[Footnote 137: The learned commentators have been able to discover nothing about either this Plautius or this Hirrius, but it appears that Archelaus wrote a book under the title Bugonia, of which nothing survives. It may be conjectured, however, on the analogy of Samson's riddle to the Philistines, "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness," (Judges, XIV, 14), that Plautius meant to imply that some good might be the consequence of the evil Hirrius had done: and that Vaccius cited the allusion to suggest to Varro that, while he might know nothing much about cattle, his attempt to deal with the subject might provoke some useful discussion.]
[Footnote 138: Darwin, Animals and Plants, II, 20, cites this passage and says that "at the present day the natives of Java some times drive their cattle into the forests to cross with the wild Banteng." The crossing of wild blood on domestic animals is not, however, always successful. A recent visitor to the German agricultural experiment station at Halle describes "a curious hairy beast with great horns, a wild look in his eye, a white streak down his back and a bumpy forehead, which had in it blood from cattle which had lived on the plains of Thibet, which had grazed on the lowland pastures of Holland, which had roamed the forests of northeast India and of the Malay Peninsular, and had wandered through the forests of Germany. We Americans had sympathy for this beast. He was some thing like ourselves, with the blood of many different races flowing through his veins.">[
[Footnote 139: Pliny (VIII, 66) cites the fact that the Scythians always preferred mares to stallions for war, and gives an ingenious reason for the preference. Aristotle (H.A. VI, 22) says that the Scythians rode their pregnant mares until the very last, saying that the exercise rendered parturition more easy. Every breeder of heavy draft horses has seen a mare taken from the plough and have her foal in the field, with no detriment to either: and the story of the mare Keheilet Ajuz, who founded the best of the Arab families, is well known, but bears repetition. I quote from Spencer Borden, The Arab Horse, p. 44: "It is related that a certain Sheik was flying from an enemy, mounted on his favourite mare. Arab warriors trust themselves only to mares, they will not ride a stallion in war. The said mare was at the time far along toward parturition: indeed she became a mother when the flying horseman stopped for rest at noonday, the new comer being a filly. Being hard pressed the Sheik was compelled to remount his mare and again seek safety in flight, abandoning the newborn filly to her fate. Finally reaching safety among his own people, great was the surprise of all when, shortly after the arrival of the Sheik on his faithful mare, the little filly less than a day old came into camp also, having followed her mother across miles of desert. She was immediately given into the care of an old woman of the tribe (Ajuz = an old woman), hence her name Keheilet Ajuz, 'the mare of the old woman,' and grew to be the most famous of all the animals in the history of the breed.">[
[Footnote 140: Varro does not describe the livery of the horses of his day, as he does of cattle, but Virgil (Georg. III, 81) supplies the deficiency, asserting that the best horses were bay (spadices) and roan (glauci) while the least esteemed were white (albi) and dun (gilvi), which is very interesting testimony in support of the most recent theory of the origin of the thoroughbred horse. Professor Ridgeway who, opposing Darwin's conclusion, contends for a multiple origin of the historic and recent races of horses, has collected a mass of information about the marking of famous horses of all ages in his Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse. He maintains that a bay livery, with a white star and stockings, the development of protective coloration from an originally striped coat, such as has gone on more recently in the case of the quaggas, is absolute evidence of the North African origin of a horse, and he shows that all the swiftest horses mentioned in history are of that race, while the heavier and less mettlesome horses of Northern origin have been, when pure bred, dun coloured or white.
Of the Italian breeds mentioned by Varro, Professor Ridgeway conjectures that the Etruscan (or Rosean) was probably an improved Northern horse, while the Apulian, from the South of Italy, represented an admixture of Libyan blood.]
[Footnote 141: Aristotle (H.A. VI, 22) preceded Varro with this good advice, saying that a mare "produces better foals at the end of four or five years. It is quite necessary that she should wait one year and should pass through a fallow, as it were—[Greek: poiein osper neion].">[
[Footnote 142: Mules were employed in antiquity from the earliest times. In Homer they were used for drawing wagons: thus Nausicaa drove a mule team to haul out the family wash, and Priam made his visit to Achilles in a mule litter. Homer professes to prefer mules to oxen for ploughing. There were mule races at the Greek games. Aristotle (Rhetoric, III, 2) tells an amusing story of Simonides, who, when the victor in the mule race offered him only a poor fee, refused to compose an ode, pretending to be shocked at the idea of writing about "semi-asses," but, on receipt of a proper fee, he wrote the ode beginning: "Hail, daughters of storm-footed mares," although they were equally daughters of the asses.]
[Footnote 143: The breed of Maremma sheep dogs, still preferred in
Italy, is white. He is doubtless the descendant of the large woolly
"Spitz" or Pomeranian wolf dog which is figured on Etruscan coins.]
[Footnote 144: In his essay,Notre ami le chien, Maeterlinck maintains eloquently that the dog alone among the domestic animals has given his confidence and friendship to man. "We are alone, absolutely alone, on this chance planet: and amid all the forms of life that surround us not one excepting the dog has made alliance with us. A few creatures fear us, most are unaware of us, and not one loves us. In the world of plants, we have dumb and motionless slaves: but they serve us in spite of themselves…. The rose and the corn, had they wings, would fly at our approach, like birds. Among the animals, we number a few servants who have submitted only through indifference, cowardice or stupidity: the uncertain and craven horse, who responds only to pain and is attached to nothing … the cow and the ox happy so long as they are eating and docile because for centuries they have not had a thought of their own…. I do not speak of the cat, to whom we are nothing more than a too large and uneatable prey: the ferocious cat whose side long contempt tolerates us only as encumbering parasites in our own homes. She at least curses us in her mysterious heart: but all the others live beside us as they might live beside a rock or a tree."
The effective use of this thesis in the scene of the revolt of the domestic animals in the Blue Bird will be remembered.]