OF THE ROE AND OF HIS NATURE
The roebuck is a common beast enough, and therefore I need not to tell
of his making, for there be few men that have not seen some of them.
It is a good little beast and goodly for to hunt to whoso can do it as
I shall devise hereafter, for there be few hunters that can well
devise his nature. They go in their love that is called bokeyng in
October[56], and the bucking of them lasteth but fifteen days or there
about. At the bucking of the roebuck he hath to do but with one female
for all the season, and a male and a female abide together as the
hinds[57] till the time that the female shall have her kids; and then
the female parteth from the male and goeth to kid her kids far from
thence, for the male would slay the young if he could find them. And
when they be big that they can eat by themselves of the herbs and of
the leaves and can run away, then the female cometh again to the male,
and they shall ever be together unless they be slain, and if one hunt
them and part them asunder one from another, they will come together
again as soon as they can and will seek each other until the time that
one of them have found the other. And the cause why the male and the
female be evermore together as no other beast in this world, is that
commonly the female hath two kids at once, one male and the other
female, and because they are kidded together they hold evermore
together. And yet if they were not kidded together of one female, yet
is the nature of them such that they will always hold together as I
have said before. When they withdraw from the bucking, they mew their
heads, for men will find but few roebucks that have passed two years
that have not mewed their heads by All Hallowtide. And after the heads
come again rough as a hart's head, and commonly they burnish their
horns in March. The roebuck hath no season to be hunted, for they bear
no venison[58] but men should leave them the females for their kids
that would be lost unto the time that they have kidded, and that the
kids can feed themselves and live by themselves without their dame. It
is good hunting for it lasteth all the year and they run well, and
longer than does a great hart in high season time. Roebucks cannot be
judged by their fumes, and but little by their track as one can of
harts, for a man cannot know the male from the female by her feet or
by her fumes.
[56] This is wrong; they rut in the beginning of August. See Appendix:
Roe.
[57] A clerical error. G. de F. (p. 36) says, "as do birds," which
makes good sense.
[58] See Appendix: Grease.
They have not a great tail and do not gather venison as I have said,
the greatest grease that they may have within is when the kidneys be
covered all white. When the hounds hunt after the roebuck they turn
again into their haunts and sometimes turn again to the hounds[59].
When they see that they cannot dure[60] (last) they leave the country
and run right long ere they be dead. And they run in and out a long
time and beat the brooks in the same way a hart doth. And if the
roebuck were as fair a beast as the hart, I hold that it were a fairer
hunting than that of the hart, for it lasteth all the year and is good
hunting and requires great mastery, for they run right long and
gynnously (cunningly). Although they mew their heads they do not
reburnish them, nor repair their hair till new grass time. It is a
diverse (peculiar) beast, for it doth nothing after the nature of any
other beast, and he followeth men into their houses, for when he is
hunted and overcome he knoweth never where he goeth. The flesh of the
roebuck is the most wholesome to eat of any other wild beast's flesh,
they live on good herbs and other woods and vines and on briars and
hawthorns[61] with leaves and on all growth of young trees. When the
female has her kids she does all in the manner as I have said of a
hind. When they be in bucking they sing a right foul song, for it
seemeth as if they were bitten by hounds. When they run at their ease
they run ever with leaps, but when they be weary or followed by hounds
they run naturally and sometimes they trot or go apace, and sometimes
they hasten and do not leap, and then men say that the roebuck hath
lost his leaps, and they say amiss, for he ever leaves off leaping
when he is well hasted and also when he is weary.
[59] "They ring about in their own country, and often bound back to
the hounds" would be a better translation.
[60] From the French _durer_, to last.
[61] G. de F. says "acorns."
When he runneth at the beginning, as I have said, he runneth with
leaps and with rugged standing hair and the eres[62] (target) and the
tail cropping up all white.
[62] Middle English _ars_, hinder parts called target of roebuck.
And when he hath run long his hair lyeth sleek down, not standing nor
rugged and his eres (target) does not show so white.
And when he can run no longer he cometh and yieldeth himself to some
small brook, and when he hath long beaten the brook upward or downward
he remaineth in the water under some roots so that there is nothing
out of water save his head.
[Illustration: ROEBUCK-HUNTING WITH GREYHOUNDS AND RUNNING HOUNDS
(From MS. f. fr. 616, _Bib. Nat._, Paris)]
And sometimes the hounds and the hunters shall pass above him and
beside him and he will not stir. For although he be a foolish beast he
has many ruses and treasons to help himself. He runneth wondrous fast,
for when he starts from his lair he will go faster than a brace of
good greyhounds. They haunt thick coverts of wood, or thick heathes,
and sometimes in carres (marshes) and commonly in high countries or in
hills and valleys and sometimes in the plains.
The kids are kidded with pomeled[63] (spotted) hair as are the hind
calves. And as a hind's calf of the first year beginneth to put out
his head, in the same wise does he put out his small brokes[64]
(spikes) ere he be a twelvemonth old. He is hardeled[65] but not
undone as a hart, for he has no venison that men should lay in salt.
And sometimes he is given all to the hounds, and sometimes only a
part. They go to their feeding as other beasts do, in the morning and
in the evening, and then they go to their lair. The roebuck remains
commonly in the same country both winter and summer if he be not
grieved or hunted out thereof.
[63] From the old French _pomelé_.
[64] See Appendix: Roe.
[65] See Appendix: Hardel.