The alarm, too, of those hounds for ever at its heels pursuing
combines with everything[46] to rob the creature of all prescience; so
that for this reason alone it will run its head into a hundred dangers
unawares, and fall into the toils. If it held on its course
uphill,[47] it would seldom meet with such a fate; but now, through
its propensity to circle round and its attachment to the place where
it was born and bred, it courts destruction. Owing to its speed it is
not often overtaken by the hounds by fair hunting.[48] When caught, it
is the victim of a misfortune alien to its physical nature.

[46] {meta touton}, sc. "with these other causes"; al. "with the
dogs"; i.e. "like a second nightmare pack."

[47] Reading {orthion}, or if {orthon}, transl. "straight on."

[48] {kata podas}, i.e. "by running down"; cf. "Mem." II. vi. 9;
"Cyrop." I. vi. 40, re two kinds of hound: the one for scent, the
other for speed.

The fact is, there is no other animal of equal size which is at all
its match in speed. Witness the conformation of its body: the light,
small drooping head [narrow in front];[49] the [thin cylindrical][50]
neck, not stiff and of a moderate length; straight shoulder-blades,
loosely slung above; the fore-legs attached to them, light and set
close together;[51] the undistended chest;[52] the light symmetrical
sides; the supple, well-rounded loins; the fleshy buttocks; the
somewhat sunken flanks;[53] the hips, well rounded, plump at every
part, but with a proper interval above; the long and solid thighs, on
the outside tense and not too flabby on the inside; the long, stout
lower legs or shanks; the fore-feet, exceedingly pliant, thin, and