SHOOTING HARES WITH BLUNT BOLTS

(From MS. f. fr. 616, Bib. Nat., Paris)

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York, to which Lavallée draws attention as being one of the many ludicrous mistakes in this edition (G. de F., xli.).

Our text calls the hare the most marvellous beast (p. 181), the reasons given being because she "fumeth or croteth and rowngeth and beareth tallow and grease." By "rowngeth" (Fr. ronger) it was meant that the hare chewed the cud, as by the ancients it was generally supposed that the hare was a ruminant. Although this is not the case, and the hare has not a compound stomach, nevertheless this belief showed a close observation of nature, for when a hare is seated she can bring up parts of her food and give it a second mastication.

The hare and rabbit have little or no fat, but what they do possess is called grease. Twici says: Il porte gresce (pp. 1 and 21).

"She has teeth above in the same wise as beneath" (p. 181) is another of the peculiarities noticed in our text, which shows that the difference in dentition that distinguishes the hare from all other rodents had been remarked. Instead of two incisors in the upper jaw, the hare has four, having two small rudimentary incisor teeth behind the two large front ones, and five or six molars in the upper jaw, with two incisors and five molars in the lower jaw (Brehm, ii. p. 627; Cornish, "Shooting," ii. p. 153).

It is difficult to know why the hare was considered a "melancholy" beast, and how this curious reputation was kept up during the whole of the Middle Ages. It was thought that eating the flesh of the hare rendered one also subject to melancholy. G. de F. does not mention this, and altogether his book is comparatively free of such superstitions, but he says the flesh of the hare should not be given to the hounds after a day's hunting, as it is indigestible: quar elle est fastieuse viande et les fet vomir (p. 210). Therefore, when rewarding the hounds, they should only have the tongue and the kidneys, with some bread soaked in the blood of the hare.

In our MS., at the end of the chapter on the nature of the hare (p. 22), the Duke of York says that he "trows no good hunter would slee them so," alluding to pockets, pursenets, and other poaching devices; and although G. de F. gives six ways of taking the hare, he does not approve of such methods for the true sportsman, but enters an amusing protest: "I would that they who take hares thus should have them [the cords] round their own necks" (p. 171). Snaring hares was never considered legitimate sport. In hare-hunting proper, the hounds were taken into the fields to find the hare, as at present; or hare-finders were sent out early in the morning, and the tufts of grass or plants where the hare was likely to be seated were beaten, and the hounds uncoupled only when the hare was started. One of the chief differences in the sport between then and now was that often, when the hare was once on foot, greyhounds were also uncoupled, and our Plate, p. 182, shows greyhounds and running-hounds hunting seemingly happily together. It must have been rather discouraging for the old-fashioned, slow scenting-hound to have the hare he has been diligently hunting suddenly "bitten" in front of him by the swifter greyhound. Trencher-fed packs also existed as early as the fourteenth century, and we read in Gace de la Buigne that the small farmers would assemble together, bringing all told some forty hounds of different breeds and sizes, immensely enjoying their sport, and accounting for many hares.

means in our text "paraphernalia wherewith animals can be caught or taken." It is frequently used in this sense by Gaston—Hayes et autres Harnoys (p. 126). In Julien's note to this same sentence occurring in Le bon Varlet, he says, autres harnois, autres engins, instruments, procédés.