SEASONS OF HUNTING. In mediæval times the consideration for the larder played a far more important part in fixing the seasons for hunting wild beasts than it did in later times, the object being to kill the game when in the primest condition. Beginning with the-- _Red deer stag_: according to Dryden's Twici, p. 24 (source not given), the season began at the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 24), and _ended_ Holyrood Day (September 14). Our text of the "Master of Game" nowhere expressly states when the stag-hunting begins or terminates, but as he speaks of how to judge a hart from its fumes in the month of April and May (p. 30), and further says that harts run best from the "entry of May into St. John's tide" (p. 35), we might infer that they were hunted from May on. He also says that the season for hind-hunting begins when the season of the hart ends and lasteth till Lent. But as this part of the book was a mere translation from G. de F. it is no certain guide to the hunting seasons in England. The Stag-hunting season in France, the _cervaison_, as it was called, began at the _Sainte Croix de Mai_ (May 3rd) and lasted to _la Sainte Croix de Septembre_ (Holyrood Day, Sept. 14), the old French saying being: "_Mi Mai, mi teste, mi Juin, mi graisse; à la Magdeleine venaison pleine_" (July 22) (Menagier de Paris, ii.). And although the stag was probably chiefly hunted in England between Midsummer and the middle of September, when they are in the best condition, and it was considered the best time to kill them, they were probably hunted from May on in the early days in England as they were in France. Had this not been customary we imagine the Duke of York would have inserted one of his little interpolations in the text he was translating, and stated that although the season began in May _beyond the sea_, it only began later in England. In Twety and Gyfford we read that the "tyme of grece, begynnyth alle way atte the fest of the Nativyte of Saynt Johan baptist." Later on, according to Dryden, the season of the stag began two weeks after Midsummer (July 8). _Red deer hind_, Holyrood Day (Sept. 14) to Candlemas (Feb. 2) (Twici, p. 24; Man., p. 181). According to others the hind and the doe season ends on Twelfth-day or Epiphany (Jan. 6). _Fallow deer buck._ According to the Forest Laws the season began at the Nativity of St. John (June 24) and ended on Holyrood Day (Sept. 14). Dryden adds a second date, _i.e._ two weeks after Midsummer, to the former, but does not quote the source. _Fallow doe_ was hunted from Holyrood Day (Sept. 14) to Candlemas (Feb. 2). _Roe deer buck_ was hunted from Easter to Michaelmas (Sept. 29). _Roe doe_, Michaelmas to Candlemas.