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as in England, but elsewhere they slay them also with small pockets, and with purse nets, and with small nets, with hare pipes, and with long nets, and with small cords that men cast where they make their breaking of the small twigs when they go to their pastures, as I have before said.¹² But, truly, I trow no good hunter would slay them so for any good. When they be in their heat of love and pass any place where conies be, the most part of them will follow after her as the hounds follow after a bitch or a brache.

      ¹ The hare was frequently spoken of in two genders in the same sentence, for it was an old belief that the hare was at one time male, and at another female. See Appendix: Hare.

      ² Means here: when the hare has arisen from her form to go to her feeding. Fr. relever. G. de F. explains, p. 42: un lievre se reliève pour aler à son vianders. Relief, which denoted the act of arising and going to feed, became afterwards the term for the feeding itself. “A hare hath greater scent and is more eagerly hunted when she relieves on green corn” (Comp. Sportsman, p. 86). It possibly was used later to denote the excrements of a hare; thus Blome (1686) p. 92, says: “A huntsman may judge by the relief and feed of the hare what she is.”

      ³ Casting her excrements.

      ⁴ A mistake of the old scribes which occurs also in other MSS.; it should, of course, read “seventh” year. G. de F. has the correct version.

      ⁵ G. de F. says: “She hears well but has bad sight,” p. 43.

      ⁶ “Fear to run” is a mistake occasioned by the similarity of the two old French words “pouair,” power, and “paour” or fear. In those of the original French MS. of G. de F. examined by us it is certainly “power” and not “fear.” Lavallée in his introduction says the same thing. See Appendix: Hare.

      ⁷ See Appendix: Hare.

      ⁸ G. de F. has: “vonts riotans tournions et demourant,” i.e. run rioting, turning and stopping, p. 44.

      ⁹ Both the Vespasian and the Shirley MS. in the British Museum have the same, but G. de F., p. 45, has, “except those of their nature” (fors que celle de leur nature).

      ¹⁰ This is incorrect: the hare carries her young thirty days (Brehm, vol. ii. p. 626; Harting, Ency. of Sport, vol. i. p. 504).

      ¹¹ Should read “three” (G. de F., p. 47).

      ¹² See Appendix: Snares.

CHAPTER III

      OF THE HART AND HIS NATURE

      THE hart is a common beast enough and therefore me needeth not to tell of his making, for there be few folk that have not seen some. The harts be the lightest (swiftest) beasts and strongest, and of marvellous great cunning. They are in their love, which men call rut, about the time of the Holy Rood¹ in September and remain in their hot love a whole month and ere they be fully out thereof they abide (in rut) nigh two months. And then they are bold, and run upon men as a wild boar would do if he were hunted. And they be wonderfully perilous beasts, for with great pain shall a man recover that is hurt by a hart, and therefore men say in old saws: “after the boar the leech and after the hart the bier.” For he smiteth as the stroke of the springole,² for he has great strength in the head and the body. They slay, fight and hurt each other, when they be in rut, that is to say in their love, and they sing in their language that in England hunters call bellowing as man that loveth paramour.³ They slay hounds and horses and men at that time and turn to the abbay (be at bay) as a boar does especially when they be weary. And yet have men seen at the parting of their ligging (as they start from the lair)⁴ that he hath hurt him that followeth after, and also the greyhounds⁵ and furthermore a courser. And yet when they are in rut, which is to say their love, in a forest where there be few hinds and many harts or male deer, they slay, hurt and fight with each other, for each would be master of the hinds. And commonly the greatest hart and the most strong holdeth the rut and is master thereof. And when he is well pured and hath been long at rut all the other harts that he hath chased and flemed away (put to flight) from the rut then run upon him and slay him, and that is sooth. And in parks this may be proved, for there is never a season but the greatest hart will be slain by the others not while he is at the rut, but when he has withdrawn and is poor of love. In the woods they do not so often slay each other as they do in the plain country. And also there are divers ruts in the forest, but in the parks there are none but that are within the park.⁶ After that they be withdrawn from the hinds they go in herds and in soppes (troops) with the rascal (young lean deer) and abide in (waste) lands and in heathes more than they do in woods, for to enjoy the heat of the sun, they be poor and lean for the travail they have had with the hinds, and for the winter, and the little meat that they find. After that they leave the rascal and gather together with two or three or four harts in soppes till the month of March when they mew (shed) their horns, and commonly some sooner than others, if they be old deer, and some later if they be young deer, or that they have had a hard winter, or that they have been hunted, or that they have been sick, for then they mew their heads and later come to good points. And when they have mewed their heads they take to the strong (thick) bushes as privily as they may, till their heads be grown again, and they come into grease; after that they seek good country for meating (feeding) of corn, of apples, of vines, of tender growing trees, of peas, of beans, and other fruits and grasses whereby they live. And sometimes a great hart hath another fellow that is called his squire, for he is with him and doth as he will. And so they will abide all that season if they be not hindered until the last end of August. And then they begin to look, and to think and to bolne and to bellow and to stir from the haunt in which they have (been) all the season, for to go seek the hinds. They recover their horns and are summed of their tines as many as they shall have all the year between March when they mewed them to the middle of June; and then be they recovered of their new hair that men call polished and their horns be recovered with a soft hair that hunters call velvet at the beginning, and under that skin and that hair the horn waxes hard and sharp, and about Mary Magdalene day (July 22) they fray their horns against the trees, and have (rubbed) away that skin from their horns and then wax they hard and strong, and then they go to burnish and make them sharp in the colliers places (charcoal pits) that men make sometimes in the great groves. And if they can find none they go against the corners of rocks or to crabbe tree or to hawthorn or other trees.⁷

      They be half in grease or thereabouts by the middle of June when their head is summed, and they be highest in grease during all August. Commonly they be calved in May, and the hind beareth her calf nine months or thereabout as a sow,⁸ and sometimes she has three⁹ calves at a calving time. And I say not that they do not calve sometime sooner and sometime later, much according to causes and reasons. The calves are calved with hair red and white, which lasteth them that colour into the end of August, and then they turn red of hair, as the hart and the hind. And at that time they run so fast that a hare¹⁰ should have enough to do to overtake him within the shot of an haronblast (cross-bow). Many men judge the deer of many colours of hair and especially of three colours. Some be called brown, some dun and some yellow haired. And also their heads be of divers manners, the one is called a head well-grown, and the other is called well affeted,¹¹ and well affeted is when the head has waxed by ordinance according to the neck and shape, when the tines be well grown in the beam by good measure, one near the other, then it is called well affeted. Well grown is when the head is of great beam and is well affeted and thick tined, well high and well opened (spread). That other head is called counterfeit (abnormal) when it is different and is otherwise turned behind or wayward in other manner than other common deer be accustomed to bear. That other high head is open, evil affeted with long tines and few. That other is low and great and well affeted with small tines. And the first tine that is next the head is called antler, and the second Royal and the third above, the Sur-royal, and the tines¹² which be called fourth if they be two, and if they be three or four or more be called troching. And when their heads be burnished at the colliers’ pits commonly they be always black, and also commonly when they be burnished at the colliers’ pits they be black on account of the earth which is black of its kind.

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