HUNTING HORNS AND HUNTING CRIES 



is waxed with green wax and greater of sound, 

 and they be best for good hunters, therefore will 

 I devise how and in what fashion they should be 

 driven. First a good hunter's horn should be 

 driven of two spans in length, and not much more 

 nor much less, and not too crooked, neither too 

 straight, but that the flue be three or four fingers 

 uppermore than the head, that unlearned hunters 

 call the great end of the horn. And also that it 

 be as great and hollow driven as it can for the 

 length, and that it be shorter on the side of the 

 baldric (the belt on which the horn is carried) 

 than at the nether end. And that the head be 

 as wide as it can be, and always driven smaller and 

 smaller to the flue, and that it be well waxed 

 thicker or thinner according as the hunter thinks 

 that it will sound best. And that it be the 

 length of the horn from the flue to the binding, 

 and also that it be not too small driven from the 

 binding to the flue, for if it be the horn will be 

 too mean of sound. As for horns for fewterers 

 (men who hold the hounds in couples) and wood 

 men, I speak not for every small horn and other 

 mean horn unwaxed be good enough for them." 



The custom of waxing horns was rather curious, 

 but evidently it improved the sound, as the less 

 important horns, carried by foresters and others 

 were considered good enough unwaxed. The 

 length of a horn, i.e., " two spans " was eighteen 

 inches. The bugle of those days was not the 

 army style bugle now in use, but a plain curved 

 horn. These curved horns survived into the 

 eighteenth century, and in the case of John Peel's 

 horn into the nineteenth. In the eighteenth 

 century small hunting bugles with a single twist 

 were also used. The late Mr. John Foster, 

 Master of the Pen-y-ghent Beagles for over thirty 



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