Apollodorus Library 2.8.5

[5] And on the altars on which they sacrificed they found signs lying: for they who got Argos by the lot found a toad; those who got Lacedaemon found a serpent; and those who got Messene found a fox. ¹ As to these signs the seers said that those who found the toad had better stay in the city ( seeing that the animal has no strength when it walks); that those who found the serpent would be terrible in attack, and that those who found the fox would be wily.
  Now Temenus, passing over his sons Agelaus, Eurypylus, and Callias, favoured his daughter Hyrnetho and her husband Deiphontes; hence his sons hired some fellows to murder their father. ² On the perpetration of the murder the army decided that the kingdom belonged to Hyrnetho ³ and Deiphontes. Cresphontes had not long reigned over Messene when he was murdered with two of his sons; ⁴ and Polyphontes, one of the true Heraclids, came to the throne and took to wife, against her will, Merope, the wife of the murdered man. ⁵ But he too was slain. For Merope had a third son, called Aepytus, whom she gave to her own father to bring up. When he was come to manhood he secretly returned, killed Polyphontes, and recovered the kingdom of his fathers. ⁶