The ancient doggerel in the Book of St. Albans, "Heded like a snake, and necked like a drake. Foted like a cat. Tayled like a Rat, Syded lyke a Teme. Chyned like a Beme" ("Boke of St. Albans," f. iv.), was preceded by a very similar one written some time previously by Gace de la Buigne. Of these verses G. de F. gives, twenty-eight years later, a prose version, which our Master of Game has rendered into English. HARDEL, hardeyl, to tie couples of hounds together. From the French word _harder_, which has the same meaning: _Harder les chiens_, and _harde_, the rope with which they are tied. It is derived from _hart_, _hard_, _art_, a binder of willow or other pliable wood used for fastening fagots together (Lit. and God.). The primitive way of tying hounds together was by passing such a small flexible branch through the couplings which bent back on itself, both ends being held. "_Les chiens ... seront enhardez par les couples à genoivres ou à autre josne bois tors_" (Roy Modus, f. xlvii. recto). In France there used to be two hardes to each relay and not more than eight hounds in every harde (D'Yauville). In England there used to be about the same number. The term was still used in Blome's time (1686), for he writes in his "Gentleman's Recreation": "The huntsman on foot that hath the charge of the coupled hounds, and before that must have _hardled_ them, that is, with a slip, for the purpose ready secured three or four couple together, that they may not break in from him, to run into the cry of the Finders" (p. 88). _Harling_ was a word used in Devonshire, and as it meant tying the hound together by means of a rope passed through the rings of the couples, it is undoubtedly a corruption of the word _hardeling_. "Until comparatively recent times the hounds in Devonshire were taken to the meet and held in this manner until the time came to lay the pack on" (Collyns). _Hardel_, the technical O. E. term for binding together the four legs of the roebuck, the head having been placed between the two forelegs, in order to carry him whole into the kitchen. HARE. Pliny records the fable that hares "are of many and various sexes." Topsell remarks that "the Hebrews call the hare 'arnebet,' in the feminine gender," which word gave occasion to an opinion that all hares were females (pp. 264, 266). "In the Gwentian code of Welch laws supposed to be of the eleventh century, the hare is said not to be capable of any legal valuation, being in one month male and in another female" (Twici, p. 22).