37 



CHAPTEE V. 



THE ANIMALS PURSUED IN ENGLAND AT THE PRESENT DAY. 



Say what shall be our sport to-day, 

 There's nothing with deer, fox, or hare, 

 Too fast, too high, too broad, too gay. 

 For the spirit of my old mare. 



Although, as I liave shown, the chase was never so popular in 

 England as at the present period, or enjoyed by such large 

 numbers as now participate in it, we are far more restricted in 

 the number of animals pursued than were our forefathers, with- 

 out going back to that distant period when the ancestors of the 

 now noted Chillingham cattle roamed in our forest, when the 

 huge Bos Primigenius was found in the dense woods that once 

 covered the fen districts on our eastern coasts ; we can still 

 find that they enjoyed a bill of fare denied to their descendants. 

 After the wolf had been extirpated from the low and fertile 

 country, and driven, like the Celts, with whom he shared the 

 land, to the wilds and fastnesses of Scotland and Wales, there 

 was still the boar to be found in the royal forests. The good 

 grey boar, the hart, the hind, the buck, the doe, the roe, the 

 hare, the marten, were all hunted, as the following, which is 

 copied from "Twice's Treatise on the Craft of Hunting," 

 will show : — 



And for to sette young hunterys in the way 



To Venery, I cast me fyrst to go. 



Of which four bestes be, that is to say. 



The hare, the herte, the wulf, and the wild boor. 



