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SLOT

Volume 17 · 170 words · 1797 Edition

in the sportsman's language, a term used to express the mark of the foot of a stag or other animal proper for the chase in the clay or earth, by which they are able to guess when the animal passed, and which way he went. The slot, or treading of the stag, is very nicely studied on this occasion; if the slot be large, deep printed in the ground, and with an open cleft, and, added to these marks, there is a large space between mark and mark, it is certain that the stag is an old one. If there be observed the slots or treadings of two, the one long and the other round, and both of one size, the long slot is always that of the larger animal. There is also another way of knowing the old ones from the young ones by the treading; which is, that the hinder feet of the old ones never reach to their fore feet, whereas those of the young ones do.