HOW A MAN SHOULD KNOW A GREAT HART BY THE FUMES[177]
[177] See Appendix: Excrements.
After I shall teach you to know a great hart by the fumes of the hart,
for sometimes they crotey in wreaths, and sometimes flat and sometimes
formed, and sometimes sharp at both ends, and sometimes pressed
together, and sometime in many other manners as I have said before.
When they crotey flat and it be in April or in May or in June if the
croteyes be great and thick it is a token that it is a hart chaceable,
and if he find the fumes wreathed, and it be from the middle of June
to the middle of August in great forms and in great wreaths and well
soft, it is a token that it is a hart chaceable, and if he find the
fumes that are formed and not holding together as it is from the
beginning of July into the end of August, if they are great and black
and long and are not sharp at the ends, and are heavy and dry without
slime, it is a token that it is a hart chaceable. And if the fumes are
faint and light and full of slime, or sharp at both ends, or at one
end, these are the tokens that he is no deer chaceable. But if it be
when they burnish that they crotey their fumes more burnt and more
sharp at the one end, but anon when they have burnished, they crotey
their fumes as before, and for that the fumes be good and great; if
they be slimy it is a token that he has suffered some disease. From
the end of August forward, the fumes are of no judgment for they undo
themselves for the rut.
[Illustration: HOW A GREAT HART IS TO BE KNOWN BY HIS "FUMES"
(EXCREMENTS) (From MS. f. fr. 616, _Bib. Nat._, Paris)]