THE CHACE. 
likewise constantly mentioned, as is also the wild or mar- 
tin cat, now nearly extinct ; but the fox does not appear 
to have been included in the list of the Anglo-Norman 
sportsman. The first public notice of this now much- 
esteemed animal occurs in the reign of Richard II., 
which unfortunate monarch gives permission, by charter, 
to the abbott of Peterborough to hunt the fox. In Twice's 
" Treatise on the Craft of Hunting," Reynard is thus 
classed : 
" And for to sette young hunterys in the way 
To venery, I cast me fyrst to go : 
Of which four bestes be, that is to say, 
The hare, the herte, the wulf, and the wild boor ; 
But there ben other bestes five of the chace ; 
The buck the first, the seconde is the do ; 
The fox the third, which hath ever hard grace, 
The forthe the martyn, and the last the roe." 
It is indeed, quite apparent that, until at most a 
hundred and fifty years ago, the fox was considered an 
inferior animal of the chace the stag, buck, and even 
hare, ranking before him. Previously to this period, he 
was generally taken in nets or hays, set on the outside 
of his earth : when he was hunted, it was among rocks 
and crags, or woods inaccessible to horsemen ; such a 
scene, in short, or very nearly so, as we have, drawn to 
the life, in Dandie Dinmont's primitive chasse in Guy 
Mannering. If the reader will turn to the author of 
Hudibras's essay, entitled "Of the Bumpkin, or Country 
Squire," he will find a great deal about the hare, but 
not one word of the fox. What a revolution had 
occurred before Squire Western sat for his picture ! 
