68 HUNTIEd ADVENTURES. 



STAG AT BAT. 



on the iedge-side, or in a thicket, then, while the hart is staring 

 on the aounds, you must come softly and covertly behind him, and 

 cut his throat. If you miss your aim, and the hart turn head upon 

 you, then take refuge at some tree ; and when the hart is' at bay, 

 couple up your hounds ; and when you see the hart turn head to 

 fly, gallop in roundly to him, and kill him with your sword. 



The first ceremony, when the huntsman comes in to the death 

 of a deer, is to cry ware haunch, that the hounds may not break 

 in to the deer ; Avhicr being done, the next is the cutting his throat, 

 and blooding the youngest hounds, that they may the better love a 

 deer, and learn to Jeap at his throat : then the mort having been 

 blown, and all the company come in, the best person, who hath not 

 tal*4> say before, is to take up the knife that the keeper or hunts- 

 ms*M is to lay across the belly of the deer, some holding by the 

 forv legs, the person who takes say, is to draw the edge of the knife 

 leisurely along the middle of the belly, beginning near the brisket, 

 and drawing a little upon it, enough in the length and depth to dis- 

 cover how fat the deer is ; then he that is to break up the deer, first 

 slits the skin from the cutting of the throat downward >, making the 

 arber that so the ordure may not break forth, and then with her 

 paunches rewarding the hounds. In the next place, he is to 



