THE STAG. 121 



The haunts of the stags had thus each day to be 

 carefully noted, and in the report delivered to the 

 head forester was to be said what size they were : stags 

 of twelve, fourteen, sixteen, according as might be. 

 In this manner, throughout a whole district, however 

 large, the number and whereabouts of the game was 

 known ; and, when a hunt was to be held, it could at once 

 be decided in what woods the finest harts were to be 

 found. To make doubly sure, the foresters went out 

 on the morning of the day to ascertain if the game was 

 in its accustomed places ; each slot was examined and 

 proved anew, and the stags, warrantable and not war- 

 rantable, which would in that day's sport be met with, 

 written do^n with scrupulous exactness. Woe to the 

 young forester whose account was not found to tally 

 with the result; on whose list more harts were inscribed 

 than were to be found in the covert, or whose imagina- 

 tion had led him to give hope that a monarch of majestic 

 size would be met with, when in reality there was but a 

 hart of ordinary stature ! 



The custom of driving the game towards a part of the 

 forest which was enclosed, was prevalent in England up 

 to the middle of the seventeenth century. The arrange- 

 ment of such hunts, and the ceremonies attendant on 

 them, were the same as those which, up to a later period, 

 were in vogue in Grermany. There was the assembling 

 and marshalling of the company, the signals on the horns 



