hundred cattle, levied on Thebes. Hercules cut off
the ears and noses of the heralds, bound their hands, and sent them
home.[67:6]

Samson's third exploit was when he caught three hundred foxes, and took
fire-brands, and turned them tail to tail, and put a fire-brand in the
midst between two tails, and let them go into the standing corn of the
Philistines.

There is no such feature as this in the legends of Hercules, the nearest
to it in resemblance is when he encounters and kills the Learnean
Hydra.[67:7] During this encounter a _fire-brand_ figures conspicuously,
and _the neighboring wood is set on fire_.[67:8]

We have, however, an explanation of this portion of the legend, in the
following from Prof. Steinthal:

At the festival of Ceres, held at Rome, in the month of April, a
fox-hunt through the circus was indulged in, _in which burning torches
were bound to the foxes' tails_.

This was intended to be a symbolical reminder of the damage done to the
fields by mildew, called the "_red fox_," which was exorcised in various
ways at this momentous season (the last third of April). It is the time
of the _Dog-Star_, at which the mildew was most to be feared; if at that
time great solar heat follows too close upon the hoar-frost or dew of
the cold nights, this mischief rages like a burning fox through the
corn-fields.[68:1]

He also says that:

"This is the sense of the story of the foxes, which Samson
caught and sent into the Philistines' fields, with fire-brands
fastened to their tails, to burn the crops. Like the lion, the
fox is an animal that indicated the solar heat, being well
suited for this both by its color and by its long-haired
tail."[68:2]

Bouchart, in his "Hierozoicon," observes that:

"At this period (_i. e._, the last third of April) they cut
the corn in Palestine and Lower Egypt, and a few days after
the setting of the Hyads arose the _Fox_, in whose train or
tail comes the fires or torches of the dog-days, represented
among the Egyptians by red marks painted on the backs of their
animals."[68:3]

Count de Volney also tells us that:

"The inhabitants of Carseoles, an ancient city of Latium,
every year, in a religious festival, burned a number of foxes
_with torches tied to their tails_. They gave, as the reason
for this whimsical ceremony, that their corn had been formerly
burnt by a fox to whose tail a yo