HOUNDS AND HUNTING 63 



And ther ben othyr bestis v of chase, 



The buk the first, the do the secunde, 



The fox the thryde, whiche ofte hath hard grace, 



The forthe the martyn, and the last the Roo. 



And sothe to say there be no mo of tho. 



And cause why, that men shulde the more be sur' 



They shewen here also in portreture. 



Is this like as lecteture put thyngf in mende 



Of lerned men ryghte so a peyntyde fygure, 



Rememberyth men unlernyd in his kende ; 



And in wryghtyng- for soothe the same I fynde. 



Therfore, sith lerned may lerne in this book 



Be ymag'es shal the lewd if he wole look. 



And iij othyr bestis ben of gret disport 



That ben neyther 01 venery ne chace. 



In huntynge ofte thti doe gret comfort, 



As aftir ye shal here in othyr place. 



The grey is one therof with hyse slepy pace, 



The cat an othyr, the otre one also, 



Now rede this book, and ye shal fynde yt so. 



In the light of these rhymes and their classification of the 

 wild animals, it at once becomes, apparent whence Manwood 

 derived his misleading lists, so continuously cited, of 

 (legal) beasts of the forest and of the chase. 



The four beasts of venery the hart, wolf, wild boar, and hare 

 were sylvestres ; that is, they spent their days in the woods and 

 coppices, and were taken by what was considered true hunting, 

 being tracked and roused by the lymers or lymer hounds, and 

 afterwards pursued by the pack (Plate ix.). 



But the fallow and roe deer, with the fox and martin, were 

 beasts of chase ; that is, they were campestres, or found in the 

 open country by day, and therefore required none of the 

 niceties of tracking and harbouring in the thickets, but were 

 roused straight away by the packs of hounds (Plate x.). 



The third group, neither of venery nor chase, were the 

 badger, wild cat, and otter (Plate XL). 



The Boke of Saint Albans is the earliest English printed 

 treatise on hunting. It was first issued at St. Albans in 1486. 

 The author, according to the second edition, was Dame Julyana 

 Bernes. Two other tracts, the one on hawking and the other 

 on heraldry, were published with it, whilst to the second 

 edition (1496) was added a fourth tract on fishing. This 

 rhymed account of hunting is based partly on Twici and partly 



