HOW TO KNOW A GREAT HART 141 



abate so many on the top, for a hart's head should 

 begin to be described from the mule 1 upwards, and 

 if he hath more by two on the one side than on the 

 other, you must take from the one and count up that 

 other withal, as I shall more clearly speak in a 

 chapter hereafter in describing a hart's head. And 

 if it be so that the hart's trace have other tokens 

 than I have said and he thinks him a hart chace- 

 able, and men ask what hart it is he may say it 

 is a hart of ten and no more. And if it seem to 

 him a great hart and men ask what hart it is, he 

 shall say it is a hart that the last year was of ten 

 and should not be refused. And if he happen to 

 have well seen him with his eye or the before said 

 tokens, so that he knoweth fully that it is as 

 great a hart as a hart may be, if men ask him 

 what hart it is, he may say it is a great hart and 

 an old deer. And that is the greatest word that 

 he may say as I have said before. And if men 

 ask him whereby he knoweth it, he may say for, 

 he hath good bones 2 and a good talon and a good 

 sole of foot, for these four 3 things makes the trace 

 great, or by fair lairs or the grass or the earth well 

 pressed or by the high head, 4 or by the fumes or 



1 Burr, mule, from the Fr. meule. 2 Dew claws. 



3 According to Shirley MS. and the sense, the "iiii " should 

 be omitted. 



4 G. de F. (p. 136) says : "Ou belles portées"— portées being 

 the branches, and twigs broken or bent asunder by the head of 

 the deer, termed "entry" or "rack" in mod. Eng. — Stuart, 

 vol. ii. 551. 



