HOW TO KNOW A GREAT HART 137 



tender boughs, his head is harder than the wood, 

 then he breaketh the wood aside and mingleth 

 the boughs one upon the other, for he beareth 

 them and putteth them otherwise than they were 

 wont to be by their own kind. And when the 

 glades of the woods are high and broad then he 

 may deem him a great hart, for if he had not a 

 high head and wide he could not make his ways 

 high and large. If it happen so that ye find 

 such glades and have no lymer with you, if ye 

 will know at what time this glade was made, ye 

 must set your visage in the middle of this glade, 

 and keep your breath, in the best wise that ye 

 may, and if ye find that the spider hath made her 

 web in the middle of them, it is a token that it 

 is of no good time ^ or at the least it is of the 

 middle (of the noon) of the day before. Never- 

 theless ye should fetch your lymer for so ye 

 should know better. Also ye may know a great 

 hart by the steps that in England is called trace. 

 And that is called stepping,2 when he steppeth in 

 a place where the grass is well thick, so that the 

 man may not see therein the form of the foot, or 

 when he steppeth in other places, where no grass 

 is but dust or sand and hard country, where 

 fallen leaves or other things hinder to see the 



1 Not of "good time" means in the old sporting vocabulary 

 an old track, not a recent one. 



2 G. de F. calls the track of deer on grass ^^ foulées" from 

 which the modern " foil," " stepping on grass," is derived. 



