Pherecrates fr. 60 (the opening portion of an iambic trimeter line from The Forgetful Man) is quoted by Σ^VΓ Ar. Vesp. 968–9, where Bdelycleon defends the thievish dog Labēs (standing in for the Athenian general Laches) by arguing that

Meineke, followed by Kassel–Austin, believed that Aristophanes’ τραχήλι(α) should be used to fill out the fragment of Pherecrates (quoted and discussed below). Closer attention to the word shows that this is unlikely to be true and that there are better possibilities.Footnote ¹

The scholia to Wasps gloss τραχήλια variously as τὰ ἄκρα καὶ τὰ εὐτελῆ κρέα (‘cheap trimmings of meat’), τὰ ἀποβαλλόμενα τῶν ὄψων (‘discarded scraps of prepared dishes’), ὀστράκιόν τι βραχὺ τελέως (‘a tiny bit of bone’), and εὐτελὲς προσόψημα ἐν λοπαδίσκοις σκευαζόμενον (‘a cheap side-dish prepared in small pans’). These might all be guesses, but the absence of the definite article in the original text shows that Bdelycleon's reference is to something more generic than ‘the backbones’ in the next verse. The ancient commentators were thus probably right not to interpret the word ‘bits of neck’, vel sim., as if this were a diminutive of τράχηλος (‘neck’ or ‘head and neck’Footnote ²). Instead, these must be ‘tail-ends’ of food, scraps and leftovers of a sort that might be fed to a dog; compare Hippocrates, Epidemiae 7.62 (v.428.7 Littré), where βόεια τραχήλια (‘beef tit-bits’, vel sim.) are mentioned along with ham as part of the diet of a man recovering from illness.

Σ^VΓ also preserve Pherecrates fr. 60, which Kassel–Austin print in the following form:

In Σ^Lh (Triklinios’ version of the text) this note has become part of a long synthetic treatment of the word τραχήλια, hence both the lemma (absent from the manuscripts) supplied by Kassel–Austin and Meineke's supplement. κρανία is used routinely in comedy of fish-heads (Ar. fr. 380.1; Eub. fr. 109.4; Antiph. frr. 45.2, 77.2; Anaxil. fr. 20.1; Eriph. fr. 3.2–3; Amphis fr. 16.1), which are treated as a delicacy (for example Callim. Com. fr. 6.1; Sannyr. fr. 3; Alex. fr. 159.4–5; cf. Archestr. fr. 19.1 with Olson–Sens ad loc.) rather than as the equivalent of dog food, and whatever τραχήλια are, no one has ever thought that they should be identified with κρανία. Instead, ὡς ἀκανθώδη is more easily understood as in origin a separate gloss (as in Σ^VΓ), but on τὰς ἀκάνθας: ‘(the spines): fish-heads, because they are spiny’. This interpretation of the passage from Wasps is certainly incorrect; Aristophanes means ‘the vertebrae’, sc. of butchered animals.Footnote ³ Pherecrates has none the less been quoted in support of it, and not because he mentioned τραχήλια, as Meineke and Kassel–Austin assumed. The fragment might thus better be presented:

ἀκανθώδη in the scholium must have come from somewhere, although not from Aristophanes. As κρανί᾿ ἀκανθώδη would scan, even if it does not fill out the line, one might alternatively – and more boldly – read: