第23章

Lions, leopards, lynxes, panthers, bears and all other such game are to be captured in foreign countries--about Mount Pangaeus and Cittus beyond Macedonia;[1] or again, in Nysa beyond Syria, and upon other mountains suited to the breeding of large game.

[1] Of these places, Mt. Pangaeus (mod. Pirnari) (see "Hell." V. ii. 17), Cittus (s. Cissus, mod. Khortiatzi), N. W. of the Chalcidice, Mysian Olympus, and Pindus are well known. Nysa has not been verified hitherto, I think. Sturz cf. Bochart, "Hieroz." Part I.lib. iii. c. 1, p. 722. Strabo, 637 (xv. 1. 7), mentions a Mount Nysa in India sacred to Dionysus, and cites Soph. "Frag." 782--{othen kateidon ton bebakkhiomenen brotoisi kleinon Nusan . . . k.t.l.},but it is a far cry from Xenophon's Syria to India. Possibly it is to be sought for in the region of Mt. Amanus.

In the mountains, owing to the difficulty of the ground,[2] some of these animals are captured by means of poison--the drug aconite--which the hunters throw down for them,[3] taking care to mix it with the favourite food of the wild best, near pools and drinking-places or wherever else they are likely to pay visits. Others of them, as they descend into the plains at night, may be cut off by parties mounted upon horseback and well armed, and so captured, but not without causing considerable danger to their captors.[4]

[2] Or, "the inaccessibility of their habitats."[3] "The method is for the trapper to throw it down mixed with the food which the particular creature likes best."[4] For the poison method see Pollux, v. 82; Plin. "H. N." viii. 27.

In some cases the custom is to construct large circular pits of some depth, leaving a single pillar of earth in the centre, on the top of which at nightfall they set a goat fast-bound, and hedge the pit about with timber, so as to prevent the wild beasts seeing over, and without a portal of admission. What happens then is this: the wild beasts, hearing the bleating in the night, keep scampering round the barrier, and finding no passage,leap over it, and are caught.[5]

[5] See "Tales from the Fjeld," Sir George W. Dasent, "Father Bruin in the Corner."