Fox. According to the Forest Laws the season opened on Christmas Day and ended on March 25, but nevertheless the fox was hunted early in the autumn, for we have it on Twety and Gyfford's authority that "the sesoun of the fox begynneth at the natyvite of owre Lady, and durryth til the Annunciacion" (Sept. 8 to March 25).
The "Boke of St. Albans" gives the season of the fox and wolf from the Nativity to the Annunciation of Our Lady and that of the boar from the Nativity to the Purification of Our Lady. Manwood and other accepted authorities quote the above as alluding to the Nativity of Christ, whereas the Nativity of Our Lady, Sept. 8, was intended, thereby creating some confusion.
According to the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward I. the foxhunting season began on 1st September (Ward. Acc. Ed. I. 1299-1300).
No doubt one of the reasons why the fox was not hunted earlier in the year was on account of the fur, which was of course of less use or value if obtained in summer.
Otter. The Forest Laws give the season as from Shrove Tide (Feb. 22) to Midsummer (June 24), but we find that in King John's reign the otter was hunted in July (Close Rolls 14 John I.).
Martin, badger, and rabbit were hunted at all seasons of the year.
No work dealing with the chase of wild animals in mediæval times would be complete were it to omit all reference to snares, traps, gins, pitfalls, and other devices to take game other than by hunting. The "Master of Game" mentions the subject but briefly, saying, "Truly I trow no good hunter would slay them so for no good," but "Gaston Phœbus" contains seventeen short chapters in which the author as well as the miniaturist describe the various contrivances then in use, although the same disdain of these unsportsmanlike methods is expressed by G. de F. that marks the Duke of York's pages. In the first edition of the present work will be found descriptions of the principal snares used in the Middle Ages.
It is difficult to say at what date these dogs were first introduced into our country; we only know that by the second half of the sixteenth century spaniels were a common dog in England. In Dr. Caius's time the breed was "in full being." He mentions land spaniels, setters, and water spaniels, besides the small spaniels which were kept as pet and lap dogs. That the breed was not then a recent importation we may infer from the fact that, when speaking of the water spaniel and giving the derivation of the name, Dr. Caius says: "Not that England wanted suche kinde of dogges (for they are naturally bred and ingendered in this country). But because they beare the general and common name of these dogs synce the time when they were first brought over out of Spaine."
The chapter in the "Master of Game" on this dog, being translated from G. de F., unfortunately throws no light on the history of the spaniel in England, although we imagine that, had there been no such hounds in our island at the time, the Duke would have made some such remark as he has in other parts of his book of their being a "manner of" hound as "men have beyond the sea, but not as we have here in England."
In his time the spaniel had enjoyed popularity in France for some two centuries, and there was such continual communication between France and England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that it would have been indeed strange if this most useful dog for the then favourite and universal sport of hawking had not been brought to England long before his time. We may conclude that the "gentle hounds for the hawk" of which he speaks in his Prologue were not spaniels.