young boar, and her bones are not so large nor so long, nor so far the one from the other as those of a young boar, nor go not so deep in the earth, for they be small, and sharp and short, and nearer the one to the other, than a young boar's. And these are the tokens by the which men know a young boar so that he be two year old from all sows, by the trace, for that say I not of the young boars of sounder. And if men ask him how he shall know a great boar by his den, he may answer that if the den of the boar be long and deep and broad, it is a token that it is a great boar so that the den be newly made and that he hath lain therein but once. And if the boar's den is deep without litter, and if the boar lie near the earth it is a token that it is no[193] fat boar. And if men ask him how he knoweth a great boar by the soil, then may he answer that commonly when a boar goeth to soil in the coming in or in the going out, men may know by the trace, and so it may be deemed as I have said by his wallowing in the soil. Nevertheless some time he turneth himself from the one side upon the other, and up and down, but a man shall evermore know the form of his body. Also sometimes when the boar parteth from the soil, he rubbeth against a tree, and there a man may know his greatness and his height. And some time he rubs his snout and his head higher than he is, but a man may well perceive which is of the chine and which is of the head. For by his lesses, that is to say what goes from him behind, nor by other judgment a man cannot know a great boar unless he see him, save that he maketh great lesses, and that is a token that he hath a great bowel, and that he be a great boar, and also by the tusks when he is dead, for when the tusks of a boar be great as of half a cubit or more and be both great and large of two fingers or more and there be small gutters along both above and beneath, these be the tokens that he is a great boar and old, and of a smaller boar the judgment is less. And also when the tusks be low and worn, by the nether tusks it is a token of a great boar. [193] G. de F. (p. 139) says if "le senglier gise près de la terre, c'est signe qu'il ait bonne venoison," so our MS. is evidently wrong when it says "it is a token that it is _no_ fat boar." CHAPTER XXVI HOW THE ORDINANCE SHOULD BE MADE FOR THE HART HUNTING BY STRENGTH AND HOW THE HART SHOULD BE HARBOURED