The bitches be jolly in their love commonly twice in a year, but they have no term of their heat, for every time of the year some be jolly. When they be a twelvemonth old, they become jolly, and be jolly while they await the hounds without any defence, twelve days or less,[105] and sometimes fifteen days, according as to whether they be of hot nature or of cold, the one more than another, or whether some be in better condition than others. And also men may well help them thereto, for if they give them much meat they abide longer in their heat than if they had but little. And also if they were cast in a river twice in a day they should be sooner out of their jollity. They bear their whelps nine weeks or more; the whelps be blind when they be whelped till they be nine days old and then they may well see and lap well when they be a month old, but they have great need of their dam to the time that they be two months old, and then they should be well fed with goat's milk or with cow's milk and crumbs of bread made small and put therein, especially in the morn and at night. Because that the night is more cold than the day. And also men should give them crumbs in flesh-broth, and in this wise men may nourish them till they be half a year old, and by that time they shall have cast their hooks, and when they have cast their hooks, they should teach them to eat dry bread and lap water little by little, for a hound that is nourished with grease and fat broth when he casts his hooks, and if he hath always sops or tit-bits, he is a chis[106] (dainty) hound and of evil ward. And also they be not so well breathed than if they have eaten always bread and water. When the bitches be lined they lose their time, and also while they be great with whelps, and also while their whelps suck. If they are not lined, soon they will lose their time, for their teats remain great and grow full of wind until the time that they should have had their whelps. And so that they should not lose their time men spaye them, save these that men will keep open to bear whelps. And also a spayed bitch lasteth longer in her goodness than other two that be not spayed.[107] And if a bitch be with whelps the which be not of ward let the bitch fast all the whole day, and give her then with a little grease the juice of a herb men calleth titimal, the which the apothecaries knoweth well, and she shall cast her whelps. Nevertheless it is a great peril namely if the whelps be great and formed within the bitch. The greatest fault of hounds is that they live not long enough, most commonly they live but twelve years. And also men should let run no hounds of what condition that they be nor hunt them until the time that they were a twelve month old and past. And also they can hunt but nine years at the most. [105] G. de F., p. 85, "Au moins," at least.