THE BUCK AND HIS NATURE 39 



They crotey their fumes in diverse manners 

 according to the time and pasture, as doth the 

 hart, but oftener black and dry than otherwise. 

 When they are hunted they bound again into 

 their coverts and fly not so long as doth the hart, 

 for sometimes they run upon the hounds. 1 And 

 they run long and fly ever if they can by the high 

 ways and always with the change. They let 

 themselves be taken at the water and beat the 

 brooks as a hart, but not with such great malice 

 as the hart, nor so gynnously (cunningly) and also 

 they go not to such great rivers as the hart. 

 They run faster at the beginning than doth the 

 hart. They bolk (bellow) about when they go 

 to rut, not as a hart doth, but much lower than 

 the hart, and rattling in the throat. Their nature 

 and that of the hart do not love (to be) together, 

 for gladly would they not dwell there where many 

 harts be, nor the harts there where the bucks be 

 namely together in herds. The buck's flesh is 

 more savoury 2 than is that of the hart or of the 

 roebuck. The venison of them is right good if 

 kept and salted as that of the hart. They abide 



1 They do not make such a long flight as the red deer but 

 by ringing return to the hounds. 



2 G. de F., p. 29, completes the sense of this sentence by 

 saying that "the flesh of the buck is more savoury to all 

 hounds than that of the stag or of the roe, and for this reason 

 it is a bad change to hunt the stag with hounds which at 

 some other time have eaten buck." 



