a great hart by the steps _that in England is called trace_. And that is called stepping,[182] when he steppeth in a place where the grass is well thick, so that the man may not see therein the form of the foot, or when he steppeth in other places, where no grass is but dust or sand and hard country, where fallen leaves or other things hinder to see the form of the foot. And when the hart steppeth upon the grass and ye cannot see the stepping with your eyes, then ye shall put your hand in the form of the foot that hunters call the trace, and if ye see that the form of the foot be of four fingers of breadth, ye may judge that it is a great hart by the trace. And if the sole of the foot be of three fingers' breadth ye may judge him a hart of ten, and if ye see that he hath well broken the earth and trodden well the grass, it is a token that it is a great hart and a heavy deer. And if ye cannot well see it for the hardness of the earth, or for the dust, then ye must stoop down for to take away the dust and blow it away from the form of the foot until the time that ye may clearly see the form that is called the trace. And if ye cannot see it in one place, ye should follow the trace until the time that ye can well see it at your ease. And if ye can see none in any place, ye should put your hand in the form of the foot, for then ye shall find how the earth is broke with the cleeves of the foot on either side, and then ye can judge it for a great hart or a hart chaceable, as I have said before by the treading of the grass; and if leaves or other things be within the form that ye may not see at your ease, ye should take away the leaves all softly or the other things with your hands, so that ye undo not the form of the foot and blow within and do the other things as I have before said.[183] (After I will tell you how a man shall speak among good hunters of the office of venery.) First he shall speak but a little, and boast little, and well (work[184]) and subtlely, and he must be wise and do his craft busily, for a hunter should not be a herald of his craft. And if it happen that he be among good hunters that speaketh of hunting he should speak in this manner. First if men ask him of pastures he may answer as of harts and for all other deer, sweet pastures, and of all biting beasts as of wild boar, wolves, and other biting beasts he may answer, they feed, as I have said before. And if men speak of the fumes ye shall call fumes of a hart, _croteying_ of a buck, and of a roebuck in the same wise of a wild boar and of black beasts and of wolves ye shall call it lesses, and of hare and of conies ye shall say they crotey, of the fox _wagging_, of the grey the _wardrobe_, and of other stinking beasts they shall call it drit, and that of the otter he shall call sprainting as before is said. And if men asketh of the beasts' feet, of the harts ye shall say the trace of a hart _and also of a buck_, and that of the wild boar