146 THE MASTER OF GAME 



that it is a great boar so that the den be newly 

 made and that he hath lain therein but once. And 

 if the boar's den is deep without litter, and if the 

 boar lie near the earth it is a token that it is no ^ 

 fat boar. And if men ask him how he knoweth 

 a great boar by the soil, then may he answer that 

 commonly when a boar goeth to soil in the coming 

 in or in the going out, men may know by the trace, 

 and so it may be deemed as I have said by his 

 wallowing in the soil. Nevertheless some time he 

 turneth himself from the one side upon the other, 

 and up and down, but a man shall evermore know 

 the form of his body. Also sometimes when the 

 boar parteth from the soil, he rubbeth against a 

 tree, and there a man may know his greatness 

 and his height. And some time he rubs his snout 

 and his head higher than he is, but a man may 

 well perceive which is of the chine and which is 

 of the head. For by his lesses, that is to say what 

 goes from him behind, nor by other judgment a 

 man cannot know a great boar unless he see him, 

 save that he maketh great lesses, and that is a 

 token that he hath a great bowel, and that he be 

 a great boar, and also by the tusks when he is 

 dead, for when the tusks of a boar be great as 

 of half a cubit or more and be both great and 



1 G. de F. (p. 139) says if "le senglier gise près de la terre, 

 c'est signe qu'il ait bonne venoison," so our MS. is evidently 

 wrong when it says "it is a token that it is no fat boar." 



