HUNTING, the exercise or diversion of pursuing four-footed beasts of game. See the article GAME.
Four-footed beasts are hunted in the fields, woods,
and thickets, and that both with guns and gre-hounds. Hunting
Birds, on the contrary, are either shot in the air, or taken with nets and other devices, which exercise is called fowling; or they are pursued and taken by birds of prey, which is called hawking. See the articles FOWLING, HAWKING, FALCONRY, SHOOTING, BIRD-CATCHING, and DECOY.
The pursuing of four-footed beasts, as badgers, deer, does, roebucks, foxes, hares, &c. properly termed hunting, is a noble exercise, serving not only to recreate the mind, but to strengthen the limbs, whet the stomach, and cheer the spirits. However, all sorts of weather are not proper for hunting; high winds and rain being great obstacles to it. In the spring season, this diversion should be taken in the night-time with nets; in the summer, the morning is the most proper time for it; and in the winter, it should only be followed from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon. The general rule is, that you place yourself under the wind, where you design to wait for game.
F. de Launay, professor of the French laws, has an express treatise of hunting.—From those words of God to Adam, Gen. i. 26, and 28. and to Noah, Gen. ix. 2, 3. hunting was considered as a right devolved or made over to man; and the following ages appear to have been of the same sentiment. Accordingly we find, that among the more civilized nations, as the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, it made one of their genteeler diversions; and as to the wilder and more barbarous, it served them with food and necessaries.—The Roman jurisprudence, which was formed on the manners of the first ages, made a law of it, and established it as a maxim, that as the natural right of things which have no master belongs to the first possessor, wild beasts, birds, and fishes, are the property of whomsoever can take them first.
But the northern nations of barbarians who over-ran the Roman empire, bringing with them a stronger taste for the diversion, and the people being now possessed of other and more easy means of subsistence from the lands and possessions of those they had vanquished, their chiefs and leaders began to appropriate the right of hunting, and, instead of a natural right, to make it a royal one.—Thus it continues to this day; the right of hunting, among us, belonging only to the king, and those who derive it from him.
The hunting used by the ancients, was much like that now practised for the rein-deer; which is seldom hunted at force, or with hounds; but only drawn with a blood-hound, and forestalled with nets and engines. Thus did they with all beasts: whence a dog is never commended by them for opening, before he has discovered where the beast lies. Hence, they were not in any manner curious as to the music of their hounds, or the composition of their kennel or pack, either for deepness, loudness, or sweetness of cry, which is a principal point in the hunting of our days.—Their huntsmen, indeed, were accustomed to shout and make a great noise, as Virgil observes in the third of his Georgics: Ingentem clamore premes ad retia cervum. But that confusion was only to bring the deer to the nets laid for him.
The Sicilian way of hunting had something in it very
Hunting very extraordinary.—The nobles or gentry being informed which way a herd of deer passed, gave notice to one another, and appointed a meeting; every one bringing with him a cross-bow or long bow, and a bundle of slaves shod with iron, the heads bored, with a cord passing through them all: thus provided, they came to the herd, and, casting themselves about in a large ring, surrounded the deer.—Then, each taking his stand, unbound his faggot, set up his stake, and tied the end of the cord to that of his next neighbour, at the distance of ten foot from one another.—Then taking feathers, died in crimson, and fastened on a thread, they tied them to the cord; so that with the least breath of wind, they would whirl round.—Which done, the persons who kept the stands withdrew, and hid themselves in the next covert. Then the chief ranger entering within the line with hounds to draw after the herd, roused the game with their cry; which flying towards the line, were turned off, and, still gazing on the shaking and shining feathers, wandered about as if kept in with a real wall or pale. The ranger still pursued, and calling every person by name, as he passed by their stand, commanded him to shoot the first, third, or sixth, as he pleased; and if any of them missed, or singled out another than that assigned him, it was counted a grievous disgrace. By such means, as they passed by the several stations, the whole herd was killed by the several hands. Pier. Hieroglyphic. lib. vii. cap. 6.
The gentlemen and masters of the sport have invented a new set of terms which may be called the hunting language. The principal are those which follow:
1. For beasts as they are in company.—They say, a herd of harts, and all manner of deer. A bey of roes. A founder of swine. A rout of wolves. A richest of martens. A brace or leash of bucks, foxes, or hares. A couple of rabbits or coney.
2. For their lodging.—A hart is said to harbour. A buck lodges. A roe beds. A hare seats or forms. A coney sits. A fox kennels. A marten trees. An otter watches. A badger earths. A boar couches.—Hence, to express their dislodging, they say, Unharbour the hart. Rouse the buck. Start the hare. Bolt the coney. Unkennel the fox. Tree the marten. Vent the otter. Dig the badger. Rear the boar.
3. For their noise at rutting time.—A hart bellets. A buck growls or troats. A roe bellowes. A hare beats or taps. An otter whines. A boar screams. A fox barks. A badger shrieks. A wolf howls. A goat rattles.
4. For their copulation.—A hart or buck goes to rut. A roe goes to tourn. A boar goes to brim. A hare or coney goes to buck. A fox goes to clickiting. A wolf goes to match or make. An otter hunts for his kind.
5. For the footing and treading.—Of a hart, we say the slot. Of a buck, and all fallow-deer, the view. Of all deer, if on the grass and scarce visible, the soiling. Of a fox, the print; and of other the like vermin, the footing. Of an otter, the marks. Of a boar, the track. The hare, when in open field, is said to fore; when she winds about to deceive the hounds, she doubles; when she beats on the hard highway, and her footing comes to be perceived, she pricketh: in snow, it is called the trace of the hare.
Hunting. 6. The tail of a hart, buck, or other deer, is called the single. That of a boar, the ewreath. Of a fox, the brush or drag; and the tip at the end, the chape. Of a wolf, the stern. Of a hare and coney, the feut.
7. The ordure or excrement of a hart and all deer, is called sewomets or sewomishing. Of a hare, erotiles or erotising. Of a boar, leffes. Of a fox, the billiting; and of other the like vermin, the suants. Of an otter, the sprints.
8. As to the attire of deer, or parts thereof, those of a stag, if perfect, are the bur, the pearls, the little knobs on it, the beam, the gutters, the antler, the sur-antler, royal, sur-royal, and all at top the croches. Of the buck, the bur, beam, brow-antler, black-antler, advancer, palm, and spellers. If the croches grow in the form of a man's hand, it is called a palmed head. Heads bearing not above three or four, and the croches placed aloft, all of one height, are called crowned heads. Heads having double croches, are called forked heads, because the croches are planted on the top of the beam like forks.
9. They say, a litter of cubs, a nest of rabbits, a squirrel's dray.
10. The terms used in respect of the dogs, &c. are as follow.—Of gre-hounds, two make a brace; of hounds, a couple. Of gre-hounds, three make a leash; of hounds, a couple and half.—They say, let slip a gre-hound; and, cast off a hound. The string wherein a gre-hound is led, is called a leash; and that of a hound, a lyome. The gre-hound has his collar, and the hound his couples. We say a kennel of hounds, and a pack of beagles.