æn. xii. 750), because it frightened these timid quadrupeds so as to urge them onwards into the toils. Hence Virgil, speaking of the method of taking stags in Scythia, says,
Nor toils their flight impede, nor hounds o’ertake,
Nor plumes of purple dye their fears awake.
Georg. iii. 371, 372.—Sotheby’s Translation.
[701] Dum trepidant alæ.—Virg. Æn. iv. 121.
The following passages likewise allude to the use of this contrivance in the stag-hunt:
Nec formidatis cervos includite pennis.—Ovid. Met. xv. 475.
Vagos dumeta per avia cervos