Several causes coöperated to render hares unplentiful on the Hellenic continent,—the number of sportsmen, of foxes which devoured both them and their young, and of eagles that delighted in its lofty and almost inaccessible mountains, and shared its game with the huntsman and the fox. Homer, in a few picturesque words, describes the war carried on against puss by this destructive bird.[737] On the islands, whether inhabited or not, few of these obstacles to their increase existed. Sportsmen rarely passed over to them, and in such as were sacred to any of the gods the introduction of dogs was not permitted, so that, like the pigeons and turtle-doves of Mekka, they multiplied in those holy haunts prodigiously. Footnote 737: Il. χ. 308. sqq. It was prohibited by the laws of Attica[738] to commit the slightest trespass during the chase. The sportsman was not allowed to traverse any ground under cultivation, to disturb the course of running water, or to invade the sanctity of fountains. The scene of action accordingly lay among the woods and mountains, the common property of the republic, or, if not, abandoned by general consent to the use of the sportsman. Such were, for example, the woodland districts of Parnes and Cithæron on the borders of Bœotia. Towards these the huntsman, well shod, plainly and lightly dressed,[739] and with a stick in his hand, set out about sunrise in winter, in summer before day.[740] On the road strict silence was observed[741] lest the hare should take the alarm and to her heels. Having reached the cover, the dogs were tied separately that they might be let slip the more easily, the nets were spread in the proper places, the net-guards set, and the huntsman with his dogs proceeded to start the game, first piously making a votive offering of the primitiæ to Apollo and Artemis,[742] divinities of the chase.[743] Footnote 738: Xen. Cyneg. v. 34. Footnote 739: Poll. v. 17. Footnote 740: The pleasure experienced on these occasions is thus enthusiastically described by Christopher Wase:—"What innocent and natural delights are they, when he seeth the day breaking forth, those blushes and roses which poets and writers of romances only paint, but the huntsman truly courts! When he heareth the chirping of small birds perched upon their dewy boughs, when he draws in that fragrancy of the pastures and coolness of the air! How jolly is his spirit when he suffers it to be imported with the noise of bugle-horns and the baying of hounds which leap up and play around him!"—Pref. to Tr. of Gratius, p. 3. Footnote 741: See, in the Cyropædia, i. 6. 40, an extremely interesting passage on the chase of the hare.—Cf. Oppian. de Venat. iv. 422. Footnote 742: