144 THE MASTER OF GAME 



I have spoken here before. And if men ask him 

 of a boar's feeding, it is properly called of acorns 

 of oak's bearing, and of beechmast, the other 

 feeding is called worming and rooting of the roots 

 out of the earth that feed him. The other kind 

 of feeding is of corn and of other things that 

 come up out of the land, and of flowers and of 

 other herbs ; the other kind of feeding is when 

 they make great pits, and go to seek the root 

 of ferns and of spurge within the earth. And if 

 men ask whereby he knoweth a great boar, he shall 

 answer that he knoweth him by the traces and by 

 his den, and by the soil (wallowing pool). And 

 if men ask whereby he knoweth a great boar from 

 a young, and the boar from the sow, he shall 

 answer that a great boar should have long traces 

 and the clees round in front, and broad soles of 

 the feet and a good talon, and long bones, and 

 when he steppeth it goeth into the earth deep 

 and maketh great holes and large, and long 

 the one from the other, for commonly a man 

 shall not see the traces of a boar without 

 seeing also the traces of the bones, and so 

 shall he not of the hart, for a man shall see many 

 times by the foot, that which he will not see by 

 the ergots, but so shall he not see of the boar. 

 What I call the bones of the boar, of the hart I 

 call the ergots, and the cause that a man shall 

 not know as well by the ergots of the hart as 



