HISTORY AND LITERATURE. 23 



As our business, however, lies with the game of to-day, we 

 need not stay to consider in what manner the capture of tnc 

 weasel or the pole-cat was encompassed, or even of the wolf or 

 the boar. As the forest gradually disai)peared, and land came 

 more and more under cultivation, the greater part of these beasts 

 either vanished altogether or became so infrequent as to drop 

 out of the sportsman's list and take their place on the roll of 

 vermin. Even Twici practically confines himself to the slag, 

 the fox, and the hare, and we may be well content to follow 

 Twici's example. 



Of these, the stag of course held the first place, from his 

 size, swiftness, and courage, as well as from the uses to which 

 he could be put after death in supplying both the inner and 

 the outer necessities of man. ' Of the Stagge,' says Markham, 

 ' which is the most princelie and roiel Chase of all Chases, and 

 for whom indeed this Art of Hunting was first found out and 

 invented, he is of all beasts the goodliest, statelyest, and most 

 manly.' But though the supreme qualities of the stag were 

 thus duly acknowledged, the triumph over the hare seems from 

 very early times to have been considered the prime test of a 

 huntsman's quality. 'We will begin with the hare,' says Twici. 

 ' Why, sir, will you begin with the hare, rather than with any 

 other beast ? ' 'I will tell you. Because she is the most mar- 

 vellous beast which is on this earth.' The study of natural history 

 was then but in its infancy, and some of the properties which 

 struck King Edward's ' Master of the Game ' with such astonish- 

 ment will hardly surprise us very much to-day. Among other 

 marvels we are told that ' at one time it is male, and at another 

 lime it is female,' but whether this diversity of sex is supposed 

 to belong to the individual hare, or to be a general characteristic 

 of the species, is not clear. Markham thought hare-hunting 

 the ' freest, readiest and most enduring pastime ; ' and Blome 

 follows suit, styling it an art ' full of subtlety and craft, and 

 possessed of divers dehghts and varieties, which other chases 

 do not afford,' though he adds, 'whosoever hath hunted one 

 and the same hare twice, and doth not kill her the third time. 



