APPENDIX 245 



tour vous, que siet de vénerie puet conustre en quel point vous 

 estes en vostre dedut par vostre corneer (line III). 



From comparing the various places where the word 

 parfait is employed in connection with hunting, it may- 

 be concluded that to hunt the ^' Parfet'''' was when the 

 hounds were on the line of the right stag, to sound the 

 " Parfet " was to blow the notes that indicated the hounds 

 were hunting the right line. Dryden in his notes to 

 Twici suggests that the chase of the parfet was " in 

 opposition to the chase of the Forloyng," that is, when 

 the pack run well together "jostling in close array" 

 (Twici, p. 43). But Perfect in the O. F. works seems 

 to us to invariably be used, as already said, to indicate that 

 the hounds have not taken the change, but are staunch 

 to the right scent. Jacques de Brézé says the stag he is 

 hunting joins two great stags, but although some of the 

 hounds ran silent for awhile, they still continued staunch 

 to their line, and here he uses the word '-^ parfait ^'' (Sen. 

 de Nor., p. 13). 



Modus also uses it in this sense : Les chiens qui viennent 

 chaçant après le parfait (fol. xix. v). And what is most 

 conclusive is the sense given to it in our text : "Should 

 blow to him again the parfyt so that he were in his rightes 

 and ellys nought," i.e. the parfyt should only be blown 

 if the hound was on the right line (p. 174). 



PARFYTIERES, the name given in the " Master of 

 Game " to the last relay of hounds uncoupled during the 

 chase of the stag. First came the " vaunt chase,'' and 

 then the ^^ midei" and then the ^^ parfytieres." Tiiey 

 may have been so called from being the last hounds to 

 be uncoupled, being those that completed or perfected 

 the pack — i.e. perfecters, or this relay may have derived 

 its name from being composed of some of the staunchest 

 hounds from the kennel, those not likely to follow any 

 but the right line or the parfyt. It was customary in 

 the old days to keep some of the slower and staunchest 

 hounds in the last relay, and to cast them only when a 



