Harriers were sometimes taken with buckhounds on hunting expeditions as well as with greyhounds. In some of the documents harriers are simply alluded to as _canes currentes_. As they were not a distinct breed, but were included under the designation "raches," or running hounds, a separate chapter is not given to them in our text, and neither Twici nor the Dame of St. Albans mentions these hounds. Gradually we find the spelling, although presenting still countless variations, bringing the _a_ more constantly than the _e_; the "_heirers_" become _hayrers_, _hareres_, _hariers_, and after the sixteenth century harriers. It is also probable that the word was originally derived from the Anglo-Saxon _Hergian_, _herian_, to harry, to disturb, to worry; O. Fr. _harrier_, _herrier_, _herier_, to harry; F. _hare_ and _harer_, to set a dog on to attack. The harrier, in fact, was a dog to "hare" the game. Although now obsolete, we find this word used late in the seventeenth century. "Let the hounds kill the fox themselves and worry and _hare_ him as much as they please" (Cox, "Gent. Rec.," p. 110). It is also in the sixteenth century that one comes across the first allusions to their use in hunting the hare. HART. It is not necessary to dwell here at length upon the great esteem in which the hart was held by all devotees to sport in Europe during the Middle Ages. It was royal game, and belonged to the Prince or ruler of the country, and the chase was their prerogative. Few unconnected with the court were ever able to enjoy the chase of the stag unless in attendance on or by special licence granted by the sovereign. Those who had extensive property of their own and had permission to erect a fence could, of course, keep deer on it, but this did not enable them to enjoy the sport of real wild deer hunting, or _La chasse Royale_ as the French called it. The stag was one of the five beasts of venery, and was, according to the ancient French regulations, a beast of the sweet foot, although in the list of beasts of sweet and stinking foot given in the "Boke of St. Albans" the hart is included in neither category (_see_ Appendix: Fewte). One of the first essentials for a huntsman in the Middle Ages was to learn to know the different _signs_ of a stag (according to German venery there were seventy-two signs), so as to be able to "judge well." These signs were those of the _slot_, the _gait_, the _fraying-post_, the _rack_ or _entry_ (_i.e._ the place where the stag entered covert), and the _fumes_. By recognising differences in these signs made by a young stag, a hind, and a warrantable stag, he was enabled to find out where the latter was harbouring, and by the slot and gait he could recognise when the chased stag was approaching his end.