CHAPTER XXX 



HOW AN HUNTER SHOULD GO IN QUEST IN 

 GREAT COVERTS AND STRENGTHS 



Also a hunter may go in quest and put himself 

 and his lymer in the great thickets by high time 

 of day, as I have said, for it befalleth sometimes 

 that harts are so maUcious, that they pasture within 

 themselves, that is to say within their covert, and 

 go not out to the fields nor to the coppices nor to 

 the young wood, especially when they have heard 

 the hounds run before in the forest once or twice. 

 He must have affected (trained) his lymer in such 

 a manner that he neither opens nor quests "^ when 

 he hunts in the morning, for he would make the 

 hart void, and that must be by high noon, as 

 I have said, when all beasts are in their lairs. 

 And if his lymer find anything he should hold 

 him short and lead him behind him, and look 

 what deer it is, and if it be anything that pleases 

 him, then he shall sue with his lymer till the time 

 that he has brought it into some thicket, and then 

 he shall break his boughs and take the scantilon 

 and cast round as is before said, and then return 

 home again to the assembly that in England is 

 called a meeting or gathering, 



^ Should not give tongue. 

 156 



