THE ROYAL HOUNDS. 235 



--^ — ^-^ ^— ', — ■ — , — --^ v^ ^-^^ repeated three 

 times. 



The pryse, which was blown while hounds were 

 being coupled up after the curee, and was the 

 equivalent of the Parliamentary " Who goes home ? " 

 was only blown by the chief personage, who blew four) 

 motes and then waited half an Ave Maria and then 

 blew four more motes, each a little longer. 



Chaucer, who was deputy forester of Exmoor, 



uses the forlong as a sign that the deer was lost : 



The hart roused and staale away 

 . For all the houndes a prevy way. 

 The houndes had overshot him alle, 

 Therewith the hunte wonder faste 

 Blew a forlong at the laste. 



" Measures of blowing " of marvellous complexity 

 are set out in " Hardouin de Fontaine " and in Blome's 

 " Gentleman's Recreation," but it is difficult to believe 

 that they can ever have been of any practical use in 

 the field. 



French horns were introduced at the end of the 

 seventeenth century, and gave more scope, as they 

 allowed of a variation of tone. 



The Marquis Dampiere, in the time of Louis XIV., 

 composed many " tons de chasse " and fanfares with , 

 the notation of ordinary music. M. le Couteulx de 

 Canteleu sets out no less than sixty-nine, some 

 of which are regular tunes with several verses of 

 words to them, and all appear to us very unneces- 

 sarily long. The requete or recheat, one of the 

 simplest, is as follows : — 



